THE WATERS OF SILOE. TO QVENCH THE FIRE OF PURGATORY and to drown the traditions, Limboes', man's satisfactions and all Popish Indulgences, against the reasons and allegations of a Portugal Friar of the order of St. Frances, supported by three treatises. The one written by the same Franciscan and entitled The fiery torrent, etc. The other two by two Doctors of Sorbon. The one entitled The burning furnasse. The other The fire of Helie. BY PETER DV MOULIN Minister of God's word. Psal. 118.12. They came about me like Bees, but they shall be quenched like a fire of thorns. Faithfully translated out of French by I. E. Printed at Oxford for john Barnes dwelling near Holborn Conduit. 1612. TO THE RIGHT WORTHY SIR DUDLEY DIGS Knight, true content in this life, with eternity in the life to come. SIR if the remembrance of former benefits can move or bounty in more ample sort extended can prevail, I have reason both to agnize your love showed, and your bounty showered towards me; least worthy of such immerited affections. Yet because unthankfulness stops the current of God's blessings, and makes us degenerate from that we should be, I resolved with myself to gratify your love (at least in some sort) by acknowledging that entire duty I own you, and consecrating unto your worthy self, some thing that might seem worthy of such a patronage. May it please you therefore to take surview of this work which by long Travail I have brought to this perfection: it is the freight of my poor bark purchased by this years sail; it seems more than an Elephant's birth, and therefore promiseth satisfaction to the judicious reader. Let it be shadowed under the wings of your protection, who best deserveth it, because you nourished both me and it, when there was scarce any being to me or it: to particularize your diverse & sundry affections to which and for which I rest ever devoted, would crave a tract of itself, which makes me omit them, only I wish my effects, were answerable to my affects, to accomplish that which I would. But so fruitless be wishes that their harvest seems scarce worthy the gleaning. This poor testimony of my love may not only demonstrate what I own unto you: but what I own the Church in the faith I have professed, which I will ever keep inviolable, not making travail as too many do to the wrack & ruin of my Religion, but the confirmer of those unsettled intentions which were but half grounded in me; experience hath reduced my wavering thoughts to an harbour of quiet repose; these be the fruits I reaped, which as my first fruits are to you tendered, to manifest my love and duty unto you, the sincerity of my conscience to the Church, and my charitable desire to profit all: much I should wish you in content, but more I cannot then already you enjoy, and therefore rest Ever obliged to your respected self I. B THE PREFACE TO THE READER. SOON after the meeting betwixt the Franciscan friar and myself, I sent him in writing a discourse containing an examination of Purgatory requesting him likewise in writing to set down his soundest reasons and strongest proofs. But either of my writing or request this good Doctor made no account, yet in my absence after my departure from Paris he sent to challenge me again to a verbal conference: & before he particularized his departure, he repaired to the king's Majesty and required reward for his public teaching, Contrary to the rule of S. Francis, cap. 4. nullo modo denarios vel pecuniam ●e cipiant, per se vel per personam interpositam. as also for his particular conference with the Minister Du Moulin. Which nevertheless could not restrain me from publishing my discourse entitled The waters of Siloe to quench the fire of Purgatory. This writing wrought a greater effect than I could have imagined: for attending the Franciscans answer, behold two Doctors of Sorbone Cayer and Du Val, tried no doubt upon the vollee among such a multitude as do assault this treatise, as a forlorn hope are the first that enter the skirmish. Afterward stirred up by their example, cometh this Portugal Monk into the field, as making up the arrier guard of this Roman army: to whose work the jesuits of Tournon have contributed, to the end that after the knocking together of so many exquisite pates, they may need no more to begin. In me it might be held great presumption to wrestle with so many men, and so loaden with titles, if the word of God stood in awe of multitude. For he might be holden for a mad man, who in a matter of importance, in lieu of weighing the reasons should fall to numbering of the persons. Truth is of more force in the mouth of one man only, than untruth in the mouths of many, whose conspiracies against the truth of the Gospel resembleth the humming of a nest of wasps that in stinging do lose their stings. how ever it is, it seemeth that this treatise hath stung some of them to the quick: with so great strife do they assault it. And indeed the gall and injuries that herein they do spew forth doth show them to be vehemently moved. They term me a beast, a fool, a sot, a deceaver, an heretic, an impious parson, a dolt, execrable, impudent, etc. They send me quick into hell, yea they rather want words then stomach. They are sorry that our language is no better stored with injurious phrases: and God he knoweth what people they are! But God grant that this their vomit may be to them a purgation, that God may not judge them with so great rigour, as they do us with rashness. This is all the revenge that I do desire: for what other interest have we in this action than the glory of God and the salvation of such as hate us? Whose stripes and blows when they cannot penetrate into the truth do reflect upon my person. But herein do I boast that they be honourable bruises. These barkings I bear as of men starved, and as some portion of the reproaches of my saviour Christ, who was in like manner outraged, and for our salvation bore more sorrows than we can suffer wrongs for his glory. Now albeit an impudent boldness be the only way to achieve reputation of skill, yet am not I determined to practise, that course: neither to requite these Doctors with such quoin. This attempt I despise & laugh at such impetuosity: yea I even take compassion of it, as of a disease of the mind and a convulsion. Neither is it indeed my cause, it is the cause of jesus Christ, whom we are not to defend but by imitating of him; for how can we plead the cause of the Lamb of God with wolvish hearts and poisoned stomachs? Yet is their wrath in some sort excusable: for in quenching their Purgatory, what do you but put these our Masters to an hungry dispute, by stopping the currant of their traffic, cutting their sinews, & breaking the wheels of this great frame of the Roman hierarchy? For as a beast deadly wounded, springeth forth with an extraordinary force, even so these Doctors do excessively storm, when you touch them in their best feeling: that is in the belly, in Avarice and in Idleness. Of all the rest this Portugal Monk is the most ridiculously violent: he speaketh with a barbarous impetuosity: with such a pride as hardly agreeth with his habit: yet did I forbear his honour and abstain from all injuries and bravadoes, albeit I had a large field open before me, and many proofs of his ignorance. But I seek not to dishonour any man, only the glory of God do I aim at. To these books thus stuffed with civility have these reverend Doctors imposed Capricious titles after the manner of those that hang out scurrilous tables over the forefronts of the houses where they act their interludes: or as such as carve Cyclops and satires upon the frontispiece of their buildings. CAYER. Mark then the title of Cayers book. The burning furnace, or oven of reverberate etc. And in his book his speech runneth all upon Limbecks firing, evaporating, recalcining, etc. All words of his art, and of all this he maketh an Amalgame containing more moon than sun. The other treadeth the same path and entitleth his book The fire of Helie to dry up the waters of Siloe. VAL. Luke. 9 You wots not by what spirit you be led. The FRIAR The Friar was loath to be behind his fellows, or to use a less ridiculous title than his writing is, so to procure an uniformity wherein he proceeded with great discretion and this is his title. The Torrent of fire proceeding from the face of God to dry up the waters of Mara enclosed in the causey of the Mill of Ablon: O frock garnished with elegancy! Who was able on this side the Pirinean mountains to attain to such gallant conceptions; and so well polished? This Friar minor intendeth to have all his pollutions and uncleanness that he spueth out throughout his whole book to come forth from the face of God, that is to say, to be expelled out of God's presence. Which nevertheless he armeth with authority, entituling himself The Reverend Father james, Observantin, Doctor, Preacher etc. And in his preface braggeth that he writeth succinctly and strongly: yet had it been good he had expected other men's commendations: but he had more desire to ease them of that labour. At the first blush therefore seeing so fiery books, such hot furnaces & Torrents of fire I feared to come near them: but plucking up my spirits and being a little way entered into the reading of the same, I grew into far greater admiration, considering that these three friars were as far discordant among themselves as fire and water: and that these Doctors did most fiercely bang each other, and yet were all signed and approved by the Doctors of Sorbone. Yea so hot was this contention among them, that one of them, namely Cayer, after he had been well displayed, and hardly entreated, was finally disclaimed in all their Pulpits, & blasted with perpetual infamy. All which they could never have compassed, but they must likewise tax those Doctors that subscribed and allowed his book. Well did I know that the opinions of the Romish doctors do agree but badly. Herein is the Council of Basil contrary to the Council of Florence. One saith that the pope cannot teach false doctrine, another that he can. One that the Pope is above the Council, another that the Council is above the Pope. Misteria Mislae. lib. 3. cap 9 Causa 15. Cancrone. Alius & Can. Nos sanctorum quaest. 7 Extravag. unam sanctam de Maiorib. & Oleo. One that Invocation of Saints is necessary, as Pope Innocent the 3. and Cayer in his conference advowed & subscribed by the Doctors of Sorbone. The others, as the Lord of Eureux, that it may well enough be forborn; and it is no matter of necessity. The jesuits and such as in their hearts are more sound nailed to the Papal sea do advow that the Pope may give and take away kingdoms: & that he can absolve subjects from their oaths and fidelity & allegiance to their Princes, and this power have the Popes of late assumed to themselves, & do now put in practice. Others that hold their judgements somewhat more at liberty do affirm all this to be mere usurpation. The most strictest orders of Friars and such souls as they have brought into captivity do believe that the Church of Rome cannot err in any point of doctrine and do defend even the most gross absurdities: other more smooth tongued, but withal more white lyvered do say that there be indeed gross absurdities: That they believe not any Purgatory. That the jubilee is but a kind of Merchandise: That the fraternity of the Cord is but superstition: That the hallowed grains are but profane trumperies: That we might very well forbear the portraying of God: the taking of the cup in the Supper from the lay people: the baptizing of bells: the singing of Masses for horses, corn, hogs, etc. Yet for all this that we must not separate ourselves: and the reason that under hand they give out is this: It is good for us. All this passeth smoothly away so long as we speak not hardly of his holiness and that the Church Profits be not diminished. To be brief, these people are like twins whose heads being divided the bellies are nevertheless knit together. Surely this is the course whereby the unity of the Romish Church is upholden. Nether were we utterly ignorant of this discord, yet should I never have imagined that they would have published their contradictions, or produced these Doctors to the stage, there to have given them so rude a bastinado. But drink ye together Doctors & agree among yourselves: for surely the same God that confounded the languages of the builders of Babylon doth still suffer division to molest those that build it again. Now that which we speak of, concerneth not Cayer alone: for the Friar likewise gainesayeth his two companions, albeit he hath both seen their books & out of them borrowed some part of his writings. So as that which in the sixteenth of Genesis was spoken of Ishmael, His hand shall be against every man, and every man's hand against him; doth very well agree with every of them: whereof in this Treatise I will show you sundry examples. These contradictions are somewhat hard of digestion, but much more their slanders wherein they impose upon us most horrible and wicked opinions, infinitely estranged from our belief. As thus: that we believe five mansions for the souls: that our drift is to deny the Immortality of the soul: that we make all sins alike equal: that we hold that the souls do sleep from the day of their decease to the day of judgement: that we would have I wots not what Synod [that never was] to pass for an article of faith: that baptism was not necessary for any but the children of unbelievers: that out of our Calendars we have raised the Virgin Mary & the Apostles, and in their places have inserted Luther and Calvin: that our Ministers do preach liberty of conscience without any apprehension of divine judgement: that we hold that it sufficeth us that jesus Christ suffered for us, and therefore that we need not do any more: that at the Funerals of the late Queen of England they sung Mass, had their offertory and prayed for her soul: that Luther and Calvin in lieu of raising the dead to life did put the living to death, and that they are our Masters, patriarchs and Apostles etc. To be brief, they set down even all the slanders that hatred can devise, or malice can suggest, wherewith they seduce the people and abuse their simplicity. What shall I speak of their uprightness in alleging the Scriptures? All the passages that they produce are for the most part either falsified, or wrested to a contrary sense, or to no purpose. With a magisterial licence they force a number of passages quoined upon the anvil of Avarice, that are not to be found in the originals, either Greek, or Hebrew: yea and sometimes contrary to the Roman translations. Of so much negligence or dullness of their reader do they presume, assuring themselves that the people shall never perceive any thing, or can so much as consult with the Scriptures, which unto them are as sealed letters and suspected books: albeit, in the mean time they are permitted to read the monstrous Legends: the Psalters of the Virgin Mary full fraught with blasphemy: and the frivolous and and fabulous books of the life of jesus Christ. O ye souls that long for your salvation, will you still live in such grievous bondage? What? shall we yet be so vain as to pass the seas to look upon the relics of some Saints, and will we not hear jesus Christ when he offereth himself unto us in the holy Scriptures? Shall we stoop more to curiosity than to necessity? To the content of our eyes then to the salvation of our souls? Shall we still be so rashly negligent, as in a matter of such importance to credit the first comer? Contenting ourselves with following in lieu of knowing? Placing piety in the knowledge of nothing; thrusting ourselves into the press and shrouding us among the multitude? Again, when any man shall say unto us that jesus Christ or any of his Apostles do in such a place, or in such a place teach us Purgatory, or the Invocation of saints, etc. Shall we be so cruelly cowards to ourselves, or so unthankful to God, as not to take so much pains as to look whether the same be truly alleged? And indeed wherefore should these Doctors cite the places but that we might see them? For what an absurdity is this, to quote the places to the people and then to debar them from seeing of them: To refer them to the places and then to command them not to look in the book? The people of Beroe practised this examination of the things that S. Paul taught: Acts. 17.10 for albeit he preached with far more authority and certitude than any man in our age; yet did they examine his preaching by the reading of the Prophets, far more obscure than the new Testament. Enter therefore in to this examination I say, and yet I say unto you [especially if you have recourse to the originals] that you shall enter as it were into a shop where they sell vizards: yea where they do not only sell them, but where they make them, so excessive is their licentious liberty▪ Of all this will we in this Treatise produce sundry proofs, according as occasion shall serve. A Treatise whose principal drift is a defence of the only purging of our sins, which is the blood of our Saviour jesus Christ against the fire of Purgatory. An argument that carrieth with it the confutation of the doctrine of the Limboes', of Traditions, of Prayer for the dead, of man's satisfactions and of Popish Indulgences. I plead the cause of jesus Christ: I confute the reasons and passages of these Doctors and their burning writings: yet touch not their persons, neither their furnitures full of Invectives that concern not the argument. Two things there are nevertheless which I cannot overpass: their folly in vaunting, and their false dealing in answering me. Fire of Helic, p. 4. First they paint forth many triumphs great conquests, and an extreme shaking of our Church: so many goodly souls, such a multitude of notable personages: namely forty at deep revolted to the Romish Church, which now is in travel of them: If they come to life they shall come forth. These men do pack them very grossly: for inquiring of any such breach in the Church of deep, I cannot learn of more long time revolted then two, the one a maiden who alured by a carnal marriage hath violated her spiritual marriage with Christ: the other an English jesuit, 2. Pet. 5.22. who upon a feigned conversion intruded himself into our company and is now returned to his vomit. Howbeit let us put the case that the report of these conversions were as true, as they be forged at pleasure: Is it any marvel that some love the world & turn wing to that part that yieldeth most quietness and worldly promotion? Were it not rather a wonder if there were none such? joh. 6.66. jesus Christ was forsaken of his disciples: how much more we, who have nothing but by his bounty? Men in these days in matter of Religion do follow the course of the affairs, and do fit their belief to their worldly commodities. The belly hath no ears: And as usually such are deaf as dwell near the downfall of great waters, even so the word of God pierceth not into the ears that are deafened with the bruit of the world and stopped with the currant of Covetise, of voluptuousness and of ambition: especially at Paris where men are bought and sold, & where rewards are propounded. And God grant that Idolatry possess none but those whom she hath dearly paid for▪ herein are we to acknowledge the work of God: that notwithstanding so many allurements and discommodities, yet do the flock of jesus Christ grow and increase, yea even since these men made their vaunts that our Church was so sore shaken. But we boast not so much, neither indeed are these victories ours but our Lord jesus Christ's. In their triumphs they paint me forth & make me a party in the proofs of their sufficiency. The auctor of Helies' fire saith that in the disputation against the friar I was twice or thrice at a non plus and so made some of them merry: but he showeth neither when nor whereupon. It might peradventure be when the friar refused to enter into any orderly disputation, or to propound his reasons in form, saying that he was not permitted so to do: either when he said that the theft was scourged, Suetonius. julius in segmento. 73. Plautus in Aphitruone: aut satisfaciat mihi aut adiuret in super nolle esse dicta quae in me in sontem protulit. but not the thief: That excogitatum Commentum signified a Commentary: That the pardons of four and fifty thousand years are good and receaveable: That satisfacere signifieth not to acknowledge his fault to the party offended, or to testify that he was sorry for it or when he saying unto me that God should be unjust if there were no purgatory, I answered that then God should be unjust to such as should live in the day of judgement: also to the Carmelites that die upon the friday, who [as themselves report] have a privilege that they shall remain in purgatory no longer but until the next saturday. But who would think that untruth could so far exceed? Verily I am one of the least among the servants of God: yet would I be sorry that my years or want of capacity should any way prejudice the equity of my cause: but the word of God is mighty even in the mouths of babes. Besides should I trouble myself with answering an unlearned man unseen in the Greek and Hebrew, as appeared when we were to have recourse to the Originals in both those languages, where upon the jesuits of Turnon took upon them to stuff his book with passages collected out of profane authors and the Rabbins, into whom he never thrust his snout: which jesuits nevertheless were many times mistaken in divers things, The manner of these Doctors in answering. as in place convenient shall appear. But how should they make faithful report of things spoken, who make no conscience to falsify my writing? See therefore how they entreat me. They produce not my words: they reverse the order of my speeches: The friar beginneth with the last page of my book. here & there they mangle & snatch at my discourse; one beginneth at one end, an other in the midst: If I speak any thing that biteth, they can quietly pass it over with silence: They object the matter that I answer, but my answers they suppress, He that seeketh the truth ought to produce the very words of his adversary: he should trace him step by step without counterfeiting, curtalling, or dissembling: but these men by a certain doctoral disposition do skip, as at their mass, over whole leaves: they conceal the most forcible: and the sooner to lead the reader that followeth us out of our track, they shuffle the course of my reasons, and bring the head forth last. Then having thus scented my discourse, they proclaim before the palace their fiery, burning, magnifical, & and ridiculous titles. Some colour they might have had for their flight, had my first book been either tedious or full of words: The charges of the Impression with the reader's impatiency might have served them in steed of fig leaves to cover their shame: but my writing contained few pages & the Arguments lay close: for I studied to lay the bones bare that the sinews might be the better seen. Their unfaithful dealing doth proceed yet farther: for they forge other objections than mine: and of mine do they take away the edge by propounding them in other manner than I did: Thus do they skirmish and sport them in answering of themselves: much like unto the Bulls in the amphitheatre to whom they cast men made of straw, upon whom, being provoked, they discharged their rage. As if they should say unto me: you are too rough: The Church of Rome must be more gently entreated: Take away your forcible arguments for these reasons lie to hard upon us, so will we commune with you. Thus and thus must you object that so we may answer with some colour: but they forgot to give this warning before. I do therefore protest that these writings of these Doctors do not concern me, for that I never spoke many things that they impute to me: & they have either fearfully dissembled, or maliciously corrupted my best objections. Neither can I think myself sufficiently satisfied until I see my own writing perfect in the writings of my adversaries, and their answer set down article to article: reason to reason, without cutting of or altering my words, or disordering the order of my discourse. Reverend Doctors, I beseech you in courtesy, None of these Doctors have yet answered, & therefore the victory yet resteth with the A●uctor. yea I adjure you by the relics of your consciences to entreat me with more equirie: take this book which again I offer unto you increased, amplified and corroborated with reasons and some passages of Scriptures: and answer it in such wise as that my reasons may not be mangled, nor thrust out of order: but that all men may see your answers at the foot of my objections. If your desire to bring the truth to light faileth you not, no more than your leisures, means, books, and support [albeit all these fail us] we shall soon perceive which of us hath the word of God to warrant: and from the encounter of our reasons truly and uprightly reported will proceed the sparks of the truth. The Lord God vouchsafe to direct our pens, and dispose our hearts to propound such matters as may be profitable to the salvation of his people, proper to the glory of God and comfortable to the truth of his word. THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK. 1. A description of the four chambers, or stages which the Church of Rome placeth under the earth. Namely of Hell: of the Limboe of Children: of the Limboe of the fathers: and of Purgatory. Also of the means to get out of Purgatory. 2. That in this controversy, as in all other that concern faith, the holy Scripture ought to be judge: also that the same speaketh not of Purgatory, neither of any temporal torment after this life, neither of any Indulgences wherewith to fetch souls out of this torment. 3. That the holy Scripture overthroweth Purgatory: and that there is no other purgation of our sins, but the blood and death of jesus Christ, and consequently, that papal Indulgences are unprofitable to the deceased. 4. Against man's satisfactions in general. 5. Against Popish Indulgences and the extraction of souls out of Purgatory. 6. A confutation of such passages of the holy Scripture as these Doctors have alleged. 7. What the Doctors of the four first ages after jesus Christ did hold and believe concerning this matter, and that they never believed any Purgatory. Also of prayer for the dead of Indulgences, and of the satisfactions of the primitive Church. A CONFUTATION OF PURGATORY. CAP. I. A description of the four Chambers or stages which the Church of Rome placeth under the earth: and particularly of the place called Purgatory. THE Doctors of the Church of Rome do hold, that under the earth, there be 4. several places, which are so many prisons, wherein the fowls are either broiled, or shut up. The lowest place. The auctor of the fire of Helie. p. 44. The lowest place is hell; the habitation of the damned: and the same is divided (if we believe our adversaries) into two parts. The one where the souls are tormented in fire: the other, where they are tormented in snow. Throughout al● the word of God can we not find that that ever any came out of this place▪ Yet Pope Gregory the first, in the first Book of his Dialogues, cap. 12. reporteth that S. Severus raised a dead body whom the Devils had carried away, Also Damascen, In 4 Dist. 45 quest. 2. and after him Thomas, Durand, and Richard, do tell us that by the prayers of S. Gregory trajan an heathen Emperor was fetched out of hell Gabriel Biel in his 56. Lesson upon the Cannon of the Mass, holdeth the same opinion▪ And Ciacconus hath written an Apology expressly for this history. Cayer and the Doctors that subscribed to his book, do approve this history: The second place. but his companions do reject it. The second place is the Purgatory that serveth for such as are indeed righteous and do not sin: but in their life time have committed some trespasses for which they have not satisfied. The same ●ope Gregory teacheth that so soon as ● man is deceased his soul is presented before the judge, Lib. 4. c. 36. also that sometime there happeneth abuse, & they bring before God one that was not called. As (saith he) it chanced to one named Stephen, who being deceased and his soul presented before God, immediately as God saw him, he said that was not the man that he had called for: but that it was ●n other Stephen, a cannoneer of Iron, who thereupon died incontinently, and the former Stephen revived again and was sent back because he died before he was called. These souls thus presented before the judge, if they need any purging are instantly sent to this second place which they term Purgatory. And this doctrine is grounded upon this principle, which is a third article of their faith, and taken out of the unwritten word: Read the catechism of the council of Trens in the ch●● of penance namely that Jesus Christ by his death and passion hath indeed discharged us from the fault, and from the pains due to sins committed before baptism: but from the pain du●● to sins committed after baptism he hath not discharged us. Therefore that such as have not made full satisfaction in this life by fastings, scourge, gifts to the Church, &c: shall be sent to Purgatory there to finish their satisfaction and to pay [as they say] even to the last penny. here-hence grew that penance which the Priest imposeth upon the sinner, which do far differ from the penance used in the primitive Church which was public, of long continuance and rigorous, thereby to humble the sinner and to repair the scandal to the Congregation: but at this day in the Church of Rome they impose for the most part private penances, and the same either very easy or ridiculous: & these do they make use of to prevent Purgatory, and yet to pay and satisfy God's justice. The forms of these penances, are to say a set number of Anee intermixed with Pater's upon a pair of beads: to scourge their bodies: or upon t●e bare flesh to gird themselves with accord: or to go in pilgrimage to Saint ●●mes in Galicia, N. Giles, an. 768. etc. Our Annals do inform us of a penance imposed by a ●ope upon one Robert the Norman, surnamed the Devil, upon sundry his ●ots committed: that is, that for the space of seven years he should not ●●eake: and that he should all that time, 〈◊〉 at a staier foot, and take no other food but the relics of such bones as a Grayhound should have gnawn. Was i● meet to abridge the benefit of jesus Christ, and to supply the places with such frivolous devises, and in such sergeant quoin to satisfy the justice of God, which jesus Christ had before satisfied to the full? The Friar pag 75. As concerning the torments that the souls do there endure, these our masters do tell us that all the fires and torments in this life, are ●ut easy in regard of the heat of the ●te of Purgatory, and that the torment ●hereof equalleth that of the damned. This doctrine was not yet received in the Church of Rome, when to the Camnon of the Mass they added these words ensuing, which the Priest must daily say for the souls in Purgatory. Memento Domine. Remember Lord thy servants, whose souls do rest in the sleep of peace. Hereby it appeareth that they then believed that the pain was easy, or rather none at all, and that the souls for whom they prayed, did rest in peace as in a sleep. Hereto accordeth the saying of the aforenamed Gregory, who advoweth that the souls of S. Severus & S. Pascasius wrought miracles in the Baths where they lay in Purgatory. Lib. 7. Epist. 61. For it is hard to work any great miracles in such cruel torments. This is the same Pope Gregory, who doth in earnest confess, that the Apostles celebrating the Lord's supper, added unto the consecration nothing but the Lords prayer, and so consequently prayed not for any souls in Purgatory. Again, the Church of Rome holdeth this torment to be of long continuance: for every sin they must abide there seven years: beside also that we pray for some that died many hundred years since. And in this regard doth the Pope grant pardons some for fifty, some for an hundred thousand years: and the Friar may very well remember that when I showed him in the Mass book a prayer that contained four & fifty thousand years of pardon thereto adjoined, he did not only advow it, but took upon him to defend these so liberal indulgences. In the Church of S. Bibian at Rome upon the day of all Saints they have six hundred thousand years of very pardon for the space of one whole day. In the book of Roman Indulgences these six hundred thousand years are written at large. The Pope that granted that pardon presupposing that a soul may have committed so many sins [besides those for which the pains of Jesus Christ have satisfied] that he must have so many ●eares of torment to purge all his sins, ●nlesse the Masses and suffrages of the ●ving, together with the Pope's indulgences do procure him ease and abbreviation of his pains. At Paris in the entering into a chapel of the friars Fevillans in the suburbs of S. Honorat hangeth to be seen a long beadrole of pardons: wherein among other is contained that upon every day of lent there are to be purchased three thousand eight hundred sixty seven years and two hundred and seven quarantines of days of very pardon. In the church of S. Eusebius at Rome they have seven thousand, four hundred fifty and four Quarenteins of days of very pardon for such as shall bring thither any honest offering, and as the words of the Bul do run Manus porrigentibus adiutrices for such as shall put to their helping hands. In the Church of S. Mary deliver us from the pains of hell [for that is the Church's name] there are daily granted eleven thousand years of Indulgence to such as shall bring an honest offering, that is to say, that shall give, not to the poor indeed, but to the rich Monks: not to those that weep, but to those that sing: for now alms with the true use thereof hath also altered the signification of the word. In the church of S. Praxede you have daily twelve thousand years of very pardon and as many quarantines of days, with the remission of the third part of your sins: in such manner that visiting this church three days on a row you shall purchase plenary pardon of all your sins and six and thirty thousand years by provision besides the quarantines, which the Popes have since increased to sixscore thousand years for every day: witness the book of Indulgences printed at Rome in the house of julius Accolto, an. 1570. see also the book of Roman Indulgences sundry times printed at Rome, namely in the year 1519 the second of February by Marcell Franck. Yet are all these pardons but few in regard of those that belong to the Church of S. john of Lateran, Gab. Biel in his 17. lesson upon the Cannon of the Mass. the some whereof ye shall find either hanging upon tables, or graven in the walls of diverse churches of Rome. All this do we set down to show that as the plaster ought to be fitted to the largeness of the wound, so the Popes have thought it meet to persuade men to believe that the pains of Purgatory are of long continuance, sith they require so long a time to purchase release from the pains thereof: withal presupposing that in that so fiery and scorching a country, where the sun hath no being, they reckon all by days, and by years. This long continuance is also to be gathered out of the Revelation of Venerable Bede in the fifth book of his history cap. 13. That is to say about some nine hundred years since where he saith that the souls which in his time were in Purgatory should be delivered in the day of judgement, except some few that should be redeemed from thence by the prayers of the living. Moreover besides all this, the self doctors of the Romish Church do agree, that even during these so violent torments, the souls nevertheless are assured of their salvation, & out of the danger of hell: neither do I know since when this opinion crept into the church of Rome: for in the Mass for the dead we find a clause after the Gospel that contrariwise doth testify that still they are in danger. These be the words. Libera Domine animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis Infernis, & de profundo lacu: libera eos de ore Leonis ne absorbeat eos Tartarus. O Lord deliver the souls of all the faithful departed, from the infernal pains, & from the deep lake: deliver them from the throat of the lion, lest the gulf of hell should swallow them up, & so they fall into utter darkness. Terms over bitter to signify Purgatory: and such as may in no case stand with people assured of their salvation. We have also the ordinary prayers said ●t burials, yea and used at the funeral of 〈◊〉 Pope, wherein we find no mention of Purgatory. Indeed this soul is brought ●n, as praying to be delivered from hell, and from eternal judgement, in these words. Save me o Lord from eternal death ●n the terrible day, when the heavens and ●he earth shall be moved, Sacrar. Cerem. lib. 1. Sect 15. and when thou halt come to judge the world by fire. I tremble and quake, and do fear when the examination shall come, and the day of wrath, of calamity and of misery: that great and wonderful better day. Speeches which cannot proceed from a soul assured of her salvation. Surely when these prayers were first penned, these matters were not yet well considered of, and this may we easily gather from Pope Gregory the first, who in his dialogues placeth the Purgatory of some souls in baths, of some under the leaves, and of some under the Ice: and this do these three champions that have assaulted my treatise, both say and defend: for nothing to them is to hard or to hot. Damian speaketh of a soul that had her Purgatory in a river, but whither she swum with the stream or against it, he saith not. The rosary of Bernardine hath of this nature many revelations: and the Legend of S. Patrick telleth us that in Ireland there is a cave that openneth into Purgatory: to be brief, albeit many souls are returned from those parts, which have brought news, yet did the matter still rest full of doubt, until the Council of Florence, which among other occasions was assembled to persuade Purgatory to the Greek Churches, who both before and yet do deny it, albeit their deputies in the Council did agree unto it in hope of succours against the Turk. True it is that we find some more ancient Counsels, which made mention of prayer for the dead: but hereafter we shall most evidently prove that these prayers make nothing for Purgatory: also that such prayers as we find among the ancients do plainly show that they believed no Purgatory. Even to this day do the Greek Churches pray for the dead: yet do they deny Purgatory. In the last session therefore of this Council holden in the year 1539. was it defined, that we should believe Purgatory: In which Counsel, as in all others holden within these five hundred years, the Pope sat precedent, and that with such authority that he grew to be adored and entitled The Divine Majesty: the spouse of the Church: the Saviour and Lion of juda: the king & Prince of all the world, having all power both in heaven and in earth: All which titles were attributed to Pope Leo the 10. in the Council of Lateran. Thus in all these Counsels nothing passed but by his will, Sess. 1. & 3. & 9 &. 10. in such wise, that if any did contradict him, he was soon burned, as was john hus in the Council of Constance, notwithstanding the safe conduct and faith given by the Emperor and all the Council. But to return to our Matter. The souls thus purged in this fire are brought into Paradise. Howbeit because this purgation will grow somewhat long, the Pope's mercy doth sometimes abridge this punishment: For besides that the pains that the living have vndergon for them, as fasts: alms: whip, pilgrimages, liberalities to the Church, etc. also that the Masses founded for the deceased, which leave any rents or annuities to a convent or abbey, or other religious house [if we may believe those that sing them] are of great use to mitigate and allay the heat of Purgatory, and to diminish the pains thereof, yet have the Popes found out a more ready and gallant invention to the same end: and this it is. He raketh together all the superabundant satisfactions as well of jesus Christ as of all his Saints which remain in the treasury of the Church, whereof himself doth carry the keys: and these doth he distribute among his Indulgences, for the freeing of souls out of the fire of Purgatory. To the same use doth he also apply his hallowed grains and medals which he distributeth abroad, granting hundreds and thousands of years of pardon, to all such as shall kiss or reverently keep them. And these pardons serve not only for this life but also for Purgatory. The Church of the Fevillants at Paris have this privilege, That the Masses in that church said for the dead upon the moonday or wednesday, do every of them deliver one soul out of Purgatory. Many such Churches doth Rome contain. S. Potentian: S. Laurence without the walls, S. praxedes, etc. upon the 7. of May, anno 1586. did Pope Sixtus the 5. grant to such of the fraternity of the cord of S. Frances as should say 5 Paternosters & as many Ave Maria's upon the Saturday before palm Sunday: and upon the feast days of St john Evangelist and St john Port Latyn plenary Indulgence for all their sins: yea and more than than that: for they shall moreover deliver one soul out of Purgatory, as appeareth in the book of Indulgences granted to that reverend Cord, printed at Paris by john le Bouc upon Mount S. Hillary at the sign of diligence ann. 1597. And these privileges were reconfirmed by other letters patents of the same Pope: Given at S. Marks the 9 of August. ann. 1587. But the principal matter that we are herein to note is this. That this grace is not conferred to any that is not of that fraternity, albeit in the same places he should say the 5. Pater's and as many Avees, yea and fifty more and that with far greater devotion than that fraternity doth. Some altars also there be whereto his holiness hath conferred such privileges that upon the saying of a set number of Masses upon them, At Rome in the church of S. Praxe de and in many other places. they shall bring a soul out of Purgatory: Some people also there be that are so privileged that after their deaths either they go not into Purgatory at all, or if they go in, they stay not there any time, but come forth by and by: albeit they be as heavy loaden with sin as any other: such shall the elect be that shall live in the day of judgement, or such as shall die immediately after the jubilee. Sub auspiciis sapientissimi D.N. Bartholomei Guitart Navarrici. We have seen certain Theological Theses disputed on at the Carmelites in Paris upon the eighth of October 1601 by a certain Carmelite named jacobus de Rampont Carmelitarum presentatus ac Metensis Carmeli Alumnus: at the end whereof the said Rampont in good sort and with a good grace maketh a brief Oration in commendation of his order: terming the Carmelites the first Anachorites: the Imitators of the Apostolic life, practising both the life & wearing the habit of Elyas and Elizeus, brethren ro the Virgin Mary: and among all other pre-eminences endued with this singular privilege, That whosoever is entered or shall vow to enter into this fraternity shall no longer abide in Purgatory, but from his death until the next Saturday following. A privilege which Cayer with tooth and nail defendeth in his Oven of Reverberate, etc. and promiseth shortly to show us the Bull of that Pope which granted this privilege, with whom the Carmelites are united who thereto have set their seals, and among the rest this friar Rampont. And this is the reason that they use so few Masses for the souls of their brethren, especially if they die upon the Friday. The Pope himself sometimes granteth his Bulls, as ourself have seen whereby at the petition of some survivor of the kindred that craveth it, he fetcheth the soul out of this fire. Yet for the expedition of such Bulls, as also of all other Bulls of Absolution or dispensation the Penitentiaries, That is to say Notaries dataries & brethren of the lead, etc. Who farm their offices at the Pope's hand, must be greased in the fists: and these our Masters must be paid in ducats of the chamber, as in the palace of Paris the spices are paid only in crowns of the sun. Thus do they wrong in subscribing their Bulls Datum Romae for if they would deal truly they should write Venditum Romae. Hereof did Aeneas Silvius complain before he was Pope saying, Epist. 66. ad 1. Peregallun. Nihil est quod absque argento Rom. curia dedat● nam & ipsae manuum impositiones, & Spiritus sancti dona venduntur: nec peccatorum venia nisi nummatis venditur. That is to say in few words: In the Court of Rome nothing passeth without money, no not the holy Ghost, or remission of sins. Thus is he named in the front of the book of the conformity of S. Frances This might suffice for this argument, were it not that I am willing to gratify our Portugal friar in regard of our friendship. Whose patron the Typical Jesus, namely S. Frances (in their book of conformities, compared with Jesus) hath greatly contributed to the redeeming of souls out of Purgatory. For the Rosary of Barnardin, Thomas 2. quaest. vlt. Artic. Eanden grati. am consequuntur Religionem intrantes, quam consequuntur Baptizati. Anton. tit. 24 cap. 7 & Rosarium Bernardini. Assisium, a town in the Duchy of Spoletum wherein dwelled the first Franciscan Friars. also Thomas upon the fourth book of Sentences doth testify that the taking of S. Frances habit is of like virtue as Baptism▪ hereof it must needs ensue that whosoever dieth in this habit doth go strait into Paradise. And in hope hereof there have been some who in the very agony of death have called themselves to be shrouded in this habit. Or have at the least thrust an arm into the sleeve thereof. Among others Robert King of Sicill, as Anthoninus reporteth. To this Reverend Saint, being at his town of Assisium in Italyan ᵒ, 1223 appeared an Angel who told him that jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the ●ngels attended him in the Church ●alled St Mary of the Angels: wherevpō●e being come thither, jesus Christ ●aid unto him, Frances, Luk. 2 22. demand any thing concerning the salvation of souls: for thou art set to be a light to the Gentiles. Frances answered, I require thee to grant pardon for all sins to every one that shall enter into this Church, and I beseech the Virgin Mary, the advocate of mankind, to assist me in this petition. Then said jesus unto him, Brother Frances, thou hast desired a great matter: but thou art worthy of greater: Go therefore to my Vicar, to whom I have given power to bind and lose upon earth and in heaven, and on my behalf demand of him this Indulgence: Hereupon this good Saint repaired to Pope Honorat, & at his hands craved this large Indulgence without offerings. But the Pope answered him that it might not be: Note this principle. for it was meet that whosoever would purchase pardons, must also merit them Ponendo manus adiutrices by putting to his helping hand, id est, by contributing. Being asked for how many years he demanded this pardon, he answered that he craved no years but souls: and thereupon would none of his bulls: but said that the Virgin should be his paper, jesus Christ his Notary, and the Angels his witnesses. But now is this Indulgence restrained to one day of the year only, and that is the first of August: It is called Portiuncula or S. Mary of the Angels upon which day, whosoever visiteth the said Church, obtaineth remission of all his sins committed since his baptism: as well for the sin as for the punishment: whereof it ensueth that whosoever dieth coming from thence shall never come in Purgatory. This Indulgence is yet in great esteem in Italy, and is set down in Bernardines Rosary, and Bellarmine defendeth it in his second book of Indulgences. Thus do we with grief behold the accomplishment of the prophecy of S. Paul. 2. Thes. ●. 11 God shall send them strong delusions, that they shall believe lies, and that for a punishment, because they have accounted Godliness to be a gain: religion a merchandise for the time: and God's word a dangerous book: such a one as the common people may not look into, so long as such ungodly and impious inventions are published, as most convenient for the instruction of the unlearned. This is the history of Purgatory: ●hese are her tenants and butteresses: and herein were matter sufficient to make men merry: had they not a grea●er ground of sorrow in seeing religiō●urned into fables, and the only cleaning of our sins, which is the blood of ●esus Christ, be as it were degraded and abased, to the end to make a gain to ●hose who in the Temple have again ●aised up the tables of the money chanters; which jesus Christ did once overthrow and cast down. Of the Limbo of Children. The third stage or chamber is the Limbo of children deceased without baptism: The third place. who are there without torment, as also without pleasure, Pag 9 or hope ever to come forth: and there do remain [saith our friar] in grief, for that they cannot attain to beatitude: and this is it that they call poena damni: but if this grief be also felt, it is poena sensus, and surely it were a goodly matter to know what they do in this place, where they have no communication either with God or with the Devils: beside that they are without remembrance of any thing that they have seen or done, & having no body to instruct them: sith also that they must rise again and what sentence the judge shall in the day of judgement pass upon them: For our Lord jesus Christ in the 25. of Matthew, speaketh of no more but sentence against the damned, and for the elect. But these questions are to be resolved by Doctors: for the word of God penetrateth not so far. The auctor of The fire of Helie doth resolve us, Pag. 38. saying, These children shall not be judged in the last day: For it is written in the 3. 〈◊〉 S. john, Whosoever believeth not, is already ●udged: But they never had faith: then be they already fully judged. By this his Maiesteriall conclusion, he also maketh the children that die soon after Baptism to be already judged and banished into Limbo: for they likewise had no more faith than the former that died a ●ittle before. Then maketh he one step of a Clerk farther, because he seethe not that Not to believe, in this place is spoken of the rebellious and incredulous: for of those that have not believed john speaketh in the next verse following. Verse 19 They loved darkness more than light: that is to say, error more than ●ruth; which cannot be imputed to children new borne. Thus the Church of Rome by excluding children that die without Baptism from salvation, committeth sundry oversights. 1. First in so doing she tieth the Grace of God to the water. 2. Here ●y also she referreth the salvation of ●he child to the power of man, or of a midwife: for if they list to baptise the child while it is dying, it shall go into Paradise: if they list not to baptise it it shall not come there. 3. Herein also they accuse God, that he provided but badly for the salvation of children born under the old Testament, in that he would not have them to be circumcised before the eighth day. 4. Neither was it a small point of rashness, mixed with barbarism to bring in the custom practised at Paris, where they cast their children headlong into a gulf that is in our Lady's hospital or God's house. 5. Again these our Masters do place this Limbo under the earth: and so what shall become of it when the earth shall have no more being, but be utterly consumed with fire, as saith S. Peter in hi● second Epistle, Apoc. 21.1 chap 3. and David Psal. 102. ver. 26, & 27. At the least they should in time have chalked out some other lodging for those children in some other place. This so presumptuous and cruel doctrine against children is grounded upon the words of Jesus Christ in the third of S. john Except a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Wherein the church of Rome is contrary to herself: for she holdeth that many are saved that were never baptised in water: as many Martyrs that were never baptized in water: neither will it serve their turn to say that those Martyrs were baptised in their blood: for this place of S. john importeth, That of necessity they must be borne again of water: besides that this baptism in blood is contrary to the camnons of the Church of Rome, which saith that the Sacrament is no Sacrament if he that conferreth it hath not ●n intent to baptise. But the heathen executioners had never any intent to baptise. Again sith Baptism is vnre●iterable, what reason is it that the martyrdom of a man not baptised should be Baptism? Yet will we not deny but ●hat the Martyrs are baptised in their ●lood: always provided that this word to baptise be taken simply to wash, a● that is the signification of the word: but if we speak of Baptism as it is a Sacrament of the Church: a scale of the covenant: exhibitive of the grace of God in Jesus Christ: the blood of a sinful man cannot be this washing: for the blood of the son of God is the only washing of our sins. In answer to this place of the third of S. john, I say that if it be spoken of Baptism, it cannot be understood but in case of contempt. That is to say, if any man that may be baptised & hath opportunity to cause himself to be baptised, doth notwithstanding in contempt reject it, such a one cannot be saved: of which baptism, S. Peter in the 3. chapter of his first Epistle maketh mention: likewise of this washing of the soul speaketh Zacharias, ca 13.1. which the Church of Rome calleth Baptismus flaminis. Whereas in the 7. of john Jesus Christ said that Out of his belly that believed in him should flow rivers of life, S. john addeth that by this water he meant the holy Ghost, which they should receive that believed in him: also as in the 3. of Matthew, v. 11. It is said, that Jesus Christ baptizeth or washeth us with the holy Ghost & with fire, is meant with the holy ghost warming & purifying our hearts; so that to be borne of water and the holy Ghost signifieth to be regenerate by the holy Ghost washing and cleansing our hearts which is a phrase of speech familiar among men, and used in the Gospel, as in S. john the 14. & 6. verse, I am the way the truth, the life, in lieu of saying, I am the true way to the life. Of the limbo of the Fathers. The fourth place is the Limbo of the fathers & mothers, that is to say, The fourth place. of such persons as lived before the coming of Christ. There were [say they] Adam, Eve, Noah, Abraham, etc. until that Jesus Christ upon the day of his resurrection in his return from hell delivered them out of this prison: himself also [say our adversaries] by his ascension, brought them into heaven: For they suppose that the way into heaven was not open, until that Christ by his ascension entered in. But because Jesus Christ said unto the thief, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise, whereby it appeared that the thief passed into Paradise forty days before the ascension of Jesus Christ, our Monk preventeth him by using his privilege: he will have us hereby Paradise to understand the lower parts, that is to say, Limbo or Purgatory. For page 95. he saith wheresoever the presence of God is there is Paradise, as much as if he should say, The thief being on the Cross was in Paradise, because Jesus Christ was there present: and that Jesus Christ did but mock him, in promising him that he should shortly be in Paradise, sith he was there already. Now in as much as it was forty days between Christ's resurrection and his ascension, It may be said that these souls being come out of Limbo were set sentinels in some corner or other: or that peradventure they walked their stations here below: for of this matter we find no decision of the Popes, Extrav de Constit. tit. 2. Can. licet. to whom only it belongeth to decide all matters of Religion, as to them that cannot err in faith, & in their Camnons do boast that all right resteth in the shrine of their hearts. Our Franciscan and the auctor of Helies' fire do say, that during the forty days those souls were with Jesus Christ: that is to say, Pag. 38. 44. when Jesus Christ was in the chamber with his Apostles, all the souls of the old Testament were there also with him. That when he went to Emaus they followed him: That when he was by the sea side, there also they were assembled and arranged upon the sands. Into this Limbo entered two sorts of souls: The one sort, such as without need of purgation came directly in: the other, they that after their purgation and satisfaction in Purgatory, came nevertheless thither. In those days was the torment of Purgatory of much longer continuance then in this age it is: For then the sovereign high Priests gave no Indulgences, neither fetched any souls out of Purgatory: whereby it appeareth that God being now more liberal, they do wrong to call the first age The golden age. Of this Limbo would our men make jacob to speak in the 37 of Genesis, where [according to the Roman translation] he saith I shall go down into hell, bewailing my son: whereupon [say we] that it followeth that in the 42 Chapter, where these words are repeated. jacob spoke of this Limbo: & yet he there saith that his white hairs shall go down. The souls than are hairy, for these good fathers went down into Limbo with grey hair: whereof we are also to presuppose that in that country they have barbers: And all this absurdity groweth of this, that they will not understand that Sheol in Hebrew, namely in these places, signifieth sometimes the state of the dead: and sometime the Sepulchre, albeit they be driven to it by sundry places of the scripture: as in the 14 Psal. ver. 7. and in the 30. vers. 4. & in many other places: They also produce the 9 of Zachary and the 4. of S. Paul to the Ephes. but they do only quote the places and so leave the reader to guess at the matter: and good reason: for of Limbo there is no speech throughout all the scriptures but contrariwise we find that Moses and Elias talked with Jesus Christ upon the mountain, whereby it appeareth that they were not in a corner under the earth. Again if the death of jesus Christ were of force to deliver the fathers of the old Testament out of hell, why not out of Limbo, which they say is a more easy prison? As concerning the passage in the ninth of Zachary there is no speech of Limbo, but of the deliverance from hell, under the figure of the deliverance from the Captivity of Babylon: The words of the prophet are these. In the blood of thy covenant thou hast delivered thy prisoners out of the lake where is no water. They also object unto us the 4. of S. Paul to the Ephes. Where speaking of the Incarnation and habitation of Jesus Christ upon earth, he saith, that he descended into the lowest parts of the earth, accommodating to our Saviour Christ the words of David in the Psalm. 139. v. 15; where he saith that he was form in the lowest parts of the earth: that is, in his mother's womb and according to the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the superlative: but what community hath this with Limbo? Much less is it meant of the fetching of the Fathers out of Limbo, which is in the eight verse He led captivity captive, for would he have led captive the souls of the fathers, considering that they would that he should have brought them out of captivity? For in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, which signifieth to lead into captivity those whom they have taken at the sword point. These captives then are the devils, death, etc. The Auctor of the fire of Helie giveth it us bravely: he maketh S. Paul, Heb. 11. v. 39 & 40. to say that these fathers are not rewarded before us: but neither there nor in any other place shall we find any word thereof. Thus is this place now empty, if we cannot find any to lodge in it. And because it is likely that the Franciscans, according to their rule, do not go into Purgatory single, but by two and by two. This Limbo, lying in the way to Purgatory, seemeth a very convenient place to lodge him, who being departed hence alone, must attend his companion. Besides these four places, Bellarmine who lately writ at Rome, The flowered meadow. and as it were in the Pope's bosom, with the approbation and commendation of all the Church of Rome, but particularly of all our Doctors, in the 7. Chap. of his second book of Purgatory, hath found out a fifth place: that is to say, a bright and clear meadow, all diapered with sweet smelling flowers, which he maketh to be a dependence of Purgatory, and as it were a withdrawing chamber, wherein those do take their rest, who are most kindly entreated & most gently dealt withal, and groundeth himself upon the authority of venerable Beda: and Dionise a Charterhouse Monk, an auctor of great credit, who is full fraught with fantastical revelations: he should have added how these flowers do spring without sun or rain: & from whence that goodly brightness could pierce into those deep parts of the earth. Out of this meadow do the souls immediately pass into Paradise: but before the coming of jesus Christ, they went thence into Limbo, a matter of great compassion, that passing out of a bright meadow full of recreation, they should come to be shut up in a dark prison. Such therefore is the building which our Masters have erected under ground, making, by an order contrary to nature, the lowest chambers to be the hottest: digging without any authority of the Gospel, sundry compartments under the earth, like to mouldwarpes, blinded with the sunshine of God's word. In this place I would entreat the reader, throughout all this mystery to take note of a certain kind of souls, which should have more agility & experience then their fellows: so many walks and turnings are they put unto. These are those souls, who departing from their bodies under the old Testament, were first presented before the judge, and thence sent into Purgatory: but escaping thence, after a scalding fire entered into a bright meadow, full of recreation. Afterwards from this meadow they passed into Limbo: & thence came forth with jesus Christ: then did they follow him 40 days upon the earth, & finally entered into Paradise. Let us therefore find no farther fault with Plato or his Metempsychosis: for his revolutions and passages of souls, are nothing so prodigious: & indeed our Masters do carry away the bell for invention from all Poets. These matters thus dispatched and set out as it were in a table, it resteth that we now examine this Purgatory, and the abuses thereupon depending, and prove that the word of God is a spring more than sufficient to quench this the Popes so profitable a fire. Here may our Reader, if it please him, note that Purgatory is by our adversaries placed among the Articles of our belief, so as unless we believe therein, Bellarm. de Purgat. lib. 2 cap. 12. Haec sunt. we cannot be saved: that the importance of the matter may tie him to attention. So shall we break one of the legs of this Colossus, one of the principal pillars of Babylon. CAP. 2. That the holy scripture is a sufficient judge for this question, as also for all other controversies concerning faith: and that therein is no mention of Purgatory, or of any Indulgence whereby to release souls out of the torment thereof. to a judge that beareth them so small favour, they many times give it some gird. Thus saith the Auctor of the fire of Helie. Pag. 61. Albeit there be no mention of Purgatory in the Scripture, yet cannot Duke Moulins conclusion be but bad, in saying there is no Purgatory. And here he raketh together a number of things, which (saith he) are not in the holy Scripture. Yea so presumptuous is our Franciscans ignorance, as to say that throughout the old Testament there is not one express word of the immortality of the soul. Pag. 16. In this regard it is requisite that before we proceed any farther we try these Doctors in this case to the quick, and defend the perfection of the holy Scripture. Amid the corruptions of the world, we have yet this honour, that we be the advocates of God's cause, and of the worthiness of his word. Which as S. Paul, 2. Tim. 3. saith, is able to instruct us and to make us wise to salvation: Initio lib. 2. adversus Gentes. which also (saith Athanasius) abundantly sufficeth to instruct us in all truth. Wherein, as saith chrysostom upon the second Chapter of the 2. to the Thessalonians, is clearly contained all that is necessary. For was it possible that aforetime the five books of Moses were sufficient to instruct the Church to salvation, & that now the same five books, together with the Prophets, Evangelists and Apostles cannot suffice? hath God forbidden to add or diminish to the books of Moses, Deut. 4.1. and now that both in the old and new Testament we have much larger instruction, shall it be tolerable to add an unwritten word. Other Canonical books? Other articles of faith? If the Gospel be sufficient to save us, who shall be so bold as to say that the new Testament doth contain but part of the Gospel? To allege either the tyranny of custom, or the antiquity of a tradition, without the word of God, what is it but to allege the antiquity of Error: and to arm both jews & Gentiles with the like reasons? considering that untruth is very ancient yea it hath been even from the beginning: also that against the truth no prescription of time may take place. To join therefore to the holy scriptures an unwritten word, and to make the traditions of the Romish Church equal with the books of the old and new Testament, is a great disparagement to the Majesty of the holy Scripture: It is as much as to do that which expressly is forbidden in the law of Moses, that is to blow with an ox and an ass: to yoke together things very unequal: to make man equal with God, and the lead of the Pope's Bulls with the pure steel of the spiritual sword of the Gospel. True it is that they term these Traditions the word of God and traditions of the Apostles: but they show not when or to whom God did first inspire them. They deliver unto us the Canon of the Mass for an Apostolical tradition, wherein nevertheless they name some persons that lived three hundred years after the Apostles time. Thus the Indulgences: the forgiveness of all sins at the end of every 25. years. The communion under one kind: The fetching of souls out of Purgatory by Popish Indulgences: The prohibiting of the lay people from reading of the holy Scriptures: The custom to pray in a tongue unknown even to him that prayeth: The feast of God; The Elevation and walking of their consecrated cake up and down: The hallowed Grains and Medals: The fraternity of S. Frances Cord loaden with so many pardons and privileges and such like trash, Can. satis Dist. 96. & Gloss. Clem. cum inter. Sacr. Cerem. sect 7. cap. 6. sedes Dei sedes Apostolica. The last Council of Lateran sess. 9 Divinae Maiestatis tuae conspectus. which themselves do confess were brought in long since the Apostles time; shall by this reckoning be holden for the word of God and the Tradions of the Apostles: And that with good reason, sith the Pope assumeth to himself the name of God and his holiness: The divine Majesty: and in infinite places in his Cannons The Spouse of the Church: yea, as saith Bellarmine de Pontif. Rom. lib. 1-cap. 9 etiam Christo secluso even Jesus Christ excluded or set aside. Sith that likewise the Pope termeth office Apostolat, all his furniture Apostolical, as his chamber, his letters, his chair: his cloak: his Palace. And unless God take pity upon us, they will shortly call his hose and points Apostolical. Now that in all this the drift of our Masters tendeth only to shun the holy scriptures which condemn them, it appeareth in these words: The unwritten word. For what is the unwritten word but a Chimaera in the air: an imperceptible Idea? For where can we find this unwritten word? If we must seek it (as they say) at the mouth of the universal Church, when shall I have gathered together the universal Church to instruct me? Or if the people must have recourse to their Curate, how shall they know whether their Curate agreeth with the universal Church? What side shall we take where the doctors do disagree? As do now these three doctors, who are grown to censure and in their pulpits to disclaim one of them▪ Or if one be borne in an heretical Church: or between two Churches grounded upon contrary Traditions, as between the Greek and the Roman? But if we must seek this unwritten word of God in the books of ancient doctors, than it is written: and albeit these books be subject to error, yet the Traditions of the Romish Church as the afore named and Purgatory are not there to be found, as hereafter we shall prove. Moreover in as much as they would make us believe that the Pope hath such letters of credence, that we must therefore do all that he commandeth, and believe all that he list to persuade us, albeit this be not found in the holy scripture, yet when the church of Rome hath need of Reformation in capite & membris: [as it is the ancient complaint] what means is there to proceed, considering that he that is to be reform is the maker of the laws, & sovereign judge in all matters of Religion, & consequently in his own cause? God forbidden that man should be judge over the cause of God: or that all the Pope's inventions for the advancing of their Empire, should be holden for the word of God, and the rule of our faith. But let us here the productions of these doctors & all those things that they say are not contained in the Scriptures. Our observantin Monk shall march foremost and have the first place. He saith that thorough out all the old Testament there is not one express word concerning the Immortality of the soul. Admit it were so: yet what interest had he to search out the defects of the holy scripture? But had he sought well, he might have found these words in the last of Daniel. Dan. 12.2. Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame & contempt. What can be spoken more expressly? And in the 12. of Ecclesiastes, v. 7. And dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit return to God that gave it. And in the 23. of Numbers, Balaam desireth to die the death of the righteous. An evident proof that he held their death to be blessed. But were this friar Minor as well acquainted with the holy Scriptures as he is with the rule of S. Frances, he would never have uttered a speech so impertinent and full of impiety: for the which he deserveth to change his order, and from the Observantine friary to be sent to the ignorant friars. The auctor of the fire of Helie broaceth it much deeper, he demandeth how by the holy scriptures we can prove this proposition, That the holy Scripture containeth all that we ought to believe. But this is not our saying: for we may and aught to believe many things that are not contained in the holy Scripture. In such manner do we believe that Romulus with a troup of thieves built Rome: Stella. Platina. The book of Indulgences printed at Rome. we believe the history of Pope Io●e, as a history advowed by many authors, both friends and servants to the Popes, and of whom there yet remain many traces and causes of remembrance: we believe that Alexander. 3. did set his foot upon the throat of Frederick Barberossa, Volateran. Sabellicus. Martianus Polonus. upon the stairs of S. Marks Church at Venice, where this his so heroical exploit is to this day represented: we believe those histories that record how the Emperor Henry the 7. was poisoned in their consecrated cake: Their God poisoned. with a thousand such like histories, both old and new, whereof the scripture never made mention. Only we say that the holy scriptures do contain all documents and instructions necessary to salvation: This do we say with. S. Paul, who in the 2. to Tim. cap. 3. v. 15. saith It is able to make us wise to salvation: what more can we demand? The same Apostle, 1. Cor. 4, 6. teacheth us Not to presume above that which is written: & toward the end of the new Testament we find these words. I protest unto every one that heareth the Prophecy of this book, that if any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book, whereto our adversaries can frame no other reply, Consilium foro julii. but that this curse extendeth no farther but to the book of the Revelation. Yet doth the council of Triuly bridle them in these words, The protestation of the Apostle john in the Revelation, under the title of one book hath relation to the whole course of both the Testaments, saying, if any man add, etc. Again, he challengeth me to prove by the holy Scriptures these 8 things, which underhand he supposeth to be necessary to salvation. In the Index Biblicus printed at Anwerp by Plantin 1588. p. 5. 1. The baptism of young children: which nevertheless is proved by the jesuits and Doctors of the University of Louvain, also by the Catechism of the Council of Trent, & by many passages of the holy Scripture. Thus this Doctor opposeth himself against a corporation of Romish Doctors, an University, and the Council of Trent. 2. The not reiterating of baptism against the Anabaptists: which is the same with the baptism of young children: for the Anabaptists do rebaptise those whom we have baptized: as holding baptism in infancy to be no baptism. 3. Rom. 8.9.11. joh. 14 26. & 16.14. The proceeding of the holy Ghost: which is proved by the places where he is called the spirit of God and the spirit of Christ: and the comforter whom the father sendeth in the name of the son: which taketh of the son etc. 4. The consubstantiality of the father and of the son. Which is proved in this. That the son is God, joh. 1.1. Even our great God, Tit. 2, 13. consequently one God with the father, for there is but one God. 1. Cor. 8.6. and being one self God, they are by consequence one self substance. We have also S. john in his first Epistle cap. 5. who saith thus. There be three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost, and these three are one. 5. He would have said Anti-dicomarianites, or Heluidians. The perpetual virginity of the Virgin Mary against the Anti marianites: but this is no point necessary to salvation: The seemliness, rather than any necessity induceth us to believe it. 6. The translation of the Sabaoth to the Sunday. An article not necessary to salvation: Apoc 1 I was ravished in spirit upon a sunday. yet do we see by the Revel. 1.10. and by the 1. Cor. 16.1. and by the Act. 20.7. that this Institution was made in the time of the Apostles. 7. The celebration of the feast of Easter against the Quarto Decimanis. Which also is of no greater importance to salvation: witness the censure and reprimendum sent by Ireneus to Victor Bishop of Rome, who skirmished fiercly in that quarrel. This Epistle of Ireneus is extant in the Ecclesiastical history of Eusebius, lib. 5. cap: 23.8. That there are but three persons in the Trinity a matter which neither the holy Scripture, nor any man that ever had any one drop of common sense did ever study to persuade: for in a duality there can be but two, in a Trinity three. 9 Lastly he bringeth in The washing of the Apostle's feet, which (saith he) we cannot prove to be no sacrament, & thereupon he great lights: De Maiorit. & obed. tit. 33. Can. Solita quanta inter & lunam, tanta inter Pontif. & Reges differentia. Arist. Phis. li. 4. cap. 4. the greater is the Pope and the lesser is the Emperor, and kings as saith Pope Innocent the 3. These our Masters, I say, so full of their subtleties and invention in their explications, which according to the doctrine of A●axagor as do draw all things out of all things, could they not aswell prove these eight points by the scripture, as we with all our doltishness, have found them out without any difficulty? But the truth is that it was no want of invention in them, but lack of good meaning. And these defects in the Scriptures do they seek out, the rather that we might not think much, that in the Scriptures there is no speech of painting of the Trinity: of worshipping of Images: of fetching souls out of Purgatory by Popish Indulgences: of their Pastor's abstinence from marriage: of th●● 〈◊〉 ●ctions of meats: to be brief 〈◊〉 their traditions: In these consi●●●●ns it standeth them upon to ab●●● authori●● of the Scriptures, 〈◊〉 accuse 〈◊〉 of imperfection. Yet is it their sur●● course to prohibit the people from re●ding of them, and from learning any thing but at their mouths who have most interest in the suppressing of them and do reap most commodity of the people's ignorance. I could therefore wish that the authors of these torrents, fires and furnaises, would lay their hā●● to their consciences (if they can find any) and upon their doctoral faith tell us whether this unwritten words & these letters of credence be not a means prepared by the Pope, thereby to forg●● new articles for his commodity? A secret corner wherein to coin false money, and to clip the word of God? The●● consciences must say yes; they are ove● wise to be ignorant thereof: but worldly reasons carry them away: in som● hope of gain: in some fear, and in some worldly devises do speak louder, and have greater voice in the Chapter house, than conscience. In as much therefore as the word ●f God contained in the old and new testament, is the only and sufficient rule ●f our faith, and that Purgatory (if we ●eleeue our adversaries) is to be belee●ed as an article of our faith, & that vn●er pain of damnation; it is strange ●hat God in the old Testament, having ordained sacrifices, & expiations for all ●orts of sins and pollutions, even to ●he Leprosy: to the bloody flux, ●nd to the touching of any dead ●ody, etc. did never ordain any expiation, sacrifice, satisfaction or prayer for the souls that were in Purgatory. The ancient patriarchs & good servants of God, Abraham, Isaac, jacob, ●oseph, Moses, Aaron, josua, Samuel, or David, never desired after their deaths ●o be prayed for, neither did themselves pray for any that was dead, that God would vouchsafe to bring them out of Purgatory. True it is that they bewailed their dead: but among all their mournings, weep, fastings, and lamentations, we find no path to purgatory, neither any one prayer to fetch the souls of the deceased out of Purgatory: and indeed such lamentations and fastings, were made even for the wicked, & such as died in God's displeasure: As for Saul, to whom it was said by the Pithonesse not many hours before his death, that God was against him, who also died soon after his consultation with the witch: David likewise bewailed Absalon, who died in rebellion and treason against his own father: yet for such [saith the Church of Rome] we must not pray. How grievous were the tears upon the death of jacob and Moses, who as holy and rare lights of the Church, could never be confined into Purgatory? The high Priest of the Law never granted Indulgences, neither made any intercession to abridge this so scalding a punishment: neither did they that died make any foundations of services, Pag. 16.18. or sacrifices to redeem their souls out of this fire. Here doth our friar seek a starting hole, but the clef● is to strait for him to creep through. He complaineth that In lieu of seeking the true light in the law of Grace, that is to say, the Gospel, we look for it in the dark and obscure law of Moses. To speak plainly, he refuseth the old Testament, as an incompetent judge, for the darkness thereof. But to this objection, we do answer, that indeed the prophecies of things to come, and the ceremonies of the old Testament, are not so clear & easy as the Gospel yet are Gods Commandments therein laid down in plain and open terms. We therefore demand what commandment of God he can find throughout the old Testament, wherein it is commanded to pray for the dead, or to offer any sacrifice for them, either among them to distribute the superabundant merits and satisfactions of holy men deceased as Abraham or Moses, to help them out of Purgatory? Here our adversaries are at a stand and bite the bit: for were there any commandment that might bear wresting to that sense, they that can so cunningly rack the Scriptures to their purposes would no doubt have produced it. Here doth our Friar fry in his grease, & would feign shift it of with blasphemies, as they that are beset with fires would gladly leap out at the windows. He doth no longer accuse the old Testament of obscurity, but of omission and impection. How many things (saith he) hath God left unmentioned in the old Testament, Pag. 16. to the end, to take from the people all occasion of Idolatry? and yet are necessary to salvation? As invocation of the Trinity: Pag. 18. the immortality of the soul, etc. Again he saith, under the law prayers for the dead were not so frequent & public, lest they should give the jews occasion with the Gentiles, to think that they ought to sacrifice to the infernal powers. Secondly, that in regard that before the redemption of man kind the estate of the deceased, was not so well known, as after that our Saviour jesus Christ descended into hell. And thirdly, because they had not so good means to relieve the dead, as they had after that the merits of the death and passion of our Lord were committed into the hands of the Church to apply them: So many words so many monsters and blasphemies. First in that he denieth that in the old Testament there is any mention of the Immortality of the soul, we have before heard the depositions of Daniel, Solomon, and the Prophet Balaam prophesying. Let us hereto adjoin the taking up of Enoch and Elias into heaven, proofs of their immortality. The words of jacob on his death bed, Lord I have waited for thy salvation: Gen. 49.18 job. 18.26. The hope of job who assured himself that after his skin should be consumed he should yet see God in his flesh. The words of God himself, who saith, I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, Mat. 22.32. and the God of jacob: God is not God of the dead [saith Jesus Christ] but of the living. The only name of Religion importeth the Immortality of the soul: which being taken away, what is Religion but an intolerable yoke: a scrupelous fear, a superfluous labour? If in this life only (saith S. Paul) we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most miserable: 1. Cor. 17.19. & what was the old Testament but the Religion of God's people? It doth therefore presuppose and as it were in the forehead bear written this title. The Immortality of the soul. As for Invocation of the Trinity, it is commanded in the old Testament: for there we are commanded to call upon God, and he that calleth upon God, calleth upon the Trinity. But what shall we say to the discretion of our Monk, who maketh God marvelous provident, in that he would not speak of the Immortality of the soul, so to take from the Jews all occasion of Idolatry: alas poor man! God cureth not one evil by an other, much less a smaller evil by a greater: Idolatry by Atheism: or superstition by Irreligion the mother of all excess. As if it should be forbidden to speak of God, either good or evil, for fear of blaspheming him: or as if a man should cut of his head for saving the wearing of a cap. What discretion! to lose the principal for saving of the dependent? To sell the horse for saving of the hay? God provideth not against evils in such manner as the Popes: who will [say they] prevent heresies by prohibiting the use of God's word: the diminishing of Ecclesiastical profits by prohibiting marriage of the Clergy, Dist. 18 Can Sirac uxor & filii per quos Ecclesiast solet periclitari substantia. contrary to the doctrine of S. Paul. 1. Tim. 3.2. howbeit if God followed this precept of discretion in the old Testament, why did he alter his mind in the new? where with too much simplicity [if we believe this Monk] he doth in every place inculcate Eternal life? Are men since the days of Jesus Christ less bend to Idolatry? Nay which is more, The opinion of the death of the soul & Idolatry do for the most part follow each other, & between them there is a fraternity. The heathen that had little or no hope of eternal life were Idolaters: did not Pope john 24. celebrating his Mass kneel to the bread, yet did he believe that the souls of men died, as the souls of beasts: for which small sin together with 54. others, Consil Const. Sess. 11. the Council of Constance in their eleventh session condemned him. That which ensueth is ferial & smelleth of the friary. He yieldeth an other reason why in the old Testament prayers and sacrifices for the dead were so unfrequented. It was (saith he) because before the redemption of mankind ehe estate of the dead was not so well known, as after that Christ descended into Hell. He doth therefore presuppose that Jesus Christ when he came from hell, brought assured news: as if that Jesus Christ before his death knew not the state of the dead as well as after his resurrection: or else that either he would not, or could not instruct his disciples of the estate of the dead as well before his death, as after. But now I pray you what be the news that Jesus Christ brought? undoubtedly even the same that the golden legend and the book of the life and death of Jesus Christ do report: how he came to hell gates and the good thief Dinas carrying a Cross before him: how he made the gates to be opened: how he beat and hampered the Devils: how he entertained the fathers whom he found in this Limbo with goodly discourses, & a thousand such jolly gallant histories after the imitation of the Romans, all which the Evangelists had forgotten: for either of these, or of any other news that ever Jesus Christ brought out of Limbo, out of Purgatory or out of Hell we find not one syllable in all the new Testament. The soldier raised again of whom S. Gregory Dialogue 4. cap. 36. doth make mention, and one Nicholas mentioned in the legend of S. Patrick who by a Cave that he found in Ireland, entered into Purgatory, at their return related his things as they had seen below, more exactly: As that they had seen men fried in frying pans: others fluttering about the chimneys like small flames: a bridge of ice of two fingers broad, under the which ran a torrent of fire, and over this bridge must they pass that were to enter into Paradise. Thus grew the world very skilful and a good boy: but to the detriment of the purity and simplicity of the Gospel. Lastly he saith that Under the old Testament they had no such means to relieve the dead, as they had after that the merits of jesus Christ were committed into the hands of the Church to apply them. These are three principles forged in the Vatican to underprop the Pope's greatness & to bring in the traffic for souls: first that the dead could not be so well relieved before the coming of Jesus Christ as now they are Secondly, that the merits of Jesus Christ are now in the Church's hands to apply them. Thirdly that these merits of the death and passion of jesus Christ were never passed over to the Church until since the coming of jesus Christ, since which time the dead have been the better relieved. And this is to be noted, that by the Church we are to understand the Pope, who taketh upon him to be the Guardian and treasury of this treasure of the Church, where he shutteth up the merits and supererogatory satisfactions both of jesus Christ and of the Saints & Monks. And this we cannot find very strange: Dist. 95. causa satis. and in the last council of Lateran, sess. 9 Extrav. De facund. Eccl. Can. quoniam. for having assumed to himself the name of God, & of the divine Majesty: and the name of Jesus Christ, and terming himself the Spouse of the church, it is no great matter for him to take the name of the Spouse of Jesus also. Let us now therefore proceed to the examination of these three principles. For the first. That the dead could not be so well relieved before the coming of jesus Christ as since: I demand whether he speaketh of the relief of man, or of the relief of God. To say that God hath now better means to relieve the dead than he had before is Blasphemy. His power and goodness are ever infinite and without increase, and crave no help of any new means: but if he speak of the relief of man, I ask him who imparted to them now those means that their forefathers had not? The Monk no doubt will say that God gave them to them: them belike God had them. If he had then I suppose he would then have bestowed them as well as men do in these days: whereof it must follow that the faithful that lived before jesus Christ, might by prayers and sacrifices have entreated God to employ those means which since he hath committed into hands the of men. Wherefore did they not? Wherefore was there in the law no sacrifice for the dead? Nor no public service instituted by God? Thus doth this difficulty still remain unresolved. The second principle is, That the merits of jesus Christ were committed into the hands of the Church to apply them. 1. Tim. 2.6. A doctrine as far repugnant from the gospel, as helping to the Pope's commodity. For by the scripture it plainly appeareth, That jesus Christ offered himself 〈◊〉 ransom to God for us to whom we were indebted and enthralled to eternal pain and imprisonment. This ransom than did God receive at his sons hands: If he received it, when did he again dispossess himself of it, to pass it over into the Pope's hands? May it be lawful for us in a matter of such importance, which concerneth the participation in the merits of Jesus Christ, to speak without the authority of the word of God. Again, what prodigious dealing is this: that a creditor having received of his debtor's surety the ransom for many prisoners, should deliver the same over into the hands of some one of his prisoners, to apply it to the rest? It is a matter not only without example, but even besides all reason. All men do know that in such a case it is enough that the creditor or detainer receive the ransom, and that the debtor or prisoner reap and enjoy the benefit. God hath for me received the full ransom by the hands of my surety & redeeme● jesus Christ: God then hath it with himself, therefore will I go neither to the Pope nor to any other to entreat them to distribute it to me, but will rely only upon jesus Christ and will trust to his death, and in acknowledgement of so great a favour, will consecrate my life to his service. The pastors are set over us to preach this benefit to the penitent sinner, & to let him understand that he is reconciled to God: also that whosoever believeth in jesus Christ, shall through his name obtain remission of his sins. Act. 10.43. If our friar shall yet invent any reason to prove it to be necessary that the Pope or his Prelates should be the treasurers and dispensers of the merits of jesus Christ, he shall but skirmish with himself: for he shall find the same necessities before the coming of jesus Christ: considering that both quick and dead in that age stood in no less necessity of God's graces than they that live in these days. Again if the Pope have in his treasury the merits of jesus Christ & his Saints, to distribute them to others, how cometh it that he taketh none to himself? Or why doth he not keep for himself so many as may serve to keep him out of Purgatory? How is it that after his death they say so many Masses for his soul? Must silly Priests by their Masses and suffrages apply & bestow the merits of jesus Christ and his Saints upon him who distributing them to others, yea even so far forth as to grant to some one an hundred thousand year: of plenary pardon, could not reserve enough for himself, albeit [if we list to believe him] himself continually carried the keys of this treasure even to his last gasp? Where note withal that if the distributing and applying of the merits of jesus Christ to the faithful, be a part of the Pastor's charge, it followeth that the dead have no part in this the Pope's liberality, considering that he is no longer their pastor. Now let the reader judge whether this gay principle be not a butteresse or prop to support tyranny: that the people may think that they cannot participate in the merits of jesus Christ, but by the hands of the Pope, or of such as he doth authorize thereunto. The third principle is the worst, and as it were upon the highest step of impiety: and therefore it is our duty to cast it down headlong. The merits of jesus Christ (saith he) were not in the hands of the Church under the old Testament, as now they are, and therefore there were not so good means to relieve the dead. But here we will set down another principle, gathered out of the word of God. That is, that the merits of jesus Christ were of power sufficient to save the faithful even from the beginning of the world, as saith St. Paul, 2. Cor. 5.19. God was in Christ and reconciled the world to himself, not imputing their sins unto them. Therefore in the Revelation is he called, The Lamb slain from the beginning of the world. This merit was then with God and full of efficacy, before the coming of jesus Christ in the flesh. Let us then by this rule examine our Doctor's principle. Before the coming of jesus Christ in the flesh, the merit of jesus Christ was with God: not in the hands of the Church. Then [saith this Doctor] the dead had the less help: but since the Pope and his Prelates had these merits in their hands, the dead have been much better relieved, the merits therefore of jesus Christ are in better hands and more liberal. Is it because God is not so well affected to the dead as the Pope? Or because the Pope is more liberal of another's goods then the true owner? O spirit of Satan! O dullness of man! O patience of God And shall not God revenge such abominable profanation of his glory? Or such evident corruption of his word? Let us lament & confess that our sins have deserved a greater blindness. Yet in the mean time we must not forget that our adversaries do commit the merits of Jesus Christ into the Pope's hand, that he may apply them both to the quick and to the dead: & that they say, that since he was treasurer the dead have been much better relieved, it must needs follow that not only the dead before the coming of jesus Christ were but slenderly relieved but also the living: so with like reason may we say that the prayers for the living under the old Testament were nothing so frequent and public as they have been since the merits of jesus Christ fell into the hands of the Church to apply them: but this the friar dare not advow. Thus is falsehood detected and laid open, and the spirit of blasphemy put to confusion. Now in all this discourse the friars drift tendeth to yield some probable reason why the prayers and sacrifices for the dead are not so frequent in the old Testament: wherein he practiseth two frauds. First in saying they were not frequent, he underhand leaves it to be presupposed that they were used sometimes, which is false. For thereof we find neither example, nor commandment in all the old Testament. Secondly, in seeking to excuse the want in the old Testament, he giveth occasion to the ignorant to think that the same were very frequent in the new, which also is false. For in the new Testament we hear no more news thereof then in the old. Only there is one place that instructeth us how the faithful should bear themselves towards the dead, wherein there is not any speech of suffrages, Purgatory, or Indulgences. The place is in the Thessalonians, 1.4.13. in these words. I would not brethren have you ignorant as concerning them that are asleep. That you sorrow not, even as others that have no hope: for if we believe that jesus is dead, and is risen again, even so then which sleep in jesus will God bring with him. Herein is nothing that cometh any thing near the traffic and trade of these days. The whole sum of this Chapter is this, that the holy Scripture is sufficient to instruct us to salvation: that it ought to decide these controversies: that the sacrifices & suffrages for the dead, with the fetching of souls out of Purgatory by Bulls and Indulgences, are neither by God instituted or commanded, and that even by the confessions of our adversaries; who in all their burning books cannot produce any commandment of God touching the same; but to shroud themselves do produce other points, which they pretend to be omitted in the holy Scriptures. Being deprived of these weapons, which are their surest, they shelter themselves under others: and wanting the Commandments of God, they have recourse to examples, allegories, & conjectures, even as men that catch up stones, when they have no swords. We will show you as it were at high noon, that their examples are false, their allegories frivolous, their conjectures vain, & their consequences violent and strained against the hair. This is it which in the fourth Chapter we will prove. But now let us quench their Purgatory with the waters of God's word: for that once extinguished their Indulgences & Masses for the dead, must needs fall and decay. CAP. 3. That the holy Scripture subverteth Purgatory: and that there is no satisfaction or washing away of sins, but only the blood of jesus Christ, and consequently, that the Pope's Indulgences are of no use to the dead. IN the 18. Vers. 21.22 of the Prophet Ezechiel God saith thus. If the wicked will return from all the sins that he hath committed, & keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live & not dy● I will not remember all his iniquities. Call ye it not to remember any more, when ye put the sinner to feel his punishment in a burning fire of so long continuance, and to keep him in a prison from the which [as our adversaries say] he shall not be delivered until he hath paid the uttermost penny? The Friar could by no means avoid this place but by corrupting of the text. For instead of these words return from all his sins, he saith, do penance: and by this penance, he understandeth to scourge himself: to fast: to run on pilgrimage to give to the Church, etc. But if he could have read the Hebrew, he should have found jashuv, he shall return, or turn aside: As indeed amendment of life is the true and necessary penance, which is a returning to God, commended unto us by S. john Baptist, saying, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Repent you, or Amend you, and St. john, Revel. 2. speaking to the Church of Ephesus, which had lost her first charity, commandeth her to repent, and to do her first works. But in our days that penance which them was a virtue, is now become a ceremony, and from a spiritual changing is now become a bodily exercise. Superstition hath now brought religion to the fingers ends, to counterfeitings, to gestures, to scourge, to fastings, to pilgrimages, to pecuniary satisfactions, to wear a haire-shirt, to a friars cowl, to a walking up and down with a wallet, etc. Here hence grew the condemnation of Luther in the end of the Council of Lateran, Bul. Exurge. Domine. Optima paenitentia nova vita. because among other the heresies to him imputed, he said that of all penances Amendment of life was the best, Esa. 58.5.6. and yet it is the word of God saying to his people, Rend your hearts and not your clothes: Also that the true fast consisted in losing the bands of wickedness, and breaking his bread to the hungry. Fron this fountain proceedeth the use to wear some words of the Gospel about men's necks, when they should keep the substance of them in their hearts: to wear a cross on the breast or in the hat, when they should take up the cross of Christ and rejoice in his sufferingt. Thus our Monk by doing of justice and judgement, which signifieth to deal uprightly, and to give to every man his own, understandeth it to chastise a man's self, showing himself a Novice in the phrase of the old Testament where this word judgement signifieth equity and upright dealing. As in Deut. 32 4. Daniel. 4.37. The Auctor of the fire of Helie answereth otherwise: [for they seldom concur in their answers] he will have these words I will no more remember to signify, Pag. 6. I will not punish as an enemy, that is to say, with eternal punishment. By his account the keeping of a man many thousands of years in a fire for his sin, signifieth not to remember his sin. How often did David pray to God to remember his sins and wickedness of his enemies: yet not so that he desired that God should punish them with eternal punishment. After all this the friar maketh a digression, wherein he chargeth us with sundry slanders, but all besides the matter. 2 Gods Angel, Revelat. 14.13, saith thus, Blessed are the dead that hereafter die in the Lord, yea truly, the spirit saith that they rest from their labours, & their works follow them. Surely if they rest from their labours, they go not into a burning fire. This speech concerneth not the Martyrs only, as our adversaries do feign: for throughout that whole chapter there is not any word of the Martyrs, but of all such as keep the commandments of God, & faith of jesus, as it is said one line before. But if the Martyrs only do die in the Lord, in whom do the rest of the faithful die? Bellarmine saith they die in part in the Lord, and in part not in the Lord: Bellarm. de Purgat. lib. 6. cap. 1. he was ashamed to say in part in the Lord, and in part in the devil. 3 Esay, cap. 57 v. 1. & 2. saith, The righteous perisheth and is taken away from the evil, than he addeth, He shall enter in peace, or, peace shall come: they shall rest in their beds, every one that hath walked before him. Why did he not except those that go to Purgatory? or what peace or rest is there in a burning fire? And this is the point wherein the Friar is brought into such a strait that his only recourse is to his ordinary boldness, Pag. 19 and laboureth to make this passage a means to establish his Purgatory. He affirmeth it to be a prayer of Esay for the dead, and to make it the more probable, in lieu of these words, Peace shall come, he saith, let peace come, also for They do rest he saith, let them rest contrary to the truth of the original Hebrew, which hath javo, that is to say, shall come and januchu, they shall rest. Yet let us thus far yield all this to his ignorance in the Hebrew tongue: but herein doth he show his bad meaning, even in this, that he affirmeth it to be a prayer of Esay: sith by the words ensuing it appeareth that they be the words of God, who saith Ye witches children come hither, ye seed of the adulterer and of the whore draw near: Whom have ye mocked etc. and again. Can I be content with all these things, and thou hast discovered thyself behind me? Throughout all this Chapter God opposeth the blessed estate of the righteous against the curse prepared for the wicked. 4 S. Paul to the Corinthians saith. 2. Cor. 5.1. If our earthly habitation be destroyed, we have an eternal building in heaven. But why did he not add, but that shall be after you are purged with fire? 5 The Apostle in the 9 to the Hebrews, saith. It is ordained that all men shall once die, & after that the judgement: He forgot Purgatory, that should have gone between. For throughout the holy Scripture we find not any other judgement spoken of after death, but the last and universal judgement. 6 In the 20. Matt. the labourers do all receive their promised wages towards the end of the day, that is to say, in the end of their lives and when their works is done: but Purgatory can be no part of this labour, as the auctor of the fire of Helie would have it to be: for in that place they speak only of labouring in the Lord's vineyard, which is his church: which hath no community with any torment in fire. Again, Purgatory cannot be the last hour of the day, because they make it continue much longer than all the life. Besides that even in this last hour some labourers are called and hired, but in Purgatory no man is called to the service of God. 7 In the holy Scriptures we have many examples of men received into Paradise immediately after their decease, but no example of any soul sent into Purgatory: Luk. 2.26. Simeon had a promise that he should not see death before he had seen the Messiah. S. Paul. 2. Tim. 4. saith, that after he had fought the good fight there remained no more but to receive the crown of glory. And S, Luk, cap. 1● saith that the Angels carried the soul of Lazarus into Abraham's bosom: where he was comforted whiles the ●ich man was tormented, but of any passage to Purgatory, either to or fro, we hear no news. 8 jesus Christ said to the good thief This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise. This thief was surely a great sinner, & satisfied civil justice either for theft or murder. But where had he made satisfaction to God for all his sins committed all the days of his life? He that was converted to God in the very article of his death? But God requireth no satisfactory pains of such as do repent: but for them he doth accept of the obedience and death of jesus Christ who hath sufficiently satisfied aswell for our sins as for the punishment due to our sins. The auctor of the fire of Helie, with the rest will needs have this privilege to be granted to this thief in regard of the greatness of his faith, of his hope, of his charity, of his zeal, etc. wherein they do the more accuse themselves. 2. By exalting the faith of the thief, they do at unawares confess that in case we have a steadfast faith in jesus Christ we shall not come in Purgatory. 3. Herein also they do confess that it standeth with the justice of God freely and without imposing any satisfactory pains to pardon, always provided that the sinner have a steadfast faith and hope in jesus Christ. 4. How could this thief at God's hand merit this privilege by his faith and hope: considering that God endued him with this faith? For what kind of merit is this, to receive the gifts and graces of God with a steadfast faith, which faith also God gave him, who giveth not only the benefits, but also the means to receive them? And the same do I say also of other virtues which were the gifts and effects of the spirit of God in him: For it is God that worketh the will and the deed saith S. Paul, Phil. 2.13. 2. Cor. 3.6. and without him we cannot think any good, saith the same Apostle. 5. Let us step yet farther. We demand how, where, or when the thief bore the satisfactory pains for his sin towards God? But here in lieu of answering directly they stand upon the magnifying and extolling of the faith, charity, and zeal of this thief: but to what purpose, seeing virtues are no satisfactory pains, but rather lenitives, and props to strengthen and fortify the soul against all the griefs thereof. 6. That which I hold to be the principal in this case is this. That these our Masters do make the charity, zeal & patience of this thief in a moment to be of so great merit as to exempt him from the torments of Purgatory: yet that they will not grant that the charity of the faithful that are in this burning fire, their zeal, or any other the virtues which in these souls were in greater perfection than they were in the thief [in that he was yet a sinner] could have any merit, or power to draw them out of this fire. But wherefore should they by their magisterial authority take from these poor souls the power of meriting but only by prolonging the torments of the dead, the consciences of the living being the more astonished, might be stirred up to redeem them whiles they may by masses, anniverssaries, & gifts to the Church? yea and that so far forth as to persuade the people that an offering for the dead being by a survivor offered, was of power and merit to free the dead from that torment: and yet that in the dead himself neither his faith, neither his charity, neither his patience, no not the torments of many years have any merit, or can move God to abridge this torment? 7. Hereto let us also adjoin thus much, that the punishment that the thief suffered, being deserved, inevitable and by civil justice imposed upon him, could not be counted for a satisfactory work to God: for he ought voluntarily to have vndergon it, and by order of the Church, not by sentence of the Magistrate, especially according to the doctrine of the Romish Church. ●. Moreover is it not a mere mockage ●o say that the exemption from ente●ing into Purgatory was a privilege granted to this thief, Bellarm. lib. 1. cap 8 Privilegia paucorum legem non faciunt. considering that throughout all the word of God we cannot find the example of any one that ever went into Purgatory? Privileges are extraordinary; but here they seek to make that which is ordinary and without exception in the word of God to pass for a privilege. 9 In this also do they much forget themselves, that they will here bring in privileges, where the matter concerneth the justice of God, which [saith these men] after the pardon of the fault, will nevertheless have us to satisfy for the pain. If then God's justice hath suffered one man to enter into Paradise without any satisfactory pain for his sins, why should it not suffer two? If two why not ten? If ten why not a hundred or a thousand, and so forth infinite. Our Reverend writers of fires, furnaises and torrents do give way to the main body of these reasons as being to great, too strong, and too close set together, and having hidden themselves, do afterward make semblance to appear, Pag. 68, but far enough of. The auctor of the fire of Helie, no grief to his person, hath made us a little merry, for supposing that he hath found some new matter to make this privilege currant saith that the blood of jesus Christ which they boiled and sprang upon the thief, carried him immediately into eternal felicity. Where found he this? Did the blood of jesus Christ spring forth but on one side, and so the evi● thief through disgrace could obtains no aspersion of it? Or how could a few drops of blood, moistening the outward parts of the body bring forth so wholesome an effect? Considering that in the Mass they hold that the wicked do receive all jesus Christ inwardly, and y●● are never the better, nor more happy But now I remember where he found this fable: he remembered that blessed S. Longin, who pierced the side of jesus Christ and so recovered his sight for of that spear the Church of Rome hath made a speareman, and of that speereman a Saint. And why not? sith that of Deucalion & Pirrhaes casting of stones behind them men and women sprang up? That which he here produceth concerning the baptism of the thief on the Cross is already confuted in the first Chapter: and this man maketh the heathen Executioners to be baptizers of Christians. By all this it doth appear that together with this thief, Purgatory was crucified: for I am ashamed to produce the argument of these Doctors, who do make even this thief an advocate for Purgatory. The sire of Helie p. 67 For (say they) he craved succours, not in this life, for death was even between his jaws already: but after his death: he therefore believed that after death the souls stood in need of succours. Hereto do we answer that he craved indeed no succour for this life, neither for after this death: but even for the death itself, and for the departure of his soul, which jesus Christ entering into Paradise, took and brought with him into the celestial glory. But who can here forbear laughing at this Portugal, The boldness of this fire, p. 95. who would have the word Paradise here to signify hell? Or how can he fai● of an answer that suffereth himself solicentiously to interpret the Scriptures? 9 S. john in his first Epistle chap. 1. saith The blood of jesus Christ purgeth or cleanseth us from all sin. Our sins are the spots and uncleanness of our souls, and there be no other. jesus Christ purgeth and taketh them all away (saith S. john) then is there no more to purge so no more Purgatory. For albeit after all our offences pardoned there should yet remain some pain to be endured for the satisfying of the justice of God yet could not this punishment be called a Purgation, for who did ever here the whip or the gibbet called a Purgation for theft or murder? Pag 69. A slander. The fire of Helie slandering us answereth and maketh us to say that it is enough that jesus Christ satisfied for us, so as for our parts we need do nothing at all. An opinion which we abhor and leave to the profane and Libertines. Whereas we say that the punishment of a sin cannot be called a Purgation, the friar affirmeth the contrary, Pag 97. saying that it is never called otherwise: and to that end he allegeth many places wherein he pretendeth that to purge signifieth to punish and chastise. Passages which I am even ashamed to confute. The first maketh clean against him: all the rest are false. The Apostle to the Hebrews, chap. 1.3. saith jesus Christ hath by himself purged our sins. In this place [if we believe him] purgation signifieth punishment: whereupon it must follow that Jesus Christ hath made the punishment for our sins, whereas he did only bear it. Moreover sith this punishment and passion of jesus Christ was the cause of the purgation of our sins, it is not the purgation itself. And indeed himself [though falsely] maketh jeremy to say, Falsehood jerem. 11. The chastisements serve to purge us: Then is the chastisement one thing and the purgation an other: for the end of a matter is diverse from the means to attain thereto. Now follow two places out of Ecclesiasticus the 7. Two falsehood. Purge thyself by thine own arm: & purge thee of thy negligence. That is to say (saith the Monk) Chastise thyself. Let us overpass the folly of this explication: for both the places are falsely alleged. And in the Gteek which is the Original of this book we find no one word of all this: neither in any of the translations but the Roman: with the like falsehood have they alleged out of the 47. chapter of the same book ver. 11. these words: Christ purged his sins. But in the Greek it is, The Lord hath taken away his sins. The same likewise is false that they allege out of the third of Malac. Falsehood. The Lord shall purge the sons of Levy. For endeavouring to persuade that to purge signifieth to punish, he hath suppressed the words following, which do prove that to purge, in that place signifieth to purify, after the manner as they purge metals. The whole place is this. He shall even fine the sons of Levy and purify them as gold & silver. He here speaketh of purifying & cleansing the hearts by the efficacy of the spirit of God, as saith S. Peter, Act. 15. God purifieth the hearts by faith. After so many falsifications our Monk triumpheth and croweth like a cock on his own dunghill saying that we be the spirits of Satan, beasts and in his judgement fools: Let this pass, for it is the privilege of that rob: & this Monk is like his wallet that hath nothing but belly and throat. He therefore runneth on his course, and would feign prove that a torment may justly be called a Purgatory or purgation: These be his words. Is not the Medicine an affliction of the patiented, which serveth to evacuat his corrupt humours? In some he will have the physic to be a punishment, which we deny, especially considering that in this question of purgatory, we entreat only of punishment imposed to satisfy the party offended: for who ever took physic to the end thereby to be punished, unless you will have Socrates' poison taken for physic? Or who ever took physic to be a satisfaction for an offence? Let us glorify God and acknowledge God's judgements upon his adversaries, who after the loss of their consciences, have lost also all common sense. And this will more manifestly appear if we call to mind that here our question concerneth only that purgation for sin that is performed in Purgatory. We hear deal only with the purgation of sins past: of a cleansing of uncleanness that doth no longer remain: as well because the souls that do roast in this imaginary fire are already righteous and do sin no more, as because the sins that are purged in this fire were heretofore committed: whereof do ensue two evident absurdities: The one that this serveth to purge the uncleanness that is not, and to purify the souls already pure & free from sin: the other, that the fire doth grossly mistake in the examples & passages afore alleged, which speak of the purging of such uncleannesses as are still remaining in effect: for every physical medicine serveth to purge the humours offending, that actually are in the body. And God saith that he will purge the sons of Levy as men purge gold, that is, from those uncleannesses that in effect are, not from those that are taken away. Thus is this merchandise blown up, & this purgation grown ridiculous: & that doth more manifestly appear by the extravagant form of the Monk's speech, where he saith: That the pains do serve to purge us from those obligations of sin whereto it left us subject: for yet was there never man that had his judgement so far out of joint, as to say that he purgeth himself of an obligation when he dischargeth all that he was bound unto. But to monstrous divinity we must use monstrous terms. They therefore that reap most profit by this purgatory, may do wisely to seek it out some other name: because herein we find nothing to be purged. 10 Saint Paul saith, Rom. 3.24. that we are FREELY justified by the redemption that is in jesus Christ: If it be FREELY then do we pay nothing. The same Apostle, Colloss. 2.13. saith God hath forgiven or remitted all our trespasses: In the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, Gratis largitus est he pardoned freely: for so much the word importeth. The same Apostle also in the second to the Corinthians, 2.10. using the same word, saith, that he pardoned the incestuous, to whom he imposed no satisfactory pain after the pardon. He saith moreover All our offences that we may know that God doth not pardon to halves. All our offences thus taken away and pardoned, the satisfactory punishment is also taken away: for there cannot be any such punishment but in regard of the offence and the cause, which is the offence, that only produced this effect, being taken away, this effect is also taken away. Here unto also compare the saying of our adversaries: that in Purgatory venial sins are remitted: for if this be true, then S. Paul abused the Colossians in telling them that all their offences were remitted. Again is this any remission of sins, to punish them in a fire? The friar in lieu of answering, setteth down some principles, but so strange as the very propounding of them may serve for a sufficient Confutation. God, saith he, pardoneth us freely, but there resteth an obligation to his justice, which must of necessity be satisfied. As if he should have said, God doth pardon and acquit us freely, yet not freely, be cause we are not acquitted of the Obligation to the pain, but that we must satisfy the same. This is even the like: God, saith he, doth freely pardon our offences, but yet he dischargeth us not of the Obligation to satisfy to his justice: Can he more evidently contradict himself? Considering that to pardon a criminal person. is no more but to free him from the pain where to by the justice of the Law he standeth bound? Thus the auctor of the fire of Helie saith, That God forgiveth all our debts, yet, saith he, with some contribution of our parts. Now if that which we contribute be held for payment and satisfaction, as our Doctors would have it, who perceiveth not that God acquitteth us not of all our debts? Thus doth the spirit of Contradiction confound itself. But what need so many by ways, when they might cut it clean of & frankly say that God doth not acquit us freely. As indeed the Friar in many places saith as much: in his 99, page in these words. God pardoneth the sin, howbeit for the satisfaction of his justice, he appointeth the chastisement: The ●ing pardoneth a gentleman for some murder committed, yet condemneth him in great ●ines. Sith then the pardon, whereby the capital pain is converted into pecuniary, and so is no full pardon, but a diminution of pain, it manifestly appeareth that our adversaries do hold that the pardon which God granteth us is no full or free pardon. Hereto come their words. That God doth freely remit the fault but not the pain: the eternal pain, but not the temporal: for he that freely forgiveth his debtor the one part of his debt, but not all, cannot be said freely to give or acquit the whole debt. Neither can the pardon be said to be full when there is a necessity imposed upon the debtor to pay or suffer punishment for the sin, be it in the whole, or in a part. 11 Herein also appeareth the folly of their distinction between the fault and the pain. The Friar saith, Pag. 75. that the sin bringeth with it two things, A faul● and a pain. Had this good man been perfect in his natural language, the absurdity of his principle had been apparent: for the word Culpa, or fault in his language signifieth sin; witness the Priests words when in his Mass lie beateth his breast and saith, Mea culpa, it is my sin: also jacobs' words to Laban for what sin of mine? Gen. 13.36 What fault have I committed? And the like throughout all the holy scripture. Now let the reader iudg● whether the friar had dined when he writ or no; when he saith that sin bringeth with it the fault, that is to say sin. The examination of the distinction between pain and fault. Upon this worthy distinction between the pain and the fault is Purgatory grounded: and this pin once plucked out the whole frame falleth out of joint. They say then that God doth indeed acquit us of all the fault, but not of all the pain. A saying not only unjust but even incompatible. 1 The uniustness hereof is evident: for no man is justly punished but for his fault: and the fault taken away the offender is no longer guilty: and being no longer guilty, he cannot justly be punished. These Doctors therefore do blemish & dry up the righteousness of God. 2 The Incompatibility hereof is likewise manifest, In that they say God doth forgive us all our offences: yet punisheth them in a burning fire: both to pardon and yet to punish one self offence, are matters incompatible. And when we forgive our neighbour all his offences against us we use not to say, I forgive thee the fault, yet will I punish thee: or I acquit thee of thy debt, yet shalt thou pay me. But as saith Tertullian in his fifth book of baptism, Exemp to reatu, eximitur poena. 3 Again sith our sins be debts to the justice of God, as jesus Christ witnesseth where he teacheth us to say Forgive us our debts, of which debts the payment was pain & satisfaction, shall we not sin even against common sense, if we affirm that God forgiveth all the debt, but not all the payment? Thus do● our Master's shadow us forth chimeras and monsters in the air. 4 Let us proceed. How is it possible that by the death of jesus Christ we should be purged, quit, and delivered from all our trespasses, but not from the punishment due to our trespasses Considering that he did not otherwise bear our sins and offences, but by bearing the pain due to them: & if he did bear the pain, did he not bear it to the end to discharge us from it? Si tulit, abstulit. He hath borne our infirmities & carried our sorrows, saith Esay 53.4. To what end? Even to discharge us from them. And this is it that S. Austin saith in his 37 sermon upon the words of the lord jesus Christ taking upon him the punishment but not the sin, hath abolished both the sin and the punishment. 5 Throughout all this discourse this is to be noted, that all our speech concerneth such pains as are payments, redemptions and satisfactions to the justice of God: for these our Doctors do term Purgatory a payment & satisfaction to the justice of God: These be the punishments which we say to be in compatible with a full pardon. There is an other kind of punishment which is termed castigatory, and this is inflicted for amendment of the sinner, and hath great affinity with the full pardon: for God doth chastise his children, even after he hath pardoned them. Such chastisements are not payments and satisfactions to content the justice of God, but fatherly corrections to bring the sinner to amendment. They are not executions of his justice, but testimonies of his fatherly love & care: not wounds but salves: and these can in no wise concur with the tormenrs of Purgatory, wherein it is said that the souls are already just and can amend no more. As therefore we use to strike a man fallen into an Apoplexy, not to get any satisfaction at his hands, but to awaken him: so God smiteth his children, when they sleep in their sins, to make them feel their negligence. He that otherwise interpreteth the afflictions that God sendeth and taketh them not for corrections, health some to his soul, but for satisfactions necessary to the justice of God, he maketh his afflictions bitter, & dippeth their edges in gall, taking from them the spiritual consolations, glory and joy, that supporteth the children of God in this combat. Necessity is a miserable consolation, It hardeneth the sore, but healeth it not: It raiseth the courage against the pain, but assuageth it not. For what mitigation is it to the afflicted to tell him that his sore is past cure: and that of necessity he must satisfy the justice of God? Or how could S. Paul have so boasted of his tribulations, had he believed they had been payments which God did exact of him for his sins? This doctrine being so healthful, so full of consolation, and so evidently laid down in the holy Scripture, namely that God chastiseth us for our amendment, yet this friar Minor with a desperate presumption dareth avouch it to be a reason forged in our own brain without the word of God, without authority, Pag. 78. and without reason. Hereupon therefore let us hear the word of God herein. The Apostle to the Hebrews, cap. 12. saith, God chasteneth us for our profit, to the end we may be partakers of his holiness. Again, Discipline bringeth the quiet fruit of righteousness to those that are exercised therein. How often doth God say that he chasteneth those whom he loveth. Apoc. 3.19 Heb. 12.6. job 5.17. Prov. 3.11. David in the 119. Psalm confesseth that before he was afflicted he went a stray, but after his afflictions he kept the commandments of God. And again, It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I may learn thy Statutes. 2. Chro. 33 Was not Manasses for his conversion indebted to his captivity? And are not we for David's Psalms indebted to Saul and Absalon? For the building of the Church of God in our days, are not we indebted to the Martyrdom and torments that our fathers endured for the Gospel? By the word of God and experience we find other ends of our afflictions then satisfaction and redemption to the justice of God. Therefore saith chrysostom in his Homely of confession & penance, that God punisheth us not for the sins past, Non exigens supplicium de peccatis sed ad futura nos corrigens but correcteth us for that that is to come. Here do our adversaries rouse themselves and seek all means to underprop their so ruinous a cause, and to persuade that to pardon a sin, & yet to punish it with satisfactory pains: to acquit a debt and yet to make the debtor pay it are things compatible, & such as do well agree. This doth the Friar prove by a Theological reason. Among all the works of God [saith he] do equally shine his mercy and his justice: a proposition that beareth many exceptions. Pag. 75. As in the punishment of Devils, we find sovereign justice without mercy. And God doth often minister the one without the other, as himself saith in the Epistle of S. james, cap. 2. There shall be judgement merciless to him that showeth no mercy. Only in the work of redemption is this proposition true: his mind is, that in the justification of a sinner God's mercy should be displayed in conferring unto him the first grace and remission of eternal pains. And to give some way to his justice, he will have it to take some satisfaction of the sinner by punishing him with temporal pains as well in this life as in Purgatory. Wherein I beseech the Reader to consider the nature of the untruth, which consisteth in wrangling and jarring with his own principles. The friar said that among all the works of God his mercy & his justice did shine equally: but here he maketh them altogether unequal: In that mercy revealeth herself in pardoning an infinite pain, but justice showeth herself in making them suffer temporal punishments, which nevertheless may be abridged and redeemed by some fasts, and slight offerings made by the survivors for the dead. Was it meet to seek place for the justice of God where we might abase it so low, and dishonour it in paying it in such base coin and clipped mony● Even this might serve for an evident and most mighty testimony to the truth, if we prove that according to our belief, gathered out of the word of God, the justice of God and his mercy do equally shine in the work of our redemption & are likewise infinite. For God hath showed himself infinitely just in accepting at the hands of our pledge and redeemer jesus Christ a sufficient price for all our offences: also infinitely merciful, in allowing to us this payment, as made in our name. His wisdom hath united things which otherwise seemed hardly to agree: having found a means to punish all our sins, and withal to forgive them all, by giving to us his son, the object of his justice, for an argument and matter of his mercy. But to pardon a man all his sins and yet to make the same man to bear one part of the deserved punishment for satisfaction for the same, are matters contradictory. The fire of Helie speaketh no better to the purpose. Adam [saith he] had pardon for his sin, and yet both he and his posterity have incurred many calamities. 1. Hereto we do answer, that to no end he here cometh in with the pains and sorrows that are common to all men, sith that in this place we deal only with punishments proper to the children of God. 2. He deceiveth himself in thinking that the evils and pains for all men are punishments for the sin of Adam. For they are punishments because men do persist in the sin of Adam. God never punisheth one man for another man's sin. The child shall not bear the iniquity of his father, saith Ezechiell. 18.20. True it is that so many Calamities had never befallen mankind, had not Adam sinned: but yet this standeth ever firm, That God never punisheth any before they have thoroughly deserved it. 3. He presupposeth that which is false and yet in question: namely that the pains whereto the faithful be subjecteth by the sin of Adam, be satisfactions, payments and redemptions to the justice of God. For of this kind of pains do we now entreat, because they make Purgatory to be of this nature. We say then that all these evils, labours, diseases, yea even death itself, do alter their nature in the faithful: and of evils become medicines. Of satisfactory pains they are made healthsome exercises to the soul: God by the wounds of the body healeth the wounds of the soul: even in like manner as a triakle composed of venomous Ingrediences, yet tempered by a skilful Physician becometh a very healthsome preservative. The like do we say of the death of the faithful. It resembleth the passage over the red sea, where God's enemies are swallowed up: but his children do find way to the promised inheritance. furthermore if it be a punishment to satisfy the justice of God wherefore do the faithful expect it with joy, and in their desires even hasten the coming of it, as did the Apostle S. Paul. Phil. 1.13. Besides these reasons they allege many examples as of Mary, Moses, David who were punished after their offences were forgiven. Namely David whose example they do urge: 2. Sam. 12. Where God having forgiven him his sin, said nevertheless unto him, The sword shall not departed from thy house, because thou hast despised me. Again, Because thou hast given the lords enemies cause to blaspheme his name, thy child shall die. There is not say they, to the end thou shouldest not cause to blaspheme. Likewise in the 7. of Micheas: I will bear the wrath of the Lord, because I have sinned against him: wherein their judgement faileth them: for they labour to prove that which we do grant. Who denieth but that the sins of the faithful are the efficient causes of the chastisementes that God layeth upon them? And that they fall upon them because they have sinned? But our controversy dependeth not upon the efficient cause but upon the final. They say that it is to the end that God's justice may be satisfied by the punishment of the sin: we say that it is to the end A sinner may amend. They will have it. That God punisheth as a just judge: we that he punisheth us as a loving father: not to exercise his justice, but correct our unrighteousness: for as for the satisfaction due to his justice, the merits of Jesus Christ are a sufficient satisfaction. The father that punisheth his children to take satisfaction, putteth of his natural affections & correcteth them, not for their amendment, but to satisfy his own content. Now if this be an Inhuman justice in a father, what shall we think of our heavenly father who is bounty itself? And who in his word assureth us that albeit the mother should forsake the fruit of her womb, yet will he never forsake us? Never shall we serve God with a filial obedience, unless we be fully persuaded of his fatherly love toward us. The Friar allegeth yet two examples more, Pag. 76. yet both false according to his custom. The one in the 14. of Numbers, where God having forgiven his people their sin, doth nevertheless deprive them from entering into the land of promise: for by the 4. of the Apostle to the Hebrews it appeareth that even they that were excluded from the land of promise, were also shut out out of the celestial rest. The pardon therefore that God granted, was only the grant of Moses petition, who desired God that he would not utterly root out the people of Israel. But hear we are not in hand with any such kind of pardon. In an other place he produceth the example of Baptism and saith in Baptism God pardoneth Original sin, but not the pains thereof, as subjection to death, the fire of concupiscence, with other calamities. Concerning the death of the faithful we have spoken before and proved that it is no calamity unto them, Pag. 100 The Counsel of Trent Ses. 5. saith that Paul calleth concupiscence a sin, but it is no sin neither any satisfaction to the justice of God. And as for the fire of concupiscence, the friar is mistaken, in bringing that for an example of the punishment for sin, which in itself is a sin and in the law forbidden. This main thus overthrown which made the body and principal of our adversaries reasons, let us now thrust forward and yield the truth an absolute victory. 12 God commanding us to pray that he would forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us, showeth that we are to attend from him forgiveness in like manner as he willeth us to forgive our neighbours, that is to say, without revenging ourselves, or taking any satisfaction or amends in all or in part. After therefore that he hath forgiven us all our offences, as S. Paul witnesseth, shall he yet draw one payment out of so tedious & burning a fire? 13 Farther yet to urge this matter presupposing that there is a purgatory, I demand whether jesus Christ doth in heaven intercede for the souls there tormented, Rom. 8.27. and pray for their deliverance: for S. Paul teacheth us that jesus Christ sitteth at the right hand of God making intercession for us. Dare they say that he intercedeth no more for those souls, and that in their behalfs he hath given over the office of a mediator? But if he pray for them, no doubt but God heareth him, john. 11.22 and so they come forth at his intercession: to what end then do now serve those offerings and suffrages of the living, with the Pope's Indulgences, but to that which jesus Christ hath already done? 14 Again sith the death of jesus Christ is sufficient to redeem us, even out of Purgatory, why may it not serve to that use? jesus Christ having paid all the pain and penalty that we did owe will not God receive this payment & ransom for so much as it is worth? God who saved us when we were his enemies, envieth not our good, neither abateth any part of the price of the death of his son neither will he ever permit that jesus Christ having paid enough wholly to satisfy his justice and to exempt us from Purgatory, that in this case the benefit of his son should be shortened unto us. Also the Apostle to the Hebrews, cap. 7. v. 15. saith, He is able perfectly to save them that come to God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. If he then can perfectly save us, why will he not do it? and being able fully to acquit us towards God, shall his power to do it be greater than his willingness? Can he be content to see his brethren, his members, his spouse for one sin tormented seven years in a fire like to that of hell? To such forcible reasons my adversaries do answer very coldly, or rather not at all. For they answer themselves, not my objections: They labour to show how our satisfactions and the pains of their Purgatory may no way derogatfrom the merits of jesus Christ: but they answer nothing to my demand; what the reason is that jesus Christ having paid enough wholly to satisfy the justice of God & to exempt us from Purgatory, they will not suffer that his benefit should stead us so much? Yet do we show them that they do not only fly, but also in flying do blaspheme, blemish the brightness, and curtal the perfection of the merits and satisfaction of jesus Christ. Then say they that the merit of jesus Christ is indeed sufficient: but it must be applied unto us, and that cannot be but by means: then among other means they come in with our satisfactions and pains, and the torments of Purgatory. 1. Hereto we say, Rom. 10.17 1. Cor 10. Gal. 3.27. Ephes. 3.17 that it belongeth to the word of God and not to them to prescribe unto us the means to enjoy the benefit of jesus Christ: and the means that that doth set us down is faith, the word, and the sacraments: but but in no wise any roasting of souls, of any fire after this life. 2. Next let any man of understanding be judge whether the means to enjoy the benefit of jesus Christ, aught to be contrary to the benefit itself: The means of taking profit by physic consisteth not in taking of poison: The means to enjoy the light of the sun resteth not in shutting up the windows of the house or the windows of the body, that is the eyes. Sith therefore that the benefit of jesus Christ and his satisfaction is the sovereign pledge of the mercy o● God: what likelihood is there that the means to enjoy it can consist in the execution of the justice of God? An● sith the satisfaction of jesus Christ i● our acquittance towards God: what appearance is there that the means to attain to it, can rest in forcing us to pay, and tormenting us in a fire some hundreds or thousands of years? We are not to omit that the means to apprehend the grace offered unto us in Iesu● Christ ought to be active and tending to the enjoying thereof, and not a passion or torment. 4. That the means to apply to ourselves, or to apprehend a thing ought to be of another kind than the thing apprehended or applied: as we cannot apply one medicine by another; one plaster by another: or the satisfaction of jesus Christ by any other satisfaction. To all this our adversaries have not a word, and do as meanly acquit themselves as before they did licentiously triumph. Thus do these bellows of the fire of Purgatory, these his holiness factors, chatter about the benefit of jesus Christ with craft and subtlety, and pleasantly seek to colour their fact, and sweenten the superficies with poison: for at the shutting up of all they do abase and bring to nought the benefit of jesus Christ. And indeed in the fire of Helie it is said that this principle That jesus Christ hath wholly satisfied, The fire of Helie, p. 75 maketh men careless. They also affirm that man can satisfy God Ex Condigno that is to say, Dem. Soto disp. 2. quest. 2. Art. 3. in 4 sententiarum, Navar. Notab. 22. Num. 10. de jubileo. by equipollent satisfactions, & that not for themselves only, but also for others: as divers of them do teach. Bellarmine he goeth farther: for in his first book of Purgatory, cap. 10. he saith that men are their own redeemers, & do themselves redeem their sins. Yea he proceedeth so far that he will acknowledge no other actual or real satisfactions but our own: for he holdeth that the satisfaction of jesus Christ serveth only to make ours of force: and therefore S. Paul told us an untruth when he said that jesus Christ gave himself a ransom for us; 1. Tim. 2. for he maketh us only to pay the ransom, and giveth price and weight to our satisfactions. But these principles do we deny & detest, as new Articles of faith forged without any testimony of the word of God, as the Cross of the cross of jesus Christ, and an alter built out of the ruins of the gospel whereupon to erect and advance human satisfactions. Man cannot attribute to himself any part of his ransom, neither share out this glory between jesus Christ & the sinner without blemishing of jesus Christ, plucking him from his cross and treading under foot the blood of the covenant, the only price of our redemption. There is no salvation in any other, saith S. Peter. And Hebrews 10. With one offering hath he for ever consecrated them that are sanctified. Again, We have one God and one mediator between God & man, which is the man jesus Christ who gave himself a ransom for us, saith S. Paul. 1. Tim. 2.5.6. how then dare our adversaries say that sinful man is a redeemer of himself: Bellar. lib. 1. Indulg. c. 4. or that the saints by their superabundant satisfactions are by any means our Redeemers, as Bellarmine saith? Our enemies do yet bring us one plaster more to lay upon the wound that they have made in the benefit of jesus Christ. But it is a plaster without ointment, beside they lay it besides the wound. They say that the virtue of our satisfactions [whereof Purgatory is one] doth depend upon the satisfactions of Jesus Christ. It is he that maketh our torments to be of any value: it is the grace and mercy of God that maketh us to satisfy: what shall we say to this? Or rather what shall we not say? for the mockery together with the absurdity is to evident. They say that Jesus Christ giveth us power to pay a debt, which himself hath already paid to the full, and to satisfy for that which is already acquitted: who can without laughing imagine, or rather who would not spite that a surety, who hath set a prisoner at liberty by paying his debt for him, should after make him pay to the same creditor the same debt that him hath already paid: yea & which is more: that the same second payment should be accounted a grace and favour? who could ever have thought that the pains and torments of Purgatory had been counted among the graces of jesus Christ? But say they, it is a grace to give power to the creature to satisfy of himself that is to say, to bear the punishment of his own sin. Let us learn; for this is a new kind of beneficence, A criminal person shall hereafter commend the bounty of his judge, who after he hath freely forgiven him, shall of his grace and superabundant mercy, cause him to be whipped about the town, and to pay excessive amends, that so he may have the honour to satisfy for himself. Now if Purgatory be a grace of God, why doth the Pope come with his Indulgences, unjustly officious, to diminish this grace? Again, if it be a favour or a grace that God granteth to the creature to satisfy for himself, the damned shall be his favourites, whom he will make to pay to the full. Do we now dispute with men? You seraphical doctors, your much knowledge maketh you mad. S. john Baptist said that of stones God could raise up children unto Abraham: but these men will bring the children of Abraham to be stones, insensible and brutish. The falsehood of the friar, p. 79. Thus do these our Masters abuse our simplicity. To fill up the whole measure of abuse, the Friar to this purpose citeth a passage out of the 52. of Esay, saying. I will praise thee O Lord for thou art displeased with me. Let all the injuries that they lay upon me be true if throughout the whole chapter there be one word to that purpose: but with him such falsehood is ordinary. Yea and were this place true, yet maketh it nothing against us, who confess that God is to be praised and lauded for his chastisements, wherewith he correcteth and amendeth us. But what correspondence hath this with Purgatory, where none can amend? And so let this be spoken in answer to all other like passages. This is the question whereupon himself doth in some sort make me an honourable amends. For in our conference having often said and stiff and stoutly affirmed that jesus Christ had not satisfied, but for so much as we were not able to satisfy; for now he denieth it and so seemeth as if he would entreat jesus Christ more favourably; wherein in sundry sorts he wrongeth himself: for first he showeth to those that have been his assistants and are not altogether forget full, that corrupt meaning is with him turned to a habitude; and even grown into a complexion. Then disadvowing this principle he contradicteth the auctor of the fire of Helie, who mainetaineth it and himself also: for in an other place he speaketh the same thing almost in the same terms. The fire of Helie page 69. saith thus. This which he addeth is a slander for we say not so. Bellarm. de Purgat. lib. 1. cap. 10. pag. 78. If jesus Christ hath satisfied for all the faults and punishments, [so as for our parts there is no more to do] why then after the offence remitted do we endure so much evil? And this he speaketh from Bellarmine. Si Christus satisfy it pro omni ●ulpa, cur post remissam culpam tam multa mala patimur? The Friar also saith, That for that part for the which we can satisfy the divine justice, our Lord hath not otherwise satisfied but in applied to us his merits, by the which our satisfactions do supply that temporal pain: but he giveth us power to satisfy: and to give a man power to bear the deserved punishment, and to make the satisfaction to be of force, implieth not to satisfy or to be punished for him. But the friars memory faileth him: much more his respect to the word of God, in that he endeavoureth to frame us new articles of faith, yea which is more, even in that that is of greatest importance, and is as it were the soul and principal part of Religion, without any authority of the holy scriptures: saying that jesus Christ did not otherwise satisfy for temporal punishment, that is Purgatory, but by applying to us his merits, whereby we do satisfy. Thus much for the agreement of Purgatory and man's satisfactions with the merits of jesus Christ: from which argument before I depart I cannot forbear but must of necessity propound one excellent note that Cardinal Bellarmine setteth down in his book De poenitentia where he laboureth to show that the sins committed before baptism are redeemed by the blood of jesus Christ without our satisfactions: Bellarm. de penitent. lib 4. cap. 10. but the sins after baptism are redeemed by our own satisfactions. He saith, that S. john the Evangelist instructing a young man, who after baptism had committed many Riots, he exhorted him to fasting and to prayer, as saith Eusebius. And hereupon the Cardinal setteth down this note. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. l. 3. c. 17 johannes non id precepit quod luther anisolent, ut Christi sanguine peccata sua purgata esse certò crederet, sed preces & jejunia indixit: that is, S. john commanded him not that which the Lutherans do use to command: that is, that he should certainly believe that his sins were purged by the blood of jesus Christ: but he enjoined him to fasting and prayer. In this regard then are we called Lutherans and Heretics. Thus also shall the Apostle himself be found a Lutheran and worthy the Inquisition, because he saith, 1. joh. 1.7. The blood of jesus Christ purgeth us from all sins: for he writ to the faithful and to the baptised, and to those whom he calleth his children. These our Master's matters thus discovered, and themselves convict of profaning the merits of jesus Christ: to be revenged they use this recrimination. The Friar saith that We do so assure the souls in this blood, Pag. 91. A slander, that the only remembrance of baptism once received, is a remedy against all sin, without need of any other matter. A slander forged in the shop of the father of Lies▪ as is also the same which the fire of Helie chargeth us withal: namely that It is enough that jesus Christ suffered, 62. A slander. and so for our parts we need do nothing: and hereupon they heap up many passages & proofs for the necessity of penance and good works: but all in vain, considering we believe nothing of that they accuse us of, but do affirm that the only way to life is to obey the commandments of God: It is necessary that we hear his word, and obey him: that we repent us of our sins and convert unto God: That we subdue the flesh, and quench the heat of the concupiscence thereof: that we suffer with jesus Christ and for jesus Christ, to the end we may be glorified with jesus Christ. For albeit our pains and good works be no sufficient price to purchase salvation, yet are they necessary for the attaining thereto. In that we extol the excellency of the satisfaction of jesus Christ, we do it not to make us negligent, in good works: but to invite and stir us up to love God and to acknowledge his graces: God is not good to us to the end we should be wicked to him. His benefits are to us as bonds. jesus Christ is unto us not only matter to hope well, but also a rule to live well. If he have bought us, it is to the end we should be his, and how his by serving the devil? The paschal Lamb must be all eaten, for jesus Christ cannot be divided: we cannot participate in the fruit of his death if we be not made conformable to his resurrection by newness of life: neither can we enjoy his promises unless we keep his commandments. And therefore saith David, Psal. 130. There is forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared. There by showing us that the mercy of God towards us must be by us accompanied with his fear. According to this Franciscans doctrine David should have said There is no full forgiveness with thee that thou mayst be feared. He then that of God's mercy shall make an exemption from well doing, or shall put of his amendment from day today, thinking that it is not yet time to become an honest man, will find himself deceived: for repentance is a gift of God which he giveth not to scorners: And ordinarily such as seek to reserve to God the last part of their days and as it were the lees and dregs of their lives are surprised by death before they attain thereto: as being a matter just and equal that they should have no portion in God, who did so unequally divide with him. In the mean time to hear these men dispute of the necessity of good works, you would think them to be saints or petty Gods, and our Church to be a harbour to all wickedness: and a school of excess: as if sin were a matter lawful among us. Indeed to our great grief we confess that we have but over many bad examples among us. We could earnestly wish that as the high Priest disrobed himself at the entering into the holy place; so that every of us could put of his old sins and relics of wickedness at the entry into the Church of God: but the perversity of this age together with the contagion and haunt that we hold with such as be yet out of the Church do corrupt the manners of many: yet dare I say thus much, that among us you shall find more examples of charity, of sobriety, and of diligent reading the word of God then among our adversaries: that the pillars of the Church of Rome are more polluted than the pavement of ours: that our spend thrifts are more tolerable than the sobriety of those that reprove us: that our vices are even virtues in regard of the riotous excess of the Roman Prelates. The murderers of Kings were not of our flock. Vices and sins against nature have no place among us. Trading and Pride have in the Court of Rome put of the habit of vices and are now accounted for honest carriage, activity and ordinary occupation jetting up and down in the cloak of of discretion and wisdom. Bern. ser. 33 super Cant. Ministri Christi sunt & serviunt Antichristo. Ind is que vides quotidie Meretricius nitor etc. intestina & insanab. est plaga Ecclesiae. Hereof read the complaints of Petrarch in his Epistles and sonnets. The Epigrams of Zanazarus: the complaints of St. Bernard, who termeth the train of the Court of Rome, the train of the whore of Babylon and of Antichrist. And after all this must these people with a Romish Catholic zeal, come and preach to us the necessity of good works and complain that we open ●he gate to all vice, Faelicia saecula quaevos ●oribus opponunt, habeas iam Roma pu●orem. But what if we shall prove that the doctrine of the Church of Rome is a doctrine of Licentiousness, and openeth unto men a large gate to escape at. ●ow much people feeling the approach ●f the jubilee do embolden themselves vn●er the assurance of plenary pardon? ●hat a gate of licentiousness do they opē●o the rich, who assure themselves that by ●iving to the Church after their death's ●hey may have masses enough song for ●hem and so abridge the pains of Purgatory? And doth not the custom of ●uying other men's prayers make a man negligent in praying for himself? Yea ●nd which is more, by enjoining the sin ●er for his penance to fast and pray do ●hey not make that a punishment which ●ught to be a consolation? Also when ●hey make but seven mortal sins, cal●ing the rest venial and easy sins, such as may be blotted out with an ave o● a little holy water, do they not entertain the sinner in wickedness: and sow cushions under his elbows to lul him the faster a sleep in his vice? Or terrifying the consciences with the fear o● Purgatory do they not thereby corrupt piety under the colour of establishing it? Making it not a filial and voluntary obedience, but a servile fear? Led o● not for the love of God but for fear o● punishment: not for hate to the sin, bu● for terror of the torment. Rom. 12. The Apostle exhorteth us by the mercies of God to consecrate and offer ourselves to God yet not for fear of his justice. Propound to the sinner the love and excellency of the son of God; showing him that i● was our sin that crucified him: that o●● offences are the very nails that pierced him; what is there of greater for●● to plant in his heart both a love of Iesu● Christ, and a hatred of sin, which wa● the cause of the torments of the son o● God? Especially when he shall consider that by this death himself shall obtain ●ife, that from a bondman of Satan, he is bought to be the son of God: also that in believing in him he shall not perish, but have life everlasting. Shall he not feel himself moved to love God and in acknowledgement of so great a grace to consecrate himself to God, and after the rule of his word to ●spire to the reward that God hath pitched him at the end of his course? these men therefore by their traffic do but subvert religion, and in the fire of Purgatory, in lieu of true piety, forge an ●dea and fantastical form of the fear of God. 15 The same fire blasteth and aba●eth the mercy of God, as not pardoning us at the full; sigh ourselves must ●n a fire bear part of the punishment. Wherefore shall we limit the mercies of God in matters wherein he will be pleased and glorified by doing us good? 16 The justice of God is likewise violated therein, in that they make it to exact two payments for one debt. The first which it received of jesus Christ, and was sufficient for all the punishments due to our sins: what interest therefore have these people, that they are so willing to enter into this fire a●● the charge of the glory of God, who● could be content freely to pardon th●● through jesus Christ? 17 Again, every payment and satisfaction that is acceptable to Go● must be voluntary, and not forced, otherwise he accepteth it not: But th● pain of Purgatory [say our people] 〈◊〉 unto those, that have not sufficienty satisfied in this life, inevitable: and whether they will or no, they must of necessity pass that way. Then is it not a pa●ment acceptable with God. And albe●● these men say that the poor soul's d● patiently bear those pains, yet c●● we hardly believe but that they had other presently be in Paradise, then to abide a thousand or two thousand yea●● broiling in a fire. 18 Hereof ariseth another reason, namely that those souls do not satisfy God: but that God rather satisfieth himself in punishing them against their wills. 19 By the same doctrine also the consciences are in perpetual torment through the apprehension of this fire: for what would not we give to avoid a fire of an hour long? how much more if it should last a month? Yet what were this in regard of many hundreds and thousands of years: and that in a fire as hot as the fire of of hell, saith our friar? joh. 14.27. where is that peace promised by jesus Christ? or how in our death shall we have these effects of the spirit of God dwelling in the hearts of the faithful, namely joy and peace as saith Saint Paul. Galat. 5.22. My adversaries do contradict themselves in their answers, which indeed are no answers but recriminations. Pag. 106. A slander The friar saith that we do preach liberty of conscience, without apprehension of the judgements of God, which is false and slanderous. We preach neither liberty nor licentiousness, but peace of conscience to such as repent & believe in jesus Christ: but to the impenitent we denounce the judgements of God. Thus this friar accuseth us of flattering and lulling men's consciences asleep: But the fire of Helie contrariwise accuseth us of holding them in torment, because we account all sins, both mortal and venial, equal. Whereto I answer that albeit we should hold those which they term venial equal with the mortal, yet in as much as we teach, that both mortal and venial are forgiven by jesus Christ, A slander we do no whit astonish the consciences. But in truth it is a slander of our adversaries. We acknowledge the inequality of sins. In some, God is more offended & grieved then in other some: yea even among the sins that they call mortal, some are more heinous than other some. To overskip a leaf or two at matins, or under colour of shrift to talk of love are smaller sins them to slay his own king. Sacrilege is more heinous than simple theft: Incest then whoredom: only we smile at their folly in distinguishing sins into venial and mortal, because this word venial signifieth pardonable. And we know that the sins which they call mortal, as murder and whoredom do grow pardonable in such as do convert and truly repent, as in David who was defiled in both these sins. But in the impenitent these sins are indeed mortal and punished with eternal death. And so through Impenitency that sin which is venial and pardonable in one, is mortal in another. The parts therefore of this distinction do justle and encroach each upon other: beside I will say thus much more, that it is rashness in our adversaries to define that there be but seven mortal sins: & that all other sins be pardonable: for it is the office of the judge, not of the offender to determine what pain each sin deserveth, for in the sight of God we be all guilty. 20 Purgatory likewise bringeth with it many inconveniences: for in that it teacheth that the fasts, offerings, and alms deeds of the living do serve to bring souls out of Purgatory, the same maketh many to be more negligent, & to rely upon their friends that survive. Daily examples we have many of people that buy Masses, & hire men to pray for their souls, whiles in the mean time they take licence to practise all excess, dissolution and rapine. All Doctor Du Valles answer still resteth in recriminations. Pag. 75. The auctor of the fire of Helie denieth that jesus Christ hath fully satisfied. He saith that we are they that make men careless, in that we teach that jesus Christ hath fully satisfied, and that on our behalf there is nothing to satisfy. Hereto I have before fully answered and at large. Yea I do protest that we hold no such belief. He farther saith that the prayers made for such as are in Purgatory make not men more careless, than the same which in this world one maketh for another: whereto we say that it is true, that the prayers of the living, one for another make the sinner to be more negligent, when these prayers are taken for payments, redemptions, and satisfactions. Hereupon the Auctor of the fire of Helie to shadow his purposes, in lieu of speaking of fasts & offerings, speaketh only of prayers, which peradventure he would have been ashamed to reckon among the redemptions and payments for other men's offences & sins. 21 By this gate also came in the traffic, and the exchange was opened in the Church. The rich do build obits and anniverssaries for their souls: for them are the private Masses song: the poor must be content with the general prayers, wherein the rich also have their shares. All the Churches shall ring with peals, prayers and diriges after the decease of a man that hath been extraordinary liberal and bountiful to the Clergy: but for one that hath given nothing ye shall never hear so much as one Mass: neither will the orders of begging Friars press to a poor man's house. By these means have the church of Rome heaped together so much goods that one only hospital (entitled of the Spirit in Rome) may in rents dispend four thousand crowns a day. His holiness keys are of gold: a metal that openeth both heaven & Purgatory: for this good prelate and his factors & followers are better studied in the golden number, then in the dominical letter, which is the holy scripture. Should a poor beggarly soul participate in those graces which his holiness hath reserved for the greatest Lords? It were a goodly sight to see some porter or pointmaker or some such base fellow solicit in the Court of Rome for to purchase bulls of delivery of the soul of some poor kinsman of his out of Purgatory, and indeed the book of rates in the Pope's chancery hath sundry clauses of this nature: Sed hoc tantum pro qualificatis, Printed at Paris by Toussain Denis in S. james street at at the sign of the Cross. 1520. with privilege of the court. & istae gratiae non conceduntur pauperibus. By this reckoning Jesus Christ was deceived when he said Blessed are the poor considering that the rich have such goodly privileges & by them do so soon enter into Paradise. This traffic also doth appear in this, that the Church of Ronedoth hold that children dying soon after Baptism do go strait into Paradise, which notwithstanding, the Priests do not forbear to take money for their Masses for such children: also in that the Clergy pay least for the souls of their friends, there by acknowledging the slightness of their merchandise. Page 76. The Doctor Du Vall confesseth there is abuse: so daintily doth he speak of so horrible and public abomination. The Friar knowing that this traffic, the more it is stirred the more it stinketh, saith nothing at all of it. 23 The same error maketh God more favourable to those that shall live in the day of judgement then to others, for they shall not come in Purgatory at all: to the Carmelite Friars then to the Franciscans: for they pretend a privilege to abide there but unto the next saturday after their deaths: to those that have means and friends to procure them Masses, then to others. For why should a poor man give six pence to be named in the memento of the Mass, if he did not hope of some good that he should have lost if he had not been therein named? Yet had he not been named if he had given nothing: for with them No penny no paternoster. Let us also consider that by this doctrine such as die immediately after they have ended their jubilee go strait to Paradise and are exempt from Purgatory: but that man, peradventute not so vicious, neither oppressed with so many sins, yet dieth before the year of jubilee, goeth into Purgatory and is deprived of so great a benefit: likewise that he that is well horsed and dwelleth not far from the place where these pardons are to be had, doth much more easily obtain pardon for his sins then he who dwelling three hundred leagues of, hath never a horse. The same abuse also tieth the mercy of God to one certain place, as that all sins are remitted at the Franciscans, but not at the Carmelites, or jacobins. Yea so far doth some pardon stretch that he that in the Covent of the Franciscans shall say the prayers in the bull ordained, obtaineth plenary pardon for all his sins: but though he say ten times more prayers in an other couvent, yea and that with much greater devotion, yet shall he (all this notwithstanding) obtain thereby no remission of sins. For like a fool he went to seek remission of his sins in places that the Pope had not appointed. Hereupon the auctor of the fire of Helie taketh us at the first rebound and saith, You say not well, for mercy hath regard to the offence and eternal punishment, but justice hath regard only to the temporal. Well spoken of this doctor. What? hath not God's justice regard likewise to eternal pain? Page 71. And doth he not also show his mercy in remitting the temporal? The same doctor doth also wonder that in all these things I can find any inconveniency. And willeth us here upon in profound silence to adore the impenetrable judgements of the Lord. But I do more marvel that with me he doth not marvel that at our hands he should require adoration with silence: where he should rather come with lamentation and sorrow, yea even with execration. What? shall God entreat the wicked with more gentleness? And shall my horse or my money exempt me out of a burning fire of many hundred years continuance? Shall God show favour to a soul, not after the steadfast faith or burning charity thereof, but according to the time when it shall departed, whether in the year 1599 or in the year 1601? And yet we must with silence adore that which crieth for vengeance before God, and which testifieth how far covetise hath enchroched upon religion? Shall Romish pollutions be given us for rellickes? blasphemies for oracles, and the same compared with the mysteries of God election and healthsome vocation? Indeed if of two wicked ones God will pardon the worst, no man can accuse him, yet surely he will not pardon any such before he give him repentance and grace to become an honest man: But to say that of two elect and children of God he will in a tedious and hot horrible fire roast him that hath been the most virtuous, and bring the worst strait into Paradise because he had money or a horse to carry him to the jubilee, or for that he died soon after the jubilee, it is as much as to spit God in the face, & to paint out profane toys in his temple for God will judge every man according to his works: not according to his wealth, his horse, or his abode. Now, as one absurdity once set down, a thousand will ensue: so the whole discourse of the doctor upon this place is even a web of blasphemies. For soon after he saith, The mercy of God is in all places to be found, Pag. 76. but not alike: for in the Temple God giveth better ear to our prayers then elsewhere. Is it for that God is nearer to the Temple: or because in those places God hath his hearing better? Mat. 6.6. How then doth jesus Christ counsel us to enter into our closerts to pray, if God doth better hear our prayers in a Temple then in a closet? Yet put the case it were so, still the inconvenience that we have propounded doth remain. For why should God pardon sins in one Temple rather than in another? When throughout the world there was but one Temple where the true God was served, it was no marvel that the faithful were bound to go to it: but in the Gospel where do we find that ever God subjecteth us to go to seek remission of sins in a Temple far of, and to leave those Churches that be at hand? Who seethe not that this is done for gain? because the sum dispersed in many places, and passing through many hands, would insensibly vanish and wear away, and so could not serve those purposes which the Pope and his Prelates had before set down. In all the premises it appeareth that the Doctor doth but mock, and believeth nothing of all that he hath said: neither is this the first tract wherein he discovereth himself: Pag. 60. for whereas Beda, Dionise the Charterhouse Monk, Bellarmine and with them Cayer & the fire of Helie do place a flowered & sweet field at the end of Purgatory. I asked him how these flowers grew under earth without sun or rain, this venerable Doctor answered that in me it was mere doltishness to ask such a question: for, saith he, these flowers are not really under the earth, but the Lord by an Analogy instructeth us of things in the other world. Let us bear with his rustical Philosophy: this licence to call Purgatory the other world; which nevertheless he placeth under earth, sometime in Baths: sometime in Rivers: sometime in Ice, & sometime under the leaves of trees. But who can endure that the dreams of a few Monks should be termed the word of God? Either that when they tell us these fables it is God that instructeth us? All this the friar passeth over without any answer, but merely excuseth himself, saying, that he will speak more thereof the next Lent in his lenten sermons. The like answer he might have made to the whole book, & never troubled the jesuits of Tournon for their help. 23 Finally, admit Purgatory should breed none of these mischiefs, yet surely it cannot bring any good: for what benefit can grow of being tormented in the fire? To say, it purgeth our sins that matter is already answered, & convicted not only of impiety but of contradiction and impossibility: for themselves do also say that the sins be not purged, but the pains: And S. john telleth us that the blood of jesus Christ doth purge us from all sin. And the punishment or torment for a sin is no purgation from that sin: neither were the whip or gibbet ever termed a purgation. 24 To the same purpose. It seemeth that all punishment is either for satisfaction and his revenge that punisheth or causeth to be punished: Aul. Gel. lib. 6. cap. 14. Clem. Alexand. lib. 4. stromatum versus finem or else for the correction and punishment of him that is punished: either else for an example to others: But the fire of Purgatory yieldeth no satisfaction or revenge to God: considering that he hath already taken satisfaction and revenge for our sins in the death of his son jesus Christ? neither for the amendment or correction of the souls that are in this fire, for they are already just and without sin: neither for any example to the living: for no man seethe any thing: neither to make us the more honest, by holding us in fear: for God desireth not to be served for fear of punishment, but in love and voluntary obedience: beside if it were a matter that stood upon fear, hell were sufficient to terrify us. Pag 80. Pag. 109. The fire of Helie & the friar impute to me that I should say that I believe not Purgatory because I see nothing: but where said I so? but I say I believe none, because I so find it in the word of God: and therefore the Monks amplifications to this purpose are cold and grounded upon a slander. Bellarmine & with him my adversaries do imagine that they have found a commodity in Purgatory: for [say they] It is profitable to the glory of God that the secondary causes should work: that is to say, that our souls should contribute sonewhat towards the purchasing of salvation: God then belike honoureth his creatures in making them to be tormented: sith that to be tormented is the way to contribute towards the purchase of salvation. They then that do longest abide in torments do contribute most: and God showeth more favour to them then to those whom he tormenteth less, or whom by the Pope's Indulgences he fetcheth soonest out of the fire. As for this principle, it is a point in natural Philosophy, but not always true in Divinity; wherein it were better to receive supernatural graces from God then to put forth our forces and so to work naturally. Howbeit let us accept of this principle, lest our people should overlabour themselves to defend it: for as well it maketh against Purgatory: It were better [say they] that the souls should do: but in Purgatory they suffer: they are miserably roasted certain hundreds of years: Admit that to roast were to do, yet were it better to do in heaven and so to have the action of Angels: As for the Contribution that we shall bring to the attaining of salvation, the holy scripture prescribeth us other means to attain thereto. It willeth us to believe in jesus Christ: to carry his Cross: leaving all worldly cogitations, to tend to the aim of supernatural vocation, and to make perfect our salvation with trembling and with fear. Thus is there a means to labour for our salvation, yet such as our labour shall not be accounted a payment or satisfaction, neither our souls be roasted in a fire. Now albeit I have spoken and inculcated these things the more expressly to cut of slanders, and that I have said & do yet say that the faithful aught to contribute and to bring whatsoever their care & labour toward the work of their salvation, yet is bad dealing so turned into nature with our friar minor that he dare slander & impute to me a contrary speech to that which indeed I spoke. That for our parts we ought to contribute nothing, Slander. and that the holy scripture teacheth us to go to jesus Christ, etc. And withal he exclaimeth saying, Why do you thus abuse the people? A prodigious shanelesnes. Thus is the cause of Jesus Christ handled as some oration over a box of triakle, or a game at gobelets. The auctor of the fire of Helie doth likewise wrest my words: He maketh as he were abashed [saith he] because we say that the souls in Purgatory do satisfy by their pains: because they do not, but only they suffer. But I never spoke it. 25 Upon this fire already quenched, we poor, as a surplusage, this aspersion taken out of a book indeed Apocryphal, yet such a one as our adversaries do hold for Canonical. Thus speaketh the book of Wisdom cap. 3. v. 1. of the souls of the faithful. The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God, & no torment shall touch them: then shall they not go into Purgatory. He addeth, At their departure they enter into peace: than not into a fire. CAP. 4. Against man's satisfactions in general. PVrgatory thus razed, which is the forest and most scorching satisfaction, let us go forward and search it even to the root, reversing in general all the satisfactory pains that our adversaries do impose upon the sinner. And now that we are come to the word satisfy you are to understand that there are two sorts of satisfying: Exposition of the word Satisfy. the one for debt, the other for offence. Debt we satisfy by paying: offence by confessing the fault and craving pardon: this in true speech is to make satisfaction. Now in this question we deal with the means how to satisfy God for our offences: which is, not by paying or redemption, but by humbling of ourselves, with amendment and ask forgiveness. As therefore we do admit this kind of satisfaction; which signifieth the confessing of our faults and humiliation before God, so on the other side we reject such satisfactions as are holden for redemptions and payments to God's justice. Pag 80. The Monk beareth himself after his ordinary manner in a ridiculous insolent ignorance. These be his words. In this place I conjure the reader without passion to consider the grossness of the minister: for having brought him into such terms that he could not unsay himself, he bethought him of the most notable cavil in the world: namely, that where the ancients do use this word Satisfy, they use it in this signification to have faulted, as who would say Nolim factum: A slander. yea he hath presumed to set this down in writing, these last words he addeth that himself might give vent to the slander: for Throughout my writing is there any mention that Satisfy should signify to have done amiss? But I say that to Satisfy signifieth to confess to have done amiss and to ask forgiveness. Now let us see whether his conjurations without holy water be not frivolous, and how he discovereth my grossness. What Calepine, saith he, did ever deliver such an interpretation? He underhand confesseth that he is well seen in Calepine: but we need no Calepine in words that little boys are skilful enough in. Suetonius in julius Caesar, cap. 73. Valerius Catullum, à quo sibi vesiculis de Mamurra perpetua stigmata imposita non dissimulaverat, satisfacientem eadem die admisit cenae. And in Tiberius, cap. 27. Consularem satisfacientem sibi, ac per genua orare conantem, ita suffugit ut caderet supinus. And in Claudius, cap. 38. Ostiensibus graviter correptis, cuque cum invidia, ut in ordinem se coactum scriberet, repent tantum non satisfacientis modo veniam dedit. And read Torrentius upon the first passage, where he saith. Solebant qui verbis aliquem laeserant, Ni● in te scripsi Bithinice credere non vis: & jurare iube▪ Malo satisfacere. jurare nolle se ea dicta esse, atque ita satisfacere. This is the sense of the word in Martial. lib. 12. Epigram. 79. In Plautus Amphitruo Alemena injuried by her husband, saith thus, Aut satisfaciat mihi atque adiuret insuper se nolle esse dicta quae in me insontem protulit. Tertullian in his book de poenitentia saith, Satisfactio confessione disponitur. Confession And that which he calleth satisfaction in the same book he calleth Exomologesis; Gehennam exomologesis extinguit. But peradventure our Monk will think these latin authors to be tainted with heresy, or to be incompetent judges & of small skill in his latin tongue which now we must learn out of Scot, Holcot, Bricot, or the rule of S. Frances where it is elegantly said, Fratres possunt vestimenta repeciare de saccis & alijs pecijs cum benedictione Dei. It is now therefore mere simplicity in our younger scholars to offer to speak latin in the presence of the Franciscans: for that which is said in the tenth chapter of the same rule That friars unlearned, must not care to learn: is spoken for that time when ignorance was meritory. But because these witnesses be but of small authority, let us here Bellarmine in his fourth book De poenitentia cap. 16. upon these words of S. Ambrose: Ambros. Nomine satisfactionis excusationem sive defensionem apertissime designavit. lachrimas Petri lego, satisfactionem non lego, saith that S. Ambrose by this word satisfaction meaneth excuse or defence: no payment or redemption then, as our friar would have it, who to maintain his speech produceth such passages of the Scripture as make against him, wherein to satisfy signifieth not to pay or redeem. He saith, that Pilate meaning to satisfy the jews deliured Barrabas & S. Paul defending himself before his judge Felix saith that he will satisfy for himself, in Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I defend myself. Yet in all this have we no speech of payment or redemption. What is now become of our Conjurations, and the demonstrations of my grossness? Learn brother Minor and thank me. Now let us wrestle with these human satisfactions taken for redemptions & payments to the justice of God for the payments due to our sins: hereto serveth all that hath been spoken against the satisfaction of Purgatory & for the sufficiency of the only satisfaction of jesus Christ: now let us thereto adjoin the reasons. 2 By the holy scripture we learn that Salvation is a gift, yea a free gift: Rom. 6.23. Luk. 12.32. Ephes. 2.8. Pag. 102. we do not then buy it, neither do we pay any price for it in part or in whole. Du Val answereth not: The friar saith that the two first passages are false, and that there is not such a word, let us therefore look upon the passages at large. In the 6. to the Rom. v. 23. S Paul saith, the gift of God is eternal life through jesus Christ. In the 12. of S. Luke, v. 32. jesus Christ saith. Fear not little flock, for it is your father's pleasure to give you the kingdom. Am I a falsifier, or he a slanderer? You see it is: his hope was that the reader would never have searched out the places: for their prohibition that none shall read the holy scripture emboldeneth him in this liberty: yet doth it not serve his turn: for having so falsely accused me of falsehood in the next line himself committeth a notable falsehood, corrupting this excellent passage of S. Paul to the Ephes. cap. 2. For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, It is the gift of God. Then NOT BY WORKS, lest any man should boast himself: But this Friar to break the force of this passage, and to entangle it, maketh the Apostle to speak thus. The salvation wrought by our Lord, proceeded of the only grace of God, & of his mercy and love. He perverteth the sense and taketh away the words of most importance, that it is not by works that we are saved, but by the gift of God. Where is truth and plain dealing become? Where is conscience? O God how long shall thy advesaries tread thy holy word under foot? 3 Against this so wholesome doctrine, which appeaseth our consciences and giveth to God the glory of our redemption our adversaries do object the Counsel that Daniel gave to Nabuchadnezar. Redeem thy sins by alms. 1. But this redemption was not toward God, but toward men whom he had rob, and was therefore to recompense them by liberality. 2. Again here the question concerneth satisfactory pains, in which rank Alms hath no place, albeit it is a work commanded to all, and an exercise pleasing to the faithful. Never will any man exercise charity as he ought, so long as he think it a punishment or satisfactory pain. Is that help where one member helpeth another, as the hand doth the foot, a pain? We all are members of one self body saith Saint Paul. 3. Which is more, our adversaries will have our satisfactions to serve to redeem from the justice of God not the sins, but the punishment for the sins. Now here it is, Redeem thy sins. Here therefore have we need of a gloss after the Romish manner, that Sin here signifieth the punishment of sin as who should call Theft the whip. Murder, the gallows. For every absurdity is good with these men, provided that ye believe a Purgatory. 4. The principal point is this, that this king Nabuchadnezar being a heathen needed no satisfactions, which they say, serve but to redeem temporal pains, and that after baptism, or after Circuncision, but this king was never circumcised, & being out of the Church, needed not these means to avoid eternal pain. The friar produceth yet other passages, as in the Proverbs, cap. 5. v. 29. Alms purgeth sin: but this place is false & the whole verse left out of the Hebrew: yea even the Roman translation it hath no speech of Alms. 2. To what purpose speak we of purgation where the question is of redemption. 3. Finally we confess that amendment of life purgeth sin, so far forth as by this means the sinner becometh clean, as cleanliness purgeth the body, succeeding after foulness, as they say in the schools non efficienter, but formaliter. But where the question concerneth such a purging of sins as by virtue thereof we shall appear clean and innocent in the day of judgement there the holy Scripture saith that The blood of jesus Christ purgeth us from all our sins. 1. joh. 1.7. He also citeth the 16. of the Proverbs. Alms redeemeth iniquity: whereto I have already answered upon the place of Daniel: besides the passage is falsely set down, for according to the Hebrew it is thus, There shall be propitiation for iniquity by gratuity and truth. Yea even in the Roman translation there is no speech of alms. That which he addeth out of the 12. of Toby, That alms maketh us to find eternal life, is not in the greek originals: neither is it to the purpose: for we do confess that alms and all other good works are the way to salvation, and consequently to make us find salvation: but here our question concerneth the price of our redemption from the pain due to our sins: which also may be an answer to that which he hath alleged out of the 4 of Toby: Alms delivereth from death, and suffereth us not to come into darkness. For so it is in the greek. Surely no man doth deny but that good works be the way to salvation, and in applying ourselves to them, we withdraw ourselves from perdition. Let us go on, and sith the old serpent, though cut asunder knitteth himself again, let us not cease mangling of him with the word of God and sword of the Gospel. 4 God commanding us to pray that he would forgive our offences, as we forgive them that have offended us, doth thereby show that we must look for like forgiveness from him as we do give to our neighbours, that is, without revenging or exacting satisfactory pains. 5 But what if I should prove to these advocates of man's satisfactions, that man by satisfactory pains cannot satisfy God for pains due to the least sin? For if slandering of our neighbour or calling of our brother fool, be in the Church of Rome venial sins, & yet S. Paul. saith in the first to the Corinthians the 6. that backbiters shall not inherit the kingdom of God: & jesus Christ saith that he that calleth his brother fool, is punishable in hell fire, when shall we have satisfied for the pain due to such a sin, which many times even the best do incur? Or when shall we have endured pains satisfactory for hell fire, or for a sin that deserveth deprivation from eternal life? To the end also that our adversaries should not make cursing a mortal sin by their glosses and consequences, their own decree distinct. 25. maketh a long list of venial sins, among which cursing hath his place saying: Si cum omni facilitate vel temeritate maledicimus, quoniam scriptum est, nec Maledici possidebunt regnum Dei. By the judgement therefore of their own Canons cursing is of two natures: The one that it is venial: the other, that it is excluded out of the kingdom of heaven, and consequently deserveth eternal death. Whereas our friar doth conjecture & granteth that the calling of a man's brother fool, draweth with it the sin of wrath consummate, he shall hold us excused although we admit not his conjectures for rules: besides I will return him to Cayer, Caier. p. 20 who will have Gehenna here to signify Purgatory, not hell, as the Friar would have it. joh. 8.11. 6 Our Saviour Christ said to the woman taken in adultery, Go and sin no more. Dismissing her he did not impose upon her any satisfactory pains, no more then S. Paul when he pardoned the incestuous man. That which particularly maketh against Purgatory is this: That if neither jesus Christ, not S. Paul imposed any satisfactory pains upon the sinners, even when in appearance they might have been profitable for amendment, how much less will God impose satisfactory pains up on his children in a burning fire, when there is no farther place for amendment? Here doth our Monk come forth with such an answer as hitteth himself and his fellows on the knuckles, saying. The grief may lie so heavy on the sinner, that it may satisfy for the whole obligation of the pain. For besides that he doth thus conjecture of the woman's cogitation, he also evidently accuseth the Popes and Priests of manifest injustice & rashness, in that they impose satisfactory pains upon the sinner that protesteth sorrow and repentance. For what know they whether the sinner be so oppressed with sorrow as that heaviness may serve for satisfaction? Or what know they whether she hath sufficiently satisfied, sith they wots not how grievous her sorrow was? 7 Again who hath given the Pope or his Priest's authority to impose corporal or pecuniary punishments upon sinners? Let them show us any commandment from God or his Apostles. The Primitive Church indeed reproved sin, by excluding men for a time from the communion of the faithful, and that after the example of S. Paul, who for a time cut of the incestuous person from the Church of Corinth: but after absolution to impose Corporal or pecuniary punishment: or to enjoin men to pilgrimages or scourge we find no example. The old Testament doth indeed furnish us of some examples of such as have fasted and wept for their sins, because weeping proceedeth from sorrow and fasting is a help to devotion and freedom of mind: but as I said, after forgiveness to impose punishments upon the sinner whereby to redeem the pains of Purgatory and so to satisfy the justice of God I find no example. 8 And it seemeth that these our masters have compounded with God, & that they are assured that God will be content with any sum of money, or any pilgrimage, and so will be appeased toward the sinner. But if this seem hard to be believed, how can men's consciences be at quiet? How shall they be assured that God will be content with such satisfactions imposed by the Priest? Whosoever undertaketh to pay his debts must first inquire what he oweth, as also consider of the value of coins that he giveth to his creditor: but the sinner knoweth not how much temporal pain he oweth to God, neither the value of every of his satisfactions. How shall he then know when he hath sufficiently satisfied? What knoweth he how near every fast bringeth him to Paradise? every pilgrimage: every scourging: and indeed we see how these consciences whom they have captivated are in perpetual disquiet, and so have recourse to the satisfactions of others: to buy Masses for after their decease, & to departed hence in marvelous fear & anguish. A just punishment for choosing for the foundation of their hope other props and stays then the only satisfaction of jesus Christ. 9 Again in as much as some condemned to corporal penances, can exchange them into pecuniary, how shall we be assured that God, in lieu of corporal punishments, will be content with money. Penitent. Ro. Tit. 9 c. 29. The Roman penitential telleth us that A rich man may redeem one fasting day for two shillings, but an extreme poor man must give at the four pence. Thus may the poor man when he hath paid his money fast for more. 10 If in absolution they pretend to loosen the sinner, how do they in losing his bonds entangle him farther, and by pardoning him, condemn him to greater pains? 11 I would farther demand whether the satisfactions that they impose be good works or no. If they be not good why do they enjoin them? If they be good why doth the Pope release them, and by his Indulgences dispense with them? Can we without horror read that which Bellarmine hath written in his book De poenitentia. Bellar. de Penit l. 4. c. 13. Indulg. faciunt ut pro iis poenis quae nobis per Indul condonantur non teneamur praecepto illo de faci endis dignis paenitentiae fructibus. Bellar. de paenit. l. 1. c. 4. That Indulgences do dispense with obedience to this commandment in the third of Matthew. Bring forth fruits worthy repentance: for sith they will needs have it so that this saying, Bring forth fruits worthy repentance, to signify to chastise a man's own self, and the Pope doth dispense with this chastisement, it plainly appeareth that the Pope dispenseth with God's Commandments. 12 And here I beseech you considerately to way how far superstition hath encroached upon the authority of the Gospel. Our enemies do make a ceremony and a sacrament of Penance, which indeed is of itself a virtue. Being demanded whether Penance were a sacrament before the coming of Christ, they say no: Cons. Trid. Sess. 4. c. 1. Even the prelate's, assembled in the Council of Trent do acknowledge that the penance which jesus Christ before his passion and resurrection and john the Baptist preached, was no sacrament: for they will have it to be made a sacrament since the resolution of Jesus Christ, and that without any other proof, than their own authority: for they will be believed upon their own words. But we have one passage in the Revelation, written since the ascension of Jesus Christ that expoundeth unto us the signification of Agere poenitentiam, to do penance, or to repent. In the second of the Revelation God complaining of the Ephesians, who were fallen from their first love, commandeth them to Repent and to do their first works, thereby showing that Repentance consisteth in amendment of life. At the least thus much we have gathered of their own confessions, that the penance or repentance practised in the Church of Rome is not the stone that Jesus Christ and S. john Baptist did preach: for they indeed, when sinners came to them, imposed no satisfactory pains. Note likewise that the same which when jesus Christ preached it, was a virtue is now become a Ceremony; and from a changing of the soul is come to be an Exercise of the body: and now set down for the redemption of our souls, as before we heard in Bellarmine, that men are Redeemers of themselves. Neither may we omit that this their sacrament of penance serveth but for the sins committed after Baptism: whereof it followeth that if an old Pagan should convert to the faith he should be received without penance or repentance. 13 There is yet more. For as it were Ridiculous to sow a piece of fries upon a satin garment, so is it a matter that can hardly agree to join our satisfactions, our fasts, our scourge, a hair cloth, a cord, a friars cowl, a roasting of souls with the passion of the only son of God, to make up the total of the redemption of our souls and of satisfaction unto God. 14 In this matter our adversaries do still retire to their withered and old beaten principle: that is, that God after he hath pardoned the sin requireth satisfaction to his justice by the punishment of the sin. We have already showed that to forgive a sin, and then to exact satisfactory punishment for the same are things incompatible. That God never required any such satisfaction of the thief, neither jesus Christ of the woman taken in adultery: neither S. Paul of the Incestuous person after he had forgiven him. That jesus Christ hath satisfied for all the pains due to our sins. That the justice of God accepteth of no payment but such as shall be most exact and to the proof of his righteousness. But there is no satisfaction sufficient to undergo that examen, but only the satisfaction of the son of God by jeremy called The eternal, our righteousness. And therefore that our travails and afflictions are profitable to exercise, prove, amend, and humble us, but not to redeem us, or to satisfy to God's justice, which is already fully satisfied by jesus Christ, and which requireth not two payments for one debt. 15 Yea which is more, themselves do acknowledge that in baptism God forgiveth both the fault and the punishment and requireth not of the sinner any satisfactory pain: Bellar. de paenit. l. 4. c. 10. It is not therefore repugnant to the justice of God to forgive without our satisfactions. 16 But in as much as this is one of the greatest abuses in popery That God by Baptism doth pardon both the fault & the punishment of sins committed before Baptism: yet that we must satisfy and pay the justice of God for the sins committed after Baptism, It is necessary we should a little crush out this impostume. 1. Conc. Trid. Sess. 24. c. 8. First who authorised them in matter of remission of sins and redemption to invent new articles of faith with out warrant of the holy scriptures? If a heathen murderer or incestuous parson should hypocritically cause himself to be baptised, shall this baptism blot out all his former sins, or shall his hypocrisy prove fruitful before God? Tertul. de paenit. cap. 6. Tertullian indeed in his book de Poenitentia saith that it cannot be: yet doth Spain furnish us of many examples thereof, where the Mahometan Marannes' do cause themselves dissemblingly to be baptised. 2. Again let us represent to ourselves a heathen man, a murderer, a sacrilegious person, etc. One who sinneth not of ignorance, or of fear, but of mere malice, and at the last in his old age repenteth, frameth himself to Christianity and receiveth baptism: which as our adversaries do say is of such virtue, that God doth simply and without satisfaction forgive him all his sins committed before his baptism: but for the sins that he shall afterward commit, albeit small and of in firmity yet God requireth that he bear the punishment as well here as in Purgatory. Doth it stand with the justice of God simply and without satisfaction to pardon the greater sins committed of malice at one time: and at another time to impose fiery torments for much lesser offences committed ignorantly or of infirmity? Moreover, when by baptism we have put on Christ, as saith S. Paul. Galat. 3.27. have we put him on only for that time, or for all the days of our life? Or is the benefit of Christ's death of less effect after baptism then in baptism? 4. Wherein I pray you consisteth the virtue of baptism but in this, that thereby we are made partakers in the merits of the death of jesus Christ, being by baptism buried with him in his death? Also if in the holy supper, Rom. 6. and in the gospel apprehended by faith we be also partakers, why should we not feel the like effects? 5. I would ask again what the reason is that sith in their Masses is applied (as they say) the benefit of jesus Christ, why their Mass should be of less efficacy than baptism? or wherefore it cannot exempt a sinner from satisfactory punishment? Also for what cause, they so highly extolling the excellency of their Mass, do in this point so clip her wings and truss her up so short? Yea and why they stand in need of so many Masses to fetch one soul out of Purgatoty, considering that if their Masses do apply to that soul the benefit of jesus Christ they cannot apply it otherwise then it is, namely having an infinite power and consequently able to deliver that soul at the first dash. But the mischief is that if this should be performed by one Mass only, then should the profits of the Clergy be mightily diminished. Now albeit all these things be as clear as the day, yet are we in small hope that those men can take any relish in them that are fed & maintained by the abasement of the benefit of the death of jesus Christ. For the documents of God's word can never pierce into the understanding until the true zeal of God be first entered into the heart. Avarice, Idleness, and Incredulity do harden the minds, exasperated the stomachs, and as rude, barbarous, & ungrateful porters hinder the entry and from our minds stop up all the ways to the doctrine of the gospel. The fruits of the Sacrament of penance. Now if there be any thing that upholdeth the tyranny, that fostereth the vices, or that nourisheth the idleness of the Clergy, it is this new sacrament of penance, which is as it were the Palladium of Babylon. First by their auricular confession (a member of this sacrament) they search into the secrets of houses, and make themselves terrible to those who after they have revealed to them their filthiness & faults cannot behold them without fear and shame. By this they purchase great liberty with Princes & Princesses, whose most secret affairs they do by shrift discover. By this such as make any projects of Civil wars do find the particular affections of the people and understand of whom and how many they may make account, having the Priests trusty to them and feed for that purpose. By this do the Priests make way to their covetous desires: for having by shrift discovered such as be of a good temper, they can soon know where to find but easy resistance. In this shrift they also sport themselves with strange questions, for they never ask the sinner whether he love God withal his heart: whether he preferreth the glory of God before worldly goods: whether he loveth his neighbour as himself: whether he trusteth in the promises of the Gospel and hath a steadfast faith in Christ: whether he bestoweth his time in the daily reading and meditating upon God's word, which are the first points of piety: but he asketh him whether he doth observe Lent: whether he had the company of his wife in the week before Easter called the great week: whether he hath paid his duties to the Church: whether he hath been troubled with any fowl cogitations of licentious handle, voluntary or not voluntary pollutions, etc. Look upon their mirror of confessions: the comment of Anthony Augustin Bishop of Arragon upon the penitential Canons of the Roman Penitential: and namely Benedictus Sum of sins, which is in every shop. Also the 19 book of Burchard Bishop of Worms, which entreateth of confessions, and then call me a deceiver, a beast, the spirit of Satan, as the Friar doth, if you find not all kind of abominations curiously set forthwith the vices against nature, the secrets of religious houses, and the subtle sleights of Nuns exactly taught under the shadow of Reprehension. These matters will I leave to such as are past shane: yet can I not forbear but must of necessity touch some of the most tolerable, that by them you may judge of the rest. The Roman Penitential demandeth of the sinner in his shrift, Fecisti fornicationem cum equa, velasina? If he have so done, the penance is to fast with bread and water forty days. In Burchard the Priest saith to the woman Fe●isti quod quaedam Multeres facere solent? Prosternunt se in faciem & discoopertis natibus iubent ut super nudas nates confiotatur panis, & eo decocto tradunt maritis ad comedendum; hoc ideo faciunt ut plus in amorem earum exardescantisi fecisti duos annos per legitimas ferias poeniteas. Again he asketh Fecisti quod Mulieres quaedam facere solent? Tollunt piscem vivum & eum ponunt in etc. Again, Fecisti quod quaedam Mulieres facere solent? ut cum filiolo tuo parcuùlo fornicationem faceres? Let the reader seek the rest if he list, but by my counsel he shall never go about it: for if it be lawful to speak of that a man hath not seen, I think the discipline of Tiberius in his secrets of Capri, the sybaritical books and Aretins tables for the which he was surnamed. Il Divino Aretino, are in regard of these, but modesty and simplicity. But this mischief is not so done: for after shrift they give absolution and do pardon after the manner of judges that pronounce sentence of remission: whereas they ought to pronounce pardon, as herehaughts of the grace of God, preaching to the penitent sinner that God is reconciled unto him through the blood of jesus Christ: and as ministers loosen the sinner: not as judges, but as preachers of the grace of God, which is purchased for them through the death of jesus Christ: for it lieth not in me to pardon offences committed against another: but the party against whom they be committed is to pardon them: much less than can man that is vile & perverse, pardon sins committed against God, who is righteousness itself. If a sinner do earnestly and heartily repent, God will forgive him although the Priest will not: but if he do not repent, God will not forgive him, albeit the Pope himself should. Now do I leave it to your consideration in what manner the Pope can give pardons by his letters patents, sealed in form of Decrees, considering that himself knoweth not whether his pardons be acceptable with God and may stand the sinner in any stead: neither is he sure that the sinner have true repentance, without the which there is no forgiveness, saith God in Esay cap. 43. for it is God only that can pardon sin, as saith St. Cyprian. Cyprian. ser. de lapsis. Nemo se fallat: Nemo decipiat: solus Dominus miserere potest. Veniam peccatis soius potestille larg● riqu● p●ecata nostra portavit etc. nec remittere Indulgentia sua potest quod in Dom●num delicto graviori commissum est. Let no man deceive himself, there is but one God only that can forgive sin. And Tertullian in his book of shamefastness, cap. 21. saith, Who forgiveth sin but God only? This absolution thus given, the priest imposeth upon him satisfactory pains either corporal or pecuniary: herein lieth the tyranny: for by this means, albeit under other titles, they have encroached a civil dominion over all people: yea even so far forth as to cut them off from some sorts of meats: to enjoin them abstinence from the duties of marriage: to condemn them to pilgrimages: to girt a cord upon their bare flesh: to give some portion of money to some Church, or religious house. Then having thus imposed corporal pains, either upon favour or upon covetise, they convert the same into pecuniary: or peradventure they will licence them to hire some other to perform their penance, or to be scourged for them: as at Rome in the passion week, which they call the great week, you may see whole troops of hired persons, who masked and disguised with their faces hidden do publicly mangle their backs with scourge, See Apuleius in his eight book of the golden ass where he painteth the Priests of Diana the Syrien scourging themselves in the same manner. with a mercenary cruelty and ambitious penance. But wherefore is not all this performed in secret? Why still upon one day? Is sorrow and repentance ordered after the course of the sun? Or is penitent affliction become an ordinary ceremony? What example in all antiquity of so cruel a jest? And indeed they are people but of mean calling. If there be any of account undoubtedly they be frenchmen: for the Italians will never do it without great pay: and as men better advised, do mock our simplicity. They may peradventure find some lazy company who can be content that his back should feed his belly like a porter, but in other manner. Rhenanus a very learned man in his annotations upon Tertullian ad Martyrs saith that this manner of scourging is taken from the Lacedæmonians who customably used such whip. Now as the Pope is the greatest, so doth he smite the greatest blows: for by these means the hath encroached a dominion over Emperors, kings and Princes, whom either in person, or by their Ambassadors he forceth to take the stripes and beat in his own presence. Baldus. l 5. De. 2. Mach. l. 1. Hist. of Florence. Polid. Virg. Mat. Paris. Io. Maior. l. 4 c. 3. Omitting all latter examples let us speak of matters more ancient. Pope Alexander the third enjoined Henry the second king of England in person to go into Palestine, and withal to give to his subjects leave to make their appeals to Rome. Pope Innocent the fourth imposed upon john king of the same land a yearly satisfaction of a thousand marks: and this tribute continued in force in England until the Reformation. Pope Alexander the third made the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa to humble himself at his feet: yea he set his foot upon his throat: nay more: They have proceeded so far as to deprive kings and Emperors of their estates: which is a grievous satisfaction, and never followed by any Indulgence. The more we read, the more abomination. And it falleth out with us in these matters as with such as begin to count the stars in the beginning of the evening: but after by the multitude that shoot forth are utterly confounded. Alas! how hath Satan won so much from the Church of God? Had we ever greater cause with the Prophet jeremy to wish that our eyes were fountains to bewail these wounds of the church? so great abuse? so heavy a yoke laid upon men's consciences? O eternal son of God take in hand thine own cause: deliver so many captived souls: and let the light of thy gospel shine among us. But lest we should stray too far, let us return to our principal matter, & boldly enter the Bishop of Rome's quarters. We purpose to lay open his merchandise & usurpations in matter of Indulgences where by he draweth the souls out of Purgatory. And as these people have at the confines of Purgatory placed a field all diapered with flowers, as a dependence or withdrawing chamber thereof so shall the chapter ensuing be a dependence of the question of Purgatory. For this fiery prison was purposedly built, that the Pope might be the jailor thereof: and from thence fetch forth the souls by the hooks of his bulls & Indulgences, which be of more charge to the living then profit to the dead. Purgatory is the matter whereof, and Indulgences the cause for which we do dispute. CAP. 5. Against Indulgences and the fetching of souls out of Purgatory. THE Pope at the petition of the kindred and friends of the deceased [if they be of ability and calling] doth many times grant Indulgences wherewith to fetch the soul of the deceased out of Purgatory: yea which is more, he conferreth such grace to certain altars that whosoever shall procure a stinted number of Masses to be said thereon, he shall fetch one soul out of Purgatory: himself hath also some times granted to such as been crossed to the holy land, privilege to fetch one or more souls out of Purgatory at their choice. A grace and favour which is also conferred to the fraternity of the Cord. Cardinal Caietan in the beginning of the book of Indulgences acknowledgeth that in all antiquity there was nothing to be found concerning Indulgences. Durand, Antoninus and Roffensis do say that Indulgences were not known in the days of S. Jerome, and S. Augustin, or during the first five hundred years: Bell. de Indul. l. 2. c. 17 Biel. in. Can. Missae lect. 57 tit. 1.7. as Bellarmine also confesseth. Gabriel Byel upon the Canon of the Mass saith as much: & making a question wherefore now a days they should be so frequent; he answereth himself with the words of jesus Christ: It is not for you to know the times and seasons which the Lord hath put in his own power. With this bridle he restraineth our curiosity. Besides my adversaries who will use the fathers in despite of their hearts, have not yet produced the example of any one fetched out of Purgatory under the primitive Church: As for that which the fire of Helie telleth of Silvester and Gregory is false, and hath not the testimony of any ancient author. Now to furnish so notable a liberality, the Pope hath laid a bottomless foundation, which he nameth The treasury of the Church: and it is composed of the superabundance of the merits & sufferings both of jesus Christ and of his Saints. This he distributeth among the souls of the dead, to help them out of Purgatory, & it is manifestly laid down in the Extravagants of Clement the sixth which beginneth unigenitus. Ad cuius the sauri cumulīe Beatae Dei Genetricis & omnia electorum merita adminiculun prestare noscuntur. Wherein it is said that the merits of the mother of God and of all the elect do help the merit of jesus Christ: and serve to make up the heap of this treasure. To enter therefore into the examination of this new Gospel. 1. We ask who gave the Pope power to fetch souls out of Purgatory? 2. Let them produce either commandment or example of any Indulgences given to the dead by the Apostles or by their first successors. 3. If it be a new benevolence, how cometh it that God is now become more liberal than heretofore? 4. If all the power that the Pope assumeth to himself were first promised in these words, I will give thee the keys, etc. when was it actually conferred? It was [say they] when jesus Christ said to Peter, Feed my Lambs. Admit it was spoken to the Pope, and that S. Peter only had the charge of feeding our Lords Lambs: must we therefore reckon the dead among these Lambs? Yea, will some say, because the Pope thereupon sheareth them: be it so: but is the pulling of them out of the fire, feeding? 5. Moreover in that the Pope armeth his power with the words of jesus Christ, Whatsoever ye shall lose on earth shall be loosed in heaven? Doth he not condemn himself, in that he goeth beyond his commission? for Christ saith All that thou shalt lose on earth: he saith not, All that thou shalt lose under earth. It must be said that for the avoiding of this objection, Pope Gregory, & after him our doctors have placed Purgatory in baths, in ice, & in the wind. 6. Out of this groweth an other absurdity and this it is, The Pope looseth & delivereth the souls out of prison, which nevertheless he could not bind: how cometh it that the Pope's power is is half decayed toward these souls, and that he reserved himself no more power but to loosen? The answer is evident: for by binding of souls and imposing punishment upon them he could get nothing: for no man will give money to be tormented, but to be released from torment: he therefore reserved to himself so much as is profitable. 7. Again if he be able to draw out any souls out of this fire, how chanceth it that he draws out no more? What humanity is this in him that is termed The holy father, and is the head of the Church, to let his children lie frying in the horrors of a flaming fire, and yet is able to help them out? And he who saith that if by his bad courses he should carry innumerable troops of souls into hell with him, Can. si Papa Dist. 40. yet let no man presume to reprove him: for he that is judge of all is not to be judged of any. Why doth he not fetch them out of Purgatory by troops? 8. Neither are we here to allege that the Popes give their pardons to the dead in form of suffrages & intercession but not of jurisdiction & absolute power for in this question that is of no import, because it is holden that in whatsoever form the Pope giveth these pardons, they be always of force, and the souls be released by them out of this fire: there fore our continual demand is this, why he offereth not his Indulgences or suffrages for more folks and for longer time than he doth? 9 At the least this remaineth: sith the Pope pretendeth juridical power over the living, and giveth them pardons with jurisdiction and power to absolve from all temporal pain, why doth he not take order that every man may before his death receive full Indulgence? And that every the souls of the faithful may carry along with it three or four hundred thousand years of pardon for her better indemnity? why should the French or Spanish be in less favour with God than the enhabitants of Rome? of whom none go to Purgatory unless he be a very dolt, considering that even at his door he hath so many Churches where in in one day he may purchase two or three hundred thousand years of pardon? 10. Again, how is it that the Pope delivereth the souls that are not of his charge from so long and grievous a torment, and yet cannot deliver the living that are (as he saith) of his charge from the smallest pains, diseases and afflictions? Hereto the Friar in lieu of answer saith I am a fool, and so overslippeth them with many frivolous demands to no purpose. 11. Whereof also cometh it that our Doctor's memories are so short as to forget that before, having said that of necessity the souls that have not sufficiently satisfied in this life must be purged in Purgatory so to satisfy the justice of God, they can now be content to permit the Pope by his pardons to fetch the souls out of this fire, and thereby hinder both the purging of the souls and the satisfaction of God's justice? But if they reply that God's justice is satisfied because the Pope presenteth for them the overplus of the merits of jesus Christ and his Saints, they run themselves on the pikes: for why did he not present to God the same merits before the souls departed out of their bodies, so to exempt them wholly out of Purgatory? Or rather why should we go into Purgatory at all, sith jesus Christ sitting at the right hand of God, and offering to his father his benefit for our redemption, performeth all that the Pope pretendeth to do? Against so many such pregnant objections our Doctors do shroud themselves under a miserable distinction, as under a wet net against the rain. They say that the Pope delivereth no souls out of Purgatory by any juridical authority, but by suffrages: And the Doctor Du Val expoundeth this dictinction by a similitude: he saith, If the french King were desirous to redeem out of Spain a prisoner there detained for debts, he would not offer to fetch him thence by authority or jurisdiction, but by suffrage and entreaty, offering his debt to the king of Spain. Here he compareth our King to the Pope, the king of Spain to God, and Spain itself to Purgatory: but that we must say is in regard of the Inquisition. Now albeit this distinction hath no more force against such main objections than their holy water against the devils yet must I open the falsehood and absurdity thereof. Pag. 41. 48. 75. For first hereupon these Doctors do contradict themselves for Cayer fighteth against his companions and maintaineth that the Pope giveth his Indulgences to the dead by power of absolution: and that he pardoneth their sins as a king: and indeed in the tax of the Pope's Chancery we find these words. For an excommunicate person for whom his parents do entreat the letters of absolution, Pro mortuo excommunicato pro quo supplicant consanguinei litera absolute. vaenit Duc. 1 Caro. 9 disp 7. c 34. & disp. 6. c. 41. Bielin Can. Missae, lec. 57 the charge is one ducat and nine Carolus. Also Michael Medina a Doctor of note among our adversaries, doth hold that the souls in Purgatory are under the Pope's jurisdiction. See also the words of Bonaventure alleged by Gabriel Biel. If any man maintaineth that the Vicar of jesus Christ hath power of jurisdiction over the dead, we must not greatly contradict him. Thus our people are of contrary minds: but reason and practice are on Cayers side. Reason, because these words, to pardon inform of suffrage or intercession, bear no sense, besides that there is contradiction in them: for how is it possible to pardon a man by entreating for him? to pardon by form of petition or intercession? he that hath interceded to the king for a criminal person, will never say that he pardoned him: The same doth common practice convince: for what meaneth a pardon given to the soul by bulls & patents sealed in form of a decree? Do we not also read in Mayor and Wesselus, Mayor in 4. Dist. 20. quaest. 2. Clemens, 6. In Bulla super Iubileo quod revocavit ad Annos, 50. that Clement the sixth commanded the Angels to transport into Paradise the souls of those that died in the voyage to the holy land? Nay more. Toward the end of the Council of Lateran holden under Innocent the 3 ye shall find a Bull wherein he promiseth to all chose that shall go in the expedition to the holy land, not only plenary remission of all their sins, but also an augmentation and higher degree of glory in the kingdom of heaven: but to such as would not go themselves, but send others at their charges, he granteth only remission of sins: yea he proceedeth so far, as against the gainsayer of the journey he denounceth that they shall answer him in the day of judgement: as if the Pope should then be judge. In all this it appeareth that the Pope pretendeth to have power over the dead. But what should we seek for more proof, when Pope Sixtus the fourth, in a Bull set down in the first book of sacred ceremonies, in the chapter of the benediction of the sword, vaunteth that he hath all power in heaven and in earth? The same degree is also attributed to Pope Leo the tenth in the last council of Lateran. Sess. 9 & ●0. Now if he assumeth to himself all power in heaven, where they have nothing to do with him: how much rather over the souls in Purgatory, which stand in need of his Indulgences? Finally, if the Pope giveth his pardon by suffrage, and in form of petition or intercession, how can we be assured that God doth hear him? wheris the promise that in this case God will hear him? or how in granting pardons to the dead [as when he granted to the souls of the Carmelites this privilege, that they should not stay in Purgatory any longer than until the next Saturday after their decease] is he assured that God will like of this liberality? Thus much for this woeful distinction. Now let us continue the course of our objections. 12 Sith the Pope affirmeth that he hath in the treasury of the Church the works and superabundant satisfactions of the Saints and Monkish Friars that have done and suffered more than they should: who was his Collector to gather up these works and sufferings? Or who delivered them into the Pope's custody? Either when? Also who gave him the charge to distribute them? Who taught him to be a better husband than the high Priest in the old Testament, who [if we believe these men] suffered the superabundant satisfactions of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, jacob, Hilarius in Mat. 27. Alienis operibus & meritis. joseph, etc. to be lost? And sith the satisfaction of jesus Christ was more than sufficient to redeem us, what need we add the satisfactions of Friars, Monks and Martyrs? Considering that if these Friars, Monks and Martyrs be in Paradise, they have already received infinitely more glory than ever they could deserve or merit: and so they are superaboundantly satisfied, and therefore can have nothing left for the redemption of others. Hereto the Friar maketh no answer, only he saith, I rave and am at the last cast: let us therefore have some hallowed grains, or one of the parts of S. Frances breeches, that thereby we may die in the state of grace. He also saith that the blood of jesus Christ is sufficient to redeem a thousand worlds: the the surplusage therefore of our Saviour's merits, is not to be lost, but rather to be laid up in the treasury of the church. Pag. 108. Whereof it followeth that the blood of jesus Christ and his merits, shared out into a thousand parts, the Pope hath remaining in his treasury nine hundred, ninety and nine, besides the merits of Saints & Martyrs which he also saith are our redeemers: but he took his mark amiss and deceiveth himself in thinking that part of the merits of jesus Christ may serve for one soul and part for an other, & that so we may find a remainder of the merits of jesus Christ: for as the light of the sun shineth wholly here & wholly in an other place, and that there is light enough thereof for ten times so many as be there where it shineth: also that the voice of a man that speaketh, doth sound wholly in the ears of every one that heareth him: even so every faithful man is partaker in the whole merits of jesus Christ: And were there four faithful, yet should every of the faithful stand in need of the whole death of jesus Christ, and of every part that he suffered: as also if there were ten times as many faithful, yet should every of them find in the death of jesus Christ enough for his redemption. Also in as much as we have merited an infinite and eternal pain, it was requisite we should have a redemption of an infinite price. In the sufferings of jesus Christ there was neither want nor superfluity: and therefore herein the Pope doth as much as if he should husband and lay up the overplus of the sun shine or of the voice. All the rest of my objections the Friar slippeth behind the hang. But than cometh the Doctor Du Val to the rescue & layeth open his subtleties: yet doth he not tell us who raked up these superabundant sufferings of the Saints and Monks: who committed them into the Pope's custody: who authorised them to distribute them for the redemption of pains due to others: when he received this authority: or when he began this distribution. All this he passeth over quietly, as indeed it were over much to inquire of. Mark therefore what he saith. Pag. 80. The Saints are rewarded in Paradise for their works, so far forth as they were meritory: but so far forth as they were satisfactory, if any Saint hath sinned less and satisfied more, this surplusage of satisfaction is not to be left: for the divine mercy and equity layeth it up in the treasury of Indulgences. Therefore it serveth for others merits. He speaketh as if he should say unto me: See here is a house that cost two thousand crowns: also a prisoner that lieth in the jail for two thousand crowns: hereupon cometh a man with two thousand crowns, which he will make serve both to buy the house, and to redeem the prisoner: but you will say: that cannot be: but the fire of Helie saith yes: and he findeth this expedient for it: The cross side of the money shall buy the house, and the pile side shall redeem the prisoner: so shall it be acquisitory on the one side, and satisfactory on the other. Even so [saith the Doctor] the merits of Saints do purchase heaven, [and that is to buy it at an easy rate] and yet the same merits do stand for the payment and redemption of others. Thus doth he dally with God and man, yet bringeth no proof out of the word of God. The same Doctor produceth a passage out of the sixth of job, to prove that Saints have suffered more than they needed to satisfy to God for their sins. Oh that my sins and my miseries were laid together in one balance, False, my miseries would exceed my sins. By his favour this passage is false and in the Hebrew Originals it is not so, no neither in the Roman translation. In the Hebrew thus it is. Oh that that which provoketh me were well weighed, and that my breaking were laid together in the balance, for it would be more heavy than the sand of the sea. The same doctor defendeth this treasure composed of the satisfactions both of jesus Christ and of the Saints. Pag. 55. The Church [saith he] is a kingdom, then hath it a treasure. jesus Christ in the 12 of Luke shall answer for me lay up your treasure in heaven: them not in the Pope's coffers: neither is there in that place, neither in any other, any speech of Indulgences. Again if this Imaginary treasure belongeth to the Church, why do they sell to her that which is her own? Why do they exhort the people to purchase the Indulgences, if they belong to them? for no man buyeth that that is his own. This doctor addeth. The Church is a spouse, why then do they take from her that right that beseemeth her, which is this treasure composed of the merits & satisfactions of her master, with the satisfactions of the Saints? We answer that the church is indeed a spouse: but the spouse of jesus Christ, not of Saints: for they also are the spouse: It belongeth to God the father of this spouse & to jesus Christ her spouse to endow her, and he hath endowed her with celestial and eternal goods: but admit the Saints were bound to endow the Church: must the Pope nevertheless be treasurer of this endowment? it would be dangerous: for in his Cannons he termeth himself The spouse of the Church. And Bellarmin, Bell. l. 1. de Pontif. Rom. cap. 9 who writ at Rome with the Pope's approbation, saith that The Pope is the spouse of the Church: etiam Christo secluso: even jesus Christ being excluded and set aside. The same fire of Helie saith that in the old law they had a treasury in the Temple, where upon he inferreth that the Church of Rome must also have her treasury composed of the satisfactions of jesus Christ and his Saints. A gallant shift. But the Pope who hath six and twenty thousand crowns a day to spend; hath he not a treasury of like substance as the temple of Solomon? Howbeit upon Apostolical simplicity on the day of his coronation he scattereth among the people batocchis & bagatini half pence and farthings: Lib. Cerem. sacrarum c. Of the Pope's Coronation. saying with S. Peter Act. 3.6 Silver & gold I have none, but such as I have I give thee. Let us consider likewise what entereth into this spiritual treasury. Stripes, pilgrimages, wallets, labours and travails, with fasts superabundant. What dreams? What husbandry? And all this to be mixed with the merits of jesus Christ: so well must they be accompanied. What shall we say of the prodigious terms of their pardons, amounting even to millions of years? Yea sometimes with manifest scorn, adding to the years so many months and so many days, as if this people did very exactly calculat with God? And that this scorn may the better appear, they grant pardons that give plenary remission and six thousand years to boot. See the very words of the book of Roman Indulgences printed at Rome by julius Accoltus, anno, 1570. In the month of February upon Quinquagesima Sunday ye shall have the stations at S. Peter's, with plenary Indulgence and 28 thousand years of Indulgence, and as many quarantines. Leo Bishop of Rome, Leo Papa ep. 89. who lived four hundred years after Christ, had never learned this Arithmetic: for he saith, Pag. 52. 53. let no man prescribe any measure, or define any time to the mercy of God. To this question the Friar is still, for (saith he) he must preach upon it this next lent. The fire of Helie having acknowledged some abuse in the excessive length of these Indulgences (as indeed it is but a new invention, and a testimony how far man's spirit will proceed, when God hath given it over) yet soon after he undertaketh their defence: and to that end he allegeth the sin of Adam, the punishment whereof hath continued above five thousand years. This he saith to confound himself. For if the Pope neither could, neither yet can remit to any this punishment, which hath continued above five thousand years, no nor exempt him any one day therefrom, how dare he presume without any authority of the Scriptures to exempt souls for some thousands of years from a torment infinitely more grievous? Besides we have already showed that the calamity and miseries of the world are not punishments for Adam's sin, but punishments for that the world ensueth the sins of Adam. The same do we say of the Amalekites destroyed four hundred years after their sins committed in the wilderness: for albeit God did again call to mind the offence before committed, yet was there no man rooted out that had not well deserved it. But to what purpose is all this? What resemblance between the delaying of a punishment four hundred years, and pardons for six hundred thousand years? That which he addeth passeth all absurdity. He saith that the daughter of the Canaanite was afflicted with a devil in her infancy for the sin of Cham who died three thousand years before. He ought to have produced his author for this so lame a fable. By the way let him learn that if I'm died about the time of his brother Sem it was but eighteen hundred years or a little more, between his death and the birth of this daughter of Canaan, and thus was he wide twelve hundred years in his calculation. He farther proceedeth and saith, That I mistake if I think that this great number of years should be for Purgatory, for (saith he) they are for the penances enjoined by the Confessors or that should have been enjoined, had they observed the severity of the ancient Cannons, etc. Wherein he counterfeiteth the ignorant: for he knoweth well enough that in the Church of Rome they do hold that if any man in his life time hath not satisfied the penance enjoined, he must afterward finish this satisfaction in Purgatory: whereof it ensueth that the Pope releasing those penances, doth also exempt from Purgatory him who being by death preverted, had no time to accomplish them. Moreover if a man should gather together all the longest penances imposed by the ancient Canons, yet do I think it unpossible to draw them to amount to the sum of six hundred thousand years, which is the pardon purchased at Rome in the Church of S. Bibian upon Alhallon day. Surely this so long a term doth show that this pardon is not a release for pains enjoined only in this life, but also for the pains after this life. This doth Bellarmine teach in his first book of Indulgences, Cap. 9 parag. Existit. Finally he allegeth Scripture to prove these Indulgences granted to the dead. In the 20. of S. john, Pag. 54. jesus Christ saith to all his Disciples Whatsoever you shall lose upon earth shall be loosed in heaven. And then he leaveth us to conclude that the Pope may lose under the earth and fetch the souls out of Purgatory. And other as welfavored. In the first to the Corinthians the third Chapter, Let a man so think of us as of the ministers of Christ, and disposers of the secrets of God. Then may the Pope give Indulgences to the dead, as who should say, Masses for horses are wholesome: then is the Pope God upon earth. Ye subtle Doctors that have passed by the examen of Logic tell me in kindness, in what figure are these syllogisms? but they know well enough that these mysteries whereof S. Paul speaketh are the doctrine of the Gospel. He addeth that S. Paul 2. Cor. 2. Released that which he had enjoined to the Incestuous of Corinth. To what purpose is all this for papal Indulgences & fetching of souls out of Purgatory? 1. The incestuous lived, these in Purgatory are dead. 2. S. Paul released that which himself had enjoined [saith the doctor] but the Pope fetching the souls out of Purgatory, released that which he had not enjoined. 3. S. Paul remitted a sin to one whose repentance he knew well. The Pope giveth Indulgences to such as he knoweth not: as when upon his coronation day he distributeth pardons for some thousand years to the press of people that is in S. Peter's street. Cerem. Sacr. lib. 1. Sect. 2. cap. 3. 4. S. Paul never prescribed any term of ten or twenty thousand years: only after Excommunication he received the penitent sinner into the Church again. 5. S. Paul gave no Indulgences by bulls sealed in authentic manner: but to the penitent sinner he preached remission of his sins through jesus Christ. 6. S Paul never added the clauses and cautions that the Pope doth: namely that such a pardon is given Manus porrigentibus adiutrices. To those that shall give and contribute. ●. S. Paul never tied remission of sins ●o any certain day, to any certain place, or to any certain year, as the Pope doth to the five and twentieth year, which he calleth jubilee. As if God were more merciful in the year 1600 then he was in the year 1509 8. S. Paul distributed no hallowed grains, no hal●owed crosses or medalles, with a thousand such babbles, as the Pope doth at this day, which wosoever weareth or kisseth, he shall obtain certain hundred years of pardon. 9 S. Paul never consecrated any Agnus Dei that had virtue to purge sin, as the Pope doth from seven years to seven years. 10. S. Paul never privileged any parsons that they should not go into Purgatory: or that they should come forth incontinently, as the Pope doth to the Carmelites and the fraternity of the Cord. 11. S. Paul receiving again the incestuous that was cut of from the Church, never imposed any pains after his reconciliation, but contented himself with that punishment that he had undergone before his absolution. The Pope contrariwise pardoning sins, imposeth pains and in one self action first looseth and then bindeth again. 12. S. Paul never reserved to himself only the authority to give Indulgences and pardons, as knowing that jesus Christ spoke to all the Apostles and pastors, when he said Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven. Mat. 18.18. Also whose sins you shall forgive they shall be forgiven. joh. 20.23. Therefore also when he forgave he craved no leave nor authority of Peter or of any other who had the only managing of the treasure of the Church. 13. Lastly, S. Paul distributed not to the sinner any of the superabundant merits or sufferings of the Saints for the redemption of his sin: for all his skill, and all his hope is in jesus Christ crucified: neither doth he tell us of any other redeemers. With what conscience then can they bring in the example of S. Paul to establish their Indulgences and the fetching of souls out of Purgatory? As for me who by these our Masters am provoked and challenged in so many places: may not I now challenge them to show me in all these oppositions that I have exhibited, any correspondence between S Paul and the Pope? But they will not deal: this they will gently pass over, and in lieu of reasons lay up on me Invectives and slanders enough. Cayer only hath bethought himself of a proof for the fetching of souls out of Purgatory: that is, that under the law there was an altar of propitiation: as indeed the others are but dunces to him. Here we are to note wherein the principal abuse and heap of Impiety doth rest. That is that the Pope's Indulgences have no community with the remission of sins propounded in the Gospel. For the faithful pastors do preach to the sinner, upon his repentance, remission of sins, and in virtue of their ministry do pronounce forgiveness of the same, inviting the sinner to participate in this grace, as herehaughts of the pardon purchased by jesus Christ. But the Pope giveth his pardons kinglike, in letters patents sealed with lead in form of decrees, & those letters dispatched in chancery. And the office of this chamber is farmed out at a very high rate: Poterit pontifex Indulgentias concedere etiansi nondum sit sacris ordinibus insignitus Sess. 10. Imperium sanctitatis vestrae, etc. Sess 9 R●gale Rom pont. genus Sess. 3. Papa Sacerdos & Rex. Sess. 1. Princeps totius Orbis. neither doth the Pope give forth these pardons as he is Bishop, or a preacher of the Gospel: for he not only preacheth not nor instructeth: but if a mere lay man that never received holy orders be chosen Pope, he may confer Indulgences, as we may see in the first book of sacred ceremonies, and in Bellarmine, in his first book of Indulgences, cap. 11. Therefore likewise doth he wear three Crowns which he nameth his Tyare. Il regno: as also in the last Council of Lateran he is named the king, Emperor and Prince of all the world. Doctor Du Val goeth farther than all this, and saith that these be only flea-bite, and that I trouble myself without any ground in meddling against the Pope. Thus in lieu of unknitting the knot, he cutteth it asunder: and holdeth the encroaching upon the Majesty of God; the establishing of a tyranny in the Church: and the setting to sale the remission of sins as it were merchandise, to be but small abuses and flea-bite. The Friar might have done more wisely if he had imitated his companion: Indeed in his running away he hath followed him and answered nothing to the premises: yet he addeth a childish slander, saying: Du Moulin findeth abuses in Indulgences because they are given forth in writing, for he will have them promulgated verbally. Who did ever hear such a folly? Or where spoke I such a word? Lift up your cowl goodman and learn to read, but not to slander: his injuries bring me in mind of Hecuba, who was said together with her estate, to have lost her human shape: and changed her speeches into howl and barking: for this Observantine finding the overthrow of his cause cannot cease to bark. Let us now come out of this matter, as out of a shop (for indeed it is all but trash and traffic) and let us requite these our masters and Doctors in questions, such as being handled in schools in Quodlibetary manner, may stand then instead of Purgations. 1. I will ask first where and when the Pope first gathered together the merits and superabundant satisfactions of Saints, & Martyrs, and who gave him commission to gather together this treasure, or commanded them to gather up these supererogatory satisfactions for the redemption of the punishments due to other men's sins? 2. Secondly, who told him that God would accept of the jerks and lashes that a penitent giveth himself, or of the labours of S. Frances, or S. Dominicke, in payment or satisfaction for others? Will a judge set a prisoner at liberty because some friend of his hath scourged himself or fasted for him? 3. Whether the pardons that the Pope giveth, without enjoining any penance be of any force? as also those which he giveth with condition to work some wickedness as in the years 1587. and 1588. when he gave seven years of pardon to every one that would join with the holy Union: that is to say, that would rebel against their king, yet he a Roman Catholic? 4. Again, In as much as these superabundant satisfactions of Saints are gathered together into the Pope's treasury (because God will have nothing lost) how have the superabundant satisfactions of such holy men as died under the old Testament, as Moses, Abraham, etc. been husbanded? be those also in the Pope's treasury? But where were they laid up before the Pope had them? Did they lie lurking in some corner two or three thousand years, until the Pope gathered them together and found means to employ them? It were not amiss also to inquire the reason why the world in the year of jubilee maketh such haste to Rome, considering that at Rome they may at all times obtain millions of years of Indulgences, and full remission of sins and some six hundred thousand years of plenary pardon. Above all we would gladly know when a man that needeth ten thousand years of pardon doth purchase enough for fifty thousand years, what becometh of the forty thousand years that remaineth: Cayer saith that they return into the treasury for the good of others: but because his companions do despise & disgrace him, we would willingly be taught by some substantial Doctor, the rather for that at Rome and in one self place a man may obtain, besides the plenary pardon, certain thousands of years of surplusage: To what end may that surplusage serve? will the Pope therewith pardon sins, & give Indulgences by provision? CAP. 6. That all the passages of holy Scripture by our adversaries quoted for prayer for the dead and for Purgatory are either false or unprofitable. IN all the Premises we may see that our enemies fight but faintly & that they are armed but with straws against the force of the truth: how much less shall they be able to do any thing when they shall be quite stripped, and that little armour that is left them, be clean taken away? This is it which in this Chapter we will with Gods help perform. My adversaries therefore whose desire of gain induceth them to practise Pyrotechny, do heap together stubble good store, that is to say, simple proofs to kindle this fire of Purgatory. Of these proofs, some concern prayer for the dead, and some Purgatory, some taken out of the old, some out of the new Testament: we will then without dissimulation propound them all, and for my part I will deal with them with as much equity and sincerity as they have dealt with me with fraud & unjustice, which consisteth in suppressing my best objections and corrupting the rest. Passages produced by these three Doctors to prove prayer for the dead. All that my adversaries do allege concerning prayer for the dead is grounded upon a false principle, namely, that who so prayeth for a dead body, presupposeth that there is a Purgatory: but in the last Chapter we will show that the prayers for the dead, which some of the ancients did use, were even against Purgatory. Here might we dispense for answering hereto, the rather for that albeit they should obtain their desires, yet had they gained nothing toward the establishment of their Purgatory. Howbeit we will do them thus much more than right, that now receiving their principle we will lay open the falsehood and impertinency of their proofs thereupon. 1. Cayers' passages p. 24. A falsehood Cayer shall have the credit to march foremost, as the most skilful. His words are these. It is said Numbers 16. v. 47. &. 48. that Aaron reconciled the people both the quick and the dead. A passage false and by him invented: for as well in the Hebrew, as in the translations, even in the Roman, it is thus, Aaron standing upright between the dead and the living, besought God for the people: and the plague ceased. 2. In the third book of Kings. cap. 8. v. 38. There is a manner of prayer for the dead (saith Cayer) in these words. Every prayer and supplication made by any man for the wound of his heart in the Church, it shall be acceptable to God. Also in the 33. verse it is said. If the people fall before their enemies, in praying to God they shall be heard. Were not this passage falsified, yet show me one word in it that importeth praying for the dead. 3. Again he saith that in the 57 of Esay the Prophet complaineth that they did not pray for the dead. This also is false, neither is there any such speech throughout all the Chapter. Look also what we have already said in the third Chapter and third Argument 4. He goeth on and saith that in the third Chapter of Baruch it is set down in express words: Hear o Lord God the prayer of the dead Israelits, and of their children that have sinned before thee. And soon after, Remember not the iniquity of our Fathers. First, the book is Apocryphal: secondly, In these words of [Israel] are comprised all the people of Israel, who in those days through the extremity of their captivity & misery, were as if they lived not, as it appeareth in the eleventh verse, where it is said, Israel is counted with them that go down to the grave. Terming those dead, after the ordinary phrase of the Scripture, that are oppressed with affliction, and as it were within two inches of death: As David in the 88 Psalm, albeit alive, counteth himself among the dead and those that go down to the pit: so also in the 18. Psalm, v. 5. & 6. and in the 116. Psalm, v. 3. he saith that he is environed and surprised with the snares of death and with the bonds of the sepulchre. Also in the 18. Psalm v. 19 the faithful do desire of God that he would restore them to life, as if they had been dead, and already brought to the grave. Thirdly, to what purpose doth he come in with a prayer of the dead, considering that our question concerneth only the prayer of the living for the dead. Fourthly, as concerning these words Remember not the iniquity of our fathers, he prayeth that the threats of the law, which denounce that God will visit the iniquity of the Fathers upon the children be not executed upon them: he therefore prayeth that the sins of the fathers be no cause to prolong their captivity, as plainly appeareth in the eight verse. Cayer produceth yet another passage out of the second of the Macchabees, but that you shall find among the passages of the other two. 5. The Friar having discharged all his anger upon M. Calvin, and charged that good man with infinite slanders, wresting the Interpretion of sundry his passages, and falsifying others, even so far forth as to make him say that the souls departed out of the bodies, do not enjoy the beatitude before the resurrection, albeit that Calvin hath beaten down this error in a treatise which he wrote expressly upon that argument: Calvini Psichopannichia he lastly in his 17. page, beginneth his proofs by the holy Scripture. 6. His words are these. The holy Scripture which teacheth us all that is necessary to salvation doth withal forbid us any thing that may be contrary thereto now let any man show me so much as one place that forbiddeth to pray for the dead. The fire of Helie saith the same: Pag. 8. 62. only he denieth that the Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: and therefore giveth examples. The baptism of children: The consubstantiality of the father with the son: The Trinity of persons etc. To all the which we have already answered in the second Chapter. It were good these doctors could agree among themselves. In the mean time in answer to the Friar Isay. It is a misshapen argument, and two of the propositions are false: The first Proposition is this, The holy Scripture commanding that which is necessary to salvation, doth also forbid all that is contrary thereto. Which we deny, because here the question is of an express prohibition. For the Friar requireth that we should show him such a one: but it is well know that God, when he hath commanded any thing, doth not always in express words add the prohibition of the contrary: he will be prayed unto: but where doth he forbidden that we should not pray to him? It sufficeth that this prohibition follow the commandment, albeit it be not expressed. The second prohibition is also false, That prayer for the dead is not forbidden. For any addition to the commandment of God is forbidden Deut. 4.2. prayer for the dead is an addition to the commandment of God: it is therefore forbidden, because it is not commanded. Again, Prayer that is not of faith, cannot be acceptable to God, james, 1.6 Hebrews, 11.6. Prayer for the dead is made without faith, for faith cometh of the word of God and is grounded thereupon, but throughout all the word of God prayer for the dead is not spoken of: It cannot then be acceptable unto God. Which is more, by the same argument we may prove all things: we may say that all that is in Amadis or in the chronicle of S. Frances is true, because we find not that it is there contradicted. And let this be spoken in answer to Doctor Du Val, who groundeth his Purgatory upon this, that jesus Christ did not condemn prayer for the dead? which [saith he] was put in practice among the jews, & yet jesus Christ never reproved them for it. True it is that the jews had their abuses which are not condemned in the Gospel. joseph. in that place saith that the Esseans in the course of their life observed Pythagoras rule. As the sect of the Esseans witness Pliny, lib. 5. cap. 17. and josephus Antiquitatum, lib 18. cap. 2. And their opinion was and yet is, That the Messiah should be a great Prince, that should conquer the nations and subdue them to the jews. josephus also in his 12. book and 2. Chapter. of the wars of the jews saith that the Pharisees taught the passage of the souls out of one body into another: yet did not jesus Christ reprove them for the same. As concerning the opinion of praying for the dead, if any of the jews were tainted therewith, yet was it not universal doctrine received among them: Eccl. 49.10 beside that it hath no affinity with Purgatory. For even to this day such jews as pray for the dead know not what Purgatory is: and their ordinary prayer is that the memory of the dead may be blessed 7. These Doctors having thus produced their reasons without Sctipture, do now allege Scripture without reason. Thus saith the Friar S. james in his fifth Chapter saith, Pray one for another that ye may be saved. Pag. 17. Here S. james tieth not this to the living only. He also allegeth S. Augustine in his 20. book of the City of God, who saith, that the souls of the dead are not separated from the Church. He farther demandeth who told us whether our Lord, teaching us to say, forgive us our trespasses &c. limited this prayer for the living or for the dead? This also is of the like nature and full of subtlety. Pag. 40. jesus Christ, saith he, taught us to pray for the dead, when he Instituted the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Where he said, Drink ye all of this, for this is my blood of the new Testament which shall be shed for MANY, & S. Luke saith, for YOU In saying for you & for many, he meaneth both present, absent, and to come: therefore it is not for you to limit the will of jesus Christ only to the living. To answer all this requireth much patience, though small dexterity: for we are driven to reduce these men, as little children, to the ABC of reason. 1. First this passage of S. james is falsified: for S. james speaketh of the cure of the body, not of the salvation of the soul, as appeareth by the verse next before. Prayer in faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up again. And to the like end also was this unction, namely to cure the diseased. Thus the Apostle healed many diseased by anointing them, Mark. 16. 13. Tertullian in his 2. book Scepula c. 4. speaketh of one Proculus, who cured the Emperor Severus by anointing him with oil. 2. I would ask the subtle doctors to whom S. james writ: whether to the living, or to the dead, or to both? Surely he writ to the living: for they use to carry no letters into Purgatory: then they whom he commanded to pray were living. 3. What kind of proof call you this? S. james excludeth not the dead, neither doth he forbidden to pray for them: we must therefore pray for them. Surely if this reason were of force we must also pray for the Angels for the Saints, yea for the damned: for S. james doth not forbid to pray for any of the 〈◊〉. 4. The same answer may serve for that which they say That the dead be of the Church and one body with us: for who denieth it? Must we allege S. Augustine for that which we may learn in the word of God? Apoc. 6 12 Heb 12.23. Ephes. 3.17 But doth it follow that we must pray to God for all that be of the Church? why then doth not the Romish Church pray for the Saints and Martyrs. 5. The members of one self body must help each other, when any one of them standeth in need of help. But here we maintain [& this is the some of our difference] that the faithful deceased need not our succours The Friar than presupposeth as granted, that which is the main question. The passage ensuing, besides the aforesaid absurdities, hath yet this particular, that it presupposeth that the Lords prayer is said for the dead also: If so, them do we also pray that God would give them their daily bread: As for bread it is the less strange because the fire of Purgatory is sufficient to bake it: and sith in the Mass it is said that the souls do sleep in this fire, and rest in a slumber of peace, it is like when they awake they have a good appetite. But I cannot comprehend how this bread may be called, Daily, sith there they have neither day nor sun. Hereto let us adjoin the same that our doctors have confessed. That God hath already pardoned those roasted souls from all their offences, & that he only requireth of them the pains due to the sins already pardoned: how can we then desire God to forgive them their sins which are already forgiven them. A liar must have a good memory. The last passage for subtiety beareth away the bell. jesus Christ, [saith the Monk] shed his blood for many: therefore for the dead. What need he to seek so far set proofs to prove that which we confess: who denieth but the blood of jesus Christ was shed for many: for all the faithful: for all the Saints and Martyrs? How impertinent also is this collection that the Friar here maketh out of the ancients to prove that the Lords Supper is a sacrifice? What maketh it for Purgatory? Sith we grant that it is a sacrifice: but as it is said in the Mass: A sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving: neither Propitiatory nor redemptory, but by representation, because the supper is a commemoration of the death of jesus Christ the only propitiatory sacrifice: And in regard hereof this sacrifice was always called Eucharistia that is A thanksgiving. As for the commemoration of the dead, practised by some of the ancients in the supper, I will in the next chapter following prove that it maketh against Purgatory: for therein they also made a commemoration of the Apostles and Martyrs. And in this place doth the Friar prove himself a most ridiculous flatterer, in spreading abroad such panegyrics and praises of Monsieur Duranti [one that deserveth commendations out of an honester man's mouth] as also of our king, who is too wise to think that such commendations are other then shameless beginnings. But what is become of those days when men of his coat went in Procession in arms, the pike in one hand & the porteous in the other, and were the firebrands of public combustions, encouraging the people against their king, whilst we as good subjects, even such as we will be to the death, did shed our blood in his service? Of like substance also is the fable that he patcheth up of a Mass song in England for the soul of the late Queen, and the offerings contributed in her funeral: whereupon in full hope he exclaimeth: At length the truth shall rise out of Democritus well: you deceive yourself, good man, she rose from thence even in the time of the Apostles, and primitive Church: But the devil hath dealt with her as he did with joseph when he came out of the well: she hath been sold to strange merchants brought into bondage, and put in subjection, not as joseph was to an Eunuch, but to the father of lies marvelous fruitful. (8) This now decided let us into our way again. In his 19 page he bringeth in a prayer for the dead, taken out of Esay, 57.1. & 2. Cayer also pag. 24 citeth the same place, but cotrarieth the Friar, saying that it is not a prayer for the dead, but a lamentation that he maketh because that in those days in Israel they prayed not for the dead. The fire of Helie is content to say only that this passage doth not condemn Purgatory. Pag. 66. Thus do these our masters agree among themselves: but in the third Chapter we have showed that the Friar falsifieth this place and that the same quite quencheth Purgatory. (9) Now followeth the passage which all the 3 Doctors make use of, & whereof they form a mighty Bulwark. It is in the 2. of the Macchabees the 12. where [say they] judas sent 12 thousand drachmas of silver to Jerusalem to be offered in sacrifice for the dead. Hereto we answer 1. They falsify the place. The Friar pag. 10. 2. The book is not Canonical. 3. Were it Canonical, yet maketh it nothing for Purgatory. 4. They sin against the natural principles of the question: For we never dispute against any but by the principles and authorities that we receive. Men dispute not with jews by the authority of the new Testament: neither will the Gentiles disputing against the Christians, produce the testimony of Hesiods Theogony. This S. Augustine knowing, in his question against Maximine, saith in his third book and 14. Chapter, that he will use the Scriptures, non quorumcunque prop●ijs, sed utrique communibus. Not proper to such, or to such, but common to both Now let us return over the three first points. First the falsification is proved by reading over the place. This it is. judas sent to Jerusalem the sum of twelve thousand drachmas of silver to offer sacrifices for the sin, he saith, for the sin not as the Friar saith for the dead. Now what these words for the sin doth signify shall hereafter appear. That the book is not Canonical, we have infinite proofs. 1. First, these books are not in the Hebrew, 2. jesus Christ and his Apostles, who upon every occasion did allege the passages of the old Testament, never named any of these books, neither out of them cited any passage. 3. The Author himself cap. 2. v. 19 saith that his purpose is to abridge the five books of jason the Cirinean into one book: Now if jasons books were not Canonical, how can the abstract of them be Canonical? If Trogus or Dyon be profane books, how can justine or Xiphiline be sacred. S. Paul, 2. Tim. 3.16. saith All Scripture is given by inspiration of God: But what inspiration is it to say the same that another in a profane book hath spoken, and only to abridge his words? What more? The Author doubting whether he had said well, toward the end concludeth thus. If I have said well and as it appertaineth to the history, it is as much as I desire. Are the motions of the spirit of God so insensible or doubtful as to leave the mind in suspense and uncertain, concerning the excellency of such things as it hath suggested; a little after he excuseth the simplicity of his style. Will God who hath no interest to be believed, whose naked words do far exceed the most polished words of man excuse the poverty of his own phrase? Or shall not he that made the tongue have eloquence enough? yes, for he inspireth his servants with so much eloquence as he thinketh good: neither is it for us either to distaste it or to bring excuses. But in the reading of these books how many things do weaken their authority? In the second of the Macchabees, 1.19. it is said that the jews were led captive into Persia, where he should have said Babylon or Chaldea: for in the time of Nabuchadnezar, who transported them, Persia was not yet united into one kingdom with Chaldea: Cyrus some seventy years after, upon his taking of Babylon united these two kingdoms: an error that made chrysostom to stumble in his sixth homely upon Matthew, where he saith that the jews were delivered out of the Persian captivity. 1. Maccab. 1.7. he saith that Alexander divided his kingdom among his friends before he died, which is contrary to the general consent of all historiographers, who all do testify that he died in Babylon without disposing of any thing: which also the wars succeeding between his princes and domestical servants about the division of his conquests do sufficiently show. Read justin, Curtius, Arrian, Plutarch in the beginning of the life of Eumenes, and toward the end of the life of Alexander. In the eighth chapter of the same book he speaketh like a Clerk at Arms, and saith that by great battles the Romans had conquered the Galatians: yet in those days they had set no foot in Gaul to conquer it. Neither can he by the Galatians understand the Galatians or Gallo-greekes of Asia, who were conquered without resistance: beside in that place he also speaketh of the conquest of Spain, as near to the Gauls. In the said place it is also said that they had taken Antiochus the great on live, Livy, lib. 3●. & 36. Eutrop. lib. 4 Florus, lib. 2 cap. 8. contrary to the testimony of all historiographers. Read Livy, Florus, Eutropius, and others. Well do they confess that Antiochus lost three notable battles: one in Achaia against Accilius Glabrio: another upon the seas under the conduct of Hannibal: the third near to Magnesia a town in Asia against Cornelius Scipio, but was never prisoner or captive to the Romans. In the same Chapter it is said that the Romans gave the Indies to Eumenes, to whom were given only certain towns to Anatolia, before won from Antiochus. For as for the Indies the Romans never saw them: and when their Empire was at the highest, they neverwent far beyond Euphrates. But the most notable of all is that in the 16. verse, it is said that the Romans yearly committed their estate to one man, considering it is manifest that yearly they created two Consuls, whereof the proof were superfluous. In the 2. Chap. of the 2. of Macchabees it is said that jeremy hide the Ark in a chest of the mountain Nebo, that it might be found after the captivity: and that this place should be unknown until that God had gathered again the congregation of the people, which is contrary to the 10. Chap. v. 22. of the 4 of Esdras: by our adversaries accounted Canonical, which saith that the Ark was defaced by the enemy: also in the sermon of Onction, attributed to S. Cyprian it is said Arca ab Allophilis capta est: The Ark was taken by strangers. Experience saith as much: for after the return out of captivity we find no mention of the Ark, neither was there any in the Temple, as all the Rabbins do testify: who complained that in the second house they wanted five things which the first house had. 1. urim and Thumim. 2. The holy fire. 3. The Ark. Rabbi Schelomo jarchi. Initio Proph. Aggei, v. 8. 4. The presence of the divinity. 5. The spirit or Inspiration: which so tortureth Bellarmine, that he proceedeth so far as to say that this Ark is yet hidden and shall be found the next day before the judgement: hitting the counterfeiters and forgers of relics, a shrewd knock over the knuckles: for the book of Roman Indulgences printed at Rome, saith that the Ark is reserved at Rome among the relics of the Church of Lateran. In the 2. of Macchabees, cap. 14. the act of Razias is commended, who slew himself: neither can we say that his valeancy only is commended: for it is there expressly delivered that he died virtuously. And I see that this opinion beginneth to get ground among some of our adversaries. For Carron the Divine at Bordeaux, otherwise a man of a good spirit, doth stiff and stoutly maintain this opinion in his second book of wisdom, cap. 12. especially in the 450 page of the impression of Bordeaux, where he shutteth up his discourse with this resolution: That we must try all means before we come to this extremity: also that it is a point of wisdom to know the time and take it. And withal he scorneth the cowardliness of many that have outlived their glory. He also saith page 405. that the world hath long lived under unjust, ungodly and extravagant laws, which if any man should endeavour to reform, he should show himself an enemy to the Commonwealth: withal that turbulent stirrers under pretence of reforming do mar all. What shall we say of the strange contradictions in these books? We find that Antiochus the noble died three times. In the first book cap. 6. he died at Babylon in his bed: In the second cap. 1 he dieth in the Temple of Nannea in Persia, where he and his being entrapped and enclosed in the Temple, he was slain with stones. Afterward in the 9 Chapter following, falling from his chariot in his return from Persia, the worms issued out of his body and he died a stranger among the mountains. See the 12. book of joseph. Antiquities, where we shall find the trace of the sane contradiction. How a stranger, if he died at Babylon the capital city of his dominions? How in the mountains, sith Babylon standeth in a plain, and is situated upon the river Euphrates? How with a fall from his chariot, if he were stoned in the Temple? Neither can it be said that they were sundry Antiochus: for all this is reported in the time of judas, in whose days there was but one Antiochus. Yea & in the first book cap. 1. and in the second cap. 9 he is surnamed the Noble, or Epiphanes, in either place. What more? these books do reckon the years from the beginning of the reign of the Grecians in Asia. In the first of the Macchabees the 9 it is said that judas was slain in the year 152. but in the 4. of the second book judas writ letters bearing date 188. that is to say, six and thirty years after his death. Now let us see in what account these books were holden in the primitive Church. The Council of Laodicea of like antiquity as the Council of Nice, placeth not these books in rank with the Canonical, That the primitive Church never acknowledged the Macchabees be Canonical. The falsehood of the Friar. wherein I admire the little faith of our Friar minor, who in the 22. page of his book, dare report that this Council placeth the Macchabees among the Canonicals: for they are not so much as there named. Afterward the sixth universal Council approveth and confirmeth all the contents of the Council of Laodicea. Hereto agreeth the Council of Carthage, wherein S. Augustine was present. True it is that the Latin copies miserably falsified by our adversaries, do place these books among the Canonical: At Paris by Conrade Neobarius 1540 but in the Greek copies printed by themselves they are not once mentioned. As for the ancient Doctors, Prologus Galeatus. when shall we have produced their depositions hereupon. S. Hierome in his Prologue upon the Bible, Machab. lib. inter Scripturas Canonicas Ecclesia non recipit. hath expressly handled this matter. There he admitteth no other books of the old Testament to be Canonical but such as be in the Hebrew Bible, in number two and twenty: himself in the preface upon the books of Solomon, speaking of Ecclesiasticus, and the wisdom of Solomon saith thus. As the Church indeed readeth the books of judith, of Toby, and of the Macchabees, but not among the Canonical Scriptures: even so also she readeth these two volumes, for the edification of the people: but not to confirm the doctrine of the Church. S. Hillary upon the prologue to the Psalms, agreeth with S. Hierome, and saith that in the old Testament there be as many books as there be letters in the Hebrew Alphabet, that is two and twenty. Athanasius in his book entitled Synopsis S. Scripturae, nameth all the books of the old Testament unto two and twenty and saith, That the rest of the books of the old Testament are not Canonical neither read to any but to the Catechumeni: Manethon ●ishop of Sardis giveth us a catalogue of the books of the old Testament in the fourth book of Eusebius, cap. 25. Where in the Macchabees are not named. Eusebius in his third book and tenth Chapter speaking of the books of the old Testament saith, We have no infinite number of discordant books, but only two and twenty. And farther he saith that whatsoever is written since the time of Artaxerxes, is not worthy like credit as the former, and of this sort are the Macchabees. Epiphanius in his book of measures saith as much: & nameth all the books of the old Testament, but speaketh not of the Macchabees. Among the works of S. Cyprian we find a treatise of the exposition of the Creed, which seemeth rather to be of Ruffinus. Therein the author nameth all the books both of the old and new testament & then saith, These are the books which the fathers have enclosed in the Camnon and Rule from whence we are to take the proofs of our faith: yet are we to understand that there be other books not Canonical, but Ecclesiastical, among which are the books of Toby, judith & the Macchabees, etc. What would we have more? Among all the Bishops of Rome even Gregory the great in his morals up on job. lib. 19 cap. 29. purposing to allege the Macchabees concerning the act of Eleazar excuseth himself in these words. Qua in re non inordinatè agimus si ex libris non Canonicis, etc. Bell. lib. 1. de verbo Dei. cap. 10. Wherein we speak not from the purpose albeit we produce testimonies out of the books not Canonical: but written for the edification of the Church: he wrote six hundred years after Jesus Christ. Even Bellarmine doth confess that Origen, Athanasius, Nazianzen, Epiphanius & Hierome received not the Macchabees among the Canonical. Our adversaries make a buckler of S. Augustine & set him in counterpoise against all antiquity: in this point contemning all the authority of the fathers and their own Popes. And yet herein they do him wrong: for this good father never strayed from the universal consent of the Church in his time. August. ad Gaudent. li. 2. cap. 23. Unto Gaudentium who used the authority of the example of Razias that killed himself, and is mentioned in the second of the Macchabees he answereth thus. The jews hold not this book in like degree as the law, the Prophets and the Psalms: to whom jesus Christ yieldeth testimony, as to those that hear witness of him: but this book is received by the Church not unprofitably, if it be read discreetly, especially in regard of the sufferings of certain Martyrs. Read the whole page, and ye shall see that S. Augustine's intent was to beat down the objection of Gaudentius, who armed himself with the authority of this book also to prove that jesus Christ deferred no authority to any other but to the law, to the Prophets and to the Psalms. Yet do our adversaries produce some passages out of S. Augustin to the contrary, but manifestly falsified. In his eighteenth book of the city of God, cap. 36. he saith thus. Quorum supputatio temporum non in Scrip sanctu quae Canonica appellant ur sed in aliis invenitur, in quibus sunt & Machab. libri quos non judaei, sed Ecclesia pro Canonicis habet The supputation of this time, from the new building of the temple is not found in the holy scriptures which are called Canonical: but in other books: which are the Macchabees: could he more expressly raze the Macchabees out of the Canonical scriptures but at the end hereof let us see a tail most butcherly clapped on by some Monk. Which book not the jews, but the Church holdeth for Canonical: O gross Impostor! After he hath said that the Macchabees are not holy scripture, nor Canonical, would he say that the Church receiveth them for Canonical? The friar saith that sundry fathers have used these books and do cite passages out of them. To what purpose is this? Whosoever allegeth a book, doth he therefore hold it to be Canonical? But we stand now upon much stronger terms. For this passage well weighed, will be found contrary to Purgatory. He saith that judas offering sacrifice for sin thought upon the resurrection: yea he saith that otherwise it had been a folly to pray for the dead: whereby it appeareth that the auctor never imagined that judas prayed to bring these souls out of Purgatory: but that he prayed that the sin by them committed might not hinder them from rising to glory and salvation: for any man that is demanded wherefore he prayeth for the dead, if he answer that it is for the resurrection, he manifestly showeth that he believeth no Purgatory. Otherwise he would not have omitted that which is most urgent, but would have craved to be released out of such long and horrible torments. Ask all these our Masters wherefore they pray for the dead. I am sure none of them will say for the resurrection. Pag. 11. The Friar foreseeing a storm of passages of the father's conspiring to overthrow the authority of this book, shrim king betimes, and as it were forsaking the place, saith, That at the least it cannot not be denied but that this is a history which assureth us that judas made prayers and sacrifices for his brethren deceased: & there is no appearance to impute the invention of this act to him: & therefore it were Impudency to condemn him. And this is the place where I mean to gratify the friar. For albeit this book may as well be false in this point as it is in the others that I have laid open, yet will I admit this history as a truth: Thus it is at large. After the battle judas and his men came to gather up the bodies of the slain and to bury them, but they found under their apparel things consecrated to the Idols that were at jannia: a matter forbidden in the law: Then had they recourse to prayer, and entreated that the sin committed might be forgiven and forgotten. judas thereupon having made a collection, sent to Jerusalem twelve thousand drams of silver to offer in sacrifice for the sin: hitherto the history. That which ensueth is the auctor's judgement, whom we receive for an historiographer, but not for a judge, or doctor in matters of faith. In this history then, which, I pray you, is the first word importing prayer for the dead? Or that concerneth Purgatory? Had judas offered for the dead, he would have prayed for all their sins, and not for that sin only: and upon this reason did the Friar falsify this passage and set in for the dead instead of for the sin. judas therefore prayed that the sin of some might not pull down the wrath of God upon all the people, as in the like case the sin of Acham had procured the overthrow of all the people of Israel. josua. 7. 10 The friar addeth yet one passage out of Toby, forgiving Alms for the dead: These [saith he] are the words of Toby. Cast thy bread and thy wine upon the grave of the righteous and beware thou eat not with sinners. Toby, 4.17 Whereto we say: first the book is Apocryphal, & all the testimonies produced against the books of the Macchabees are in force against the book of Toby: for it is in the same Rank: yea this book hath this in particular, that it maketh the angel Raphael a liar; who being demanded by Tobyas who he was, answered, I am Azarias of the kindred of great Ananias, and of thy brethren. Yet let us admit this book were Canonical, and consider the passage Cast thy bread & wine upon the graves of the righteous: then [saith the Monk] It must needs be there were alms for the dead. 1. First this hath no such sequence, neither can we hereof frame any good Argument. 2. Again, no man denieth but it is good to give alms for the dead: that is to say, not only inremembrance of the dead, but also for and instead of the dead: giving to the poor that which the deceased would have given if he had lived: but not for fetching his soul out of Purgatory: for thereof we find not one word in Toby. The heathen that prayed not to fetch their dead out of Purgatory yet ceased not from giving alms, and making funeral feasts, ferales coenas silicernia. Yea even among the Israelites there was some such matter, not for the redemption of the soul departed, but for the Consolation of the survivors: as we learn in jeremy, jerem. 167 Tertull. de Resur. carnis c. 5. unigus defunctos atrocissimè exaurit, quos postmodum Gulosissimè nutriunt. Qui in memoriis Martyr se inebriant quemodo a nobis approbari possunt etc. Cyprianus de duplici Martyrio An non videmus ad Martyrum memorias Christianum a Christiano cogi ad ebrietatem. where he placeth this among the afflictions prepared for the jews. They shall not stretch out the hands for them in the mourning, to comfort them for the dead: neither shall they give them the cup of Consolation for to drink for their father or for their mother. Neither can this custom be reproved in case there be neither excess nor superstition. 3. The Christians in the primitive Church on the day of the remembrance of the Martyrs, took their repast near to the graves; and as abuse doth commonly intrude itself, they many times overdranke themselves and buried their reasons upon the sepulchres. S. Augustin against Faustus the Manichean, lib. 20. cap. 21. saith. How can we allow of those that drink themselves drunken at the memories of the Martyrs? considering if they should do it in their houses, all true doctrine would condemn them? Hereby it appeareth that the meats set upon the sepulchres were not a price or offering to deliver the souls of the dead: for they were set upon the sepulchres of those Martyrs for whom the Church of Rome holds that we must not pray. 4. Consider also I pray you whether this Monk desired to be believed: and mocketh not himself, when he saith that this bread and wine was for those that were destined to weep for the deceased, and to pray for them, that they might take some comfort? For what a jest is this, to buy tears with bread? to have certain persons destined and affected to weeping? & thus to bring tears to be an occupation? and so of an affliction to erect a trade? A course indeed practised by the heathen, and by the jews imitated, yet by chrysostom condemned: which also the Prophet jeremy mocketh, saying. Call for the mourning women and let them come. But what appearance is there that these tears premeditated and hired may be accepted for a payment and satisfaction to the justice of God, and so enable to redeem a soul out of Purgatory? Fire of Helie pag. 12. & 13. 11 The same Monk, as also the fire of Helie do inculcate many examples of weeping and fasting for the dead as the tears & fastings after the deaths of Saul, jonathan, Abner, etc., Yet among all these lamentations we find no mention of prayer for the dead, or of Purgatory. Besides we have showed that Saul died in God's displeasure: that jacob and Moses were also bewailed, who nevertheless never descended into Purgatory: and for such the Church of Rome saith we must not pray. Places out of the new Testament for prayers for the dead. 12 Now follow the friars places gathered out of the new Testament to the same purpose. The first is page 39 and is taken out of the Gospel of S. john, where Martha saith to jesus Christ Lord if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Yet do I now know that what soever thou askest of the father he will give it thee. It is very certain [saith he] that Martha prayed our Lord jesus Christ to make some prayer for her brother, for she believed not that jesus Christ could of himself raise him again. All conjectures: All false propositions: and yet not without contradiction. For if Martha believed that God would grant to jesus Christ whatsoever he demanded, she believed that jesus Christ could raise him again: for he could demand it. In this place the Friar prates apace, and doth imitate Cayer, A slander. who in the beginning of his book saith that we believe neither heaven nor hell, The intent of the Ministers [saith he] is to deny both Purgatory and Paradise: for we know that at Geneva in the Italian Church after they had argued of the means to root out the belief of Purgatory, one of their Deacons rising up, said: let us do that which we had once determined: let us deny the Immortality of the soul: so shall we soon see Purgatory laid along. The fire of Helie saith, it was not a Deacon but a Minister: yea & he saith moreover that one Perrat a Minister of Geneva, in his life complained that among us the beasts are buried with greater honour than men: But he speaketh as if a man already deceased: so truly he is informed: but the man yet liveth, and if the accuser or accusation did deserve it I could easily from himself procure the confutation of so cold a slander. Hereupon were the Devil our principal enemy a man to be examined, I would demand of him whether our fathers that suffered martyrdom for the Gospel, who were so lavish of their blood, and so sparing of the glory of God, did think that there was no heaven, or that the souls were mortal? But in as much as we meddle not with conjurings or making the spirits to appear, as our adversaries do, let the Friar take his place and be our judge therein. Dare he say that these persons did not aspire to eternal life? The two Deccis, Curtius, or Empedocles, who with their deaths did purchase fame & voluntary lost their lives to purchase commendations after death might have done it without hope of immortality: But where the death is accompanied with infamy & the ashes overlaid with reproach, what man will without hope of immortality seek an inglorious death, and voluntarily lose both his life and his honour? Moreover, who be our slanderers? Even the props and pillars of the Roman sea: a sea that hath been blemished with Popes that have made profession to teach that there is no Paradise, and that the souls of men do die together with their bodies as do the souls of beasts. Let these writers of fires, furnaces, & torrents acknowledge whether these be not the very words of the Council of Constance, Sess. 11. john the 23. Often and very often in the presence of sundry prelates and other good and honest men hath said, supported, taught, and obstinately at the instigation of the devil, maintained that there is no eternal life, neither any other life after this: yea he hath said and obstinately believed that the soul of man dieth with his body and is extinct as those of brute beasts. He hath also said that man once dead shall never rise again at the last day, etc. And afterward it is said that all this is publicly and well known. O how the pulpits should have rung of it if any one of us had spoken but the hundredth part hereof. 12 There resteth yet one place taken out of S. Paul. 1. Cor. 15.29. What shall they do that are baptized for dead? The Friar in lieu of these words for dead hath set down for the dead. The fire of Helie committeth a notable falsehood and disguiseth the passage thus. Pag. 46. Falsehoods. What shall they do that baptize themselves for the dead? And then expoundeth that which he hath corrupted in this manner; To baptize one's self signifieth to do laborious and satisfactory works for the dead: and withal we must understand that it is to fetch them out of Purgatory. Good God what a troublesome thing lying is? This interpretation is taken from Bellarmine, who according to his manner, having alleged the explication of a number of the fathers as Tertullian, Ambrose, Sedulius, Theodoret, chrysostom, Oecumenius, Theophilact, etc. washeth all their heads, and for the establishment of his own exposition confuteth all their explications. And this doth the Friar confirm with the authority of Turrian the jesuite, who maketh use of this passage. An excellent testimony, and of great antiquity. But the sense of these words must be taken of the Apostles intent: This is be seen in Mat. 5. 16● Marc. 1.10. his intent was to prove the resurrection: here to he employeth baptism, which in those days was celebrated by plunging the whole body in water, in token that we are in death: & the coming forth of the water representeth the resurrection: S. Paul's meaning is that this sign were in vain if there were no resurrection: and that in vain we are baptised for dead, or as dead, and to represent unto us that we are in death, if there be no hope of Resurrection. The explication of Theodoret grows much hereupon, which also Caietan doth follow. The places of scripture whereupon these Doctors do lay the foundations of their Purgatory. 1. Cayer pag. 5. proveth the multitude of habitations under the earth by the creed, where it is said Descendit ad Inferos in the plural number: but his grammar faileth him: for in the Greek it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the singular, and Inferi in the plural importeth no more diversity of chambers, or habitations than Superi, which signifieth those that live upon the earth. Virgil. Aeneid. 6. Apud superos furto laetatus inani. 2 Again, upon the last of the Revelation where it is written, Pag. 9 Out of the throne proceeded a river of water clear as crystal. He foundeth Purgatory in rivers, in baths, in ice, under the leaves of trees, etc. To the same end he allegeth the 92. Psalm. The righteous shall flourish like a Palm tree. And this passage doth he make to serve for a defence of his flowered meadow that lieth at the end of Purgatory. Let us yield: Peter Victor Palm Cayer this Doctor taketh up the straw, which is not like the palm, albeit he assumeth that name; but rather like the fig tree which Christ cursed & it bore no more fruit. 3 Himself defendeth the altars whereupon the saying of a stinted number of Masses sufficeth to fetch a soul out of Purgatory: Pag. 17. because in the law there was an altar of propitiation. 4 In page 23. he heapeth up a whole bead-roll of passages for Purgatory, as if they were paternosters. 1. Because there was a flaming sword before the garden of Eden: and the same passage doth the fire of Helie make use of 2. By the fire of sacrifices after the law of nature for he imagineth that the making of sacrifices by fire is a law of nature, & thus doth he confess that he hath lost his human nature, because he doth not sacrifice by fire. 3. Because the law was given in fire. 4. By the perpetual fire that was upon the altar. 5. By the judgement of God that must be in fire. 2. Pet. 3. Out of all this he concludeth that there is a purgatory. How many pens & sonnets shall we pin upon this doctor in reward of his profound subtlety. Some few other passages there be but they will be found among those of his companions. The auctor of the fire of Helie affordeth us as devout ones. He in his 11. page endeavouring to stall his proofs, which [saith he] are as clear as the sun, compareth me to Senecas' maid, but I trust to make him more like to plutarchs boy who played the Philosopher whiles they be laboured him. 5 He cutteth up his reasons with this knife, flourishing at the gate of the earthly Paradise. This sword is Purgatory and so did S. Ambrose understand it: but hereafter we shall prove it false. 6 Then cometh the ninth of Esay, Impiety is kindled as fire, and shall destroy the briars and thorns. This fire is Purgatory, and well it may be because it is compared to iniquity. 7 Then followeth the Prophet Micheas the 7. Rejoice not against me O mine enemy, though I fall I shall arise: when I shall sit in darkness I will bear the wrath of God, until he plead my cause, he will bring me to light and I shall see his righteousness. This darkness and this wrath are Purgatory, and these be the words of those poor roasted souls speaking to their enemies that do rejoice to see them tormented. 1. But how do these enemies rejoice if they be in hell? 2. how do they speak one with another? 3. If these enemies be living, who ever rejoiced in his enemies death, because he was in Purgatory? Or who told him that he was there? and why doth he not rather fear then persist in his hatred? Why is he not rather sorry that he is not in hell? 4. How cometh it to pass that God hath not yet judged the cause of these poor souls against their enemies? 5. but read the whole chapter and you shall perceive that they that there speak be the living and not the dead. 8 After cometh the ninth of Zachary, In the blood of thy covenant thou haste delivered thy prisoners out of the pit where is no water. Pag. 46. Pag. 68 This pit without water is Purgatory: why doth he fear to put water in Purgatory, sith he hath put snow in hell? Therefore also doth the friar contradict him and saith, that the most common exposition speaketh of delivering souls out of Limbo. They shall agree, if they list, S. Augustine in his city of God, lib. 18. cap. 35. shall understand this of the deliverance from sin and from the miseries of this life. S. Hierome in his commentary upon this place, understandeth it of hell: yet were it better that God's word should be the judge. S. Matthew 21. v. 5. alleging the former verses showeth that this passage is meant of jesus Christ. Now what is the deliverance of the Church through the blood of jesus Christ but our redemption from the captivity of Satan and eternal death? Of this deliverance speaketh Zacharie, albeit under the figure of the deliverance from the captivity of Babylon: as also it were strange that Zachary speaking of the deliverance of the Church through the blood of the covenant should speak only of Purgatory and Limbo, and make mention of the redemption from hell and eternal death. 9 That which followeth is very pleasant. Psal. 66. We went through fire & water but thou broughtest out into a refreshing. In the former passage he would have no water in Purgatory: now he will have both fire and water there. Besides, the place is falsified. For according to the Hebrew text it is, Thou haste brought me out into a plentiful place. Other passages he hath which are to be found among the friars passages. The Friar pag. 30. 10 The first passage that he allegeth is out of Esay, 30.33. Tophet is prepared of old, It is even prepared by the king he hath made it deep & large: the burning thereof is fire and much wood: the breath of the Lord kindling it like a river of brimstone. This he saith. p. 34. Pag. 60.16. Tophet saith the Friar is Purgatory: this king is God: and the breath of the Lord bringeth with it consolation, the end and the beatitude, etc. But against this doth Cayer quarrel and say that it concerneth the judgement of God against the iniquity of Assur, and confesseth that this king is the king of Assur. Pag. 47. The fire of Helie returneth the ball to the Friar & holdeth this passage to be a Noli me tangere, but as I have answered so I answer still that we ground no articles of faith upon Allegories. 2. Secondly, Tophet is a place near to Jerusalem in the valley of Hynnon, as witnesseth josua. 15. and 2. King. 23. where the Idolaters burned their children to Moloch or Baal. Whereupon the Prophet here taketh Tophet for the torment prepared for the wicked. 3. That in the whole course of the text it appeareth that Esay speaketh of the wicked, not of the children of God. 4. That the friar falsifieth the passage in saying by the king where in the Hebrew it is for the king. 5. The friar taketh Assur to be a man's name not of a Country As if I had said the king Assur, but I said the king of Assur That this king is the king of Assur, or of Assiria, of whom we spoke not many lines before. 6. That this king being an enemy to God and his people, the torment that is provided for him cannot be Purgatory. The Friar in all this reproveth two things which make nothing to this question. First he will not have Tophet in this place to be the place where they made their children to pass through the fire: Gen. 31.27 Exod. 15 10 Ios. 18.34. but let him then learn what is written. 2. King. 23. josias defiled Tophet which was in the valley of the children of Hynnon, that no man should make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Moloch. This word Tophet cometh of Toph which in Hebrew signifieth a drum, because the Priests of the Idol [so long as the burning of the children lasted] made a noise with drums and basins after the manner of the Coribantes, Maldonat. & Lyra upon the 5. of Matth. lest the parents should hear the cry of their children. Thereupon did job, complaining that he was disdained and shouted at, say that he was made Tophet, a tympanization and a byword or scorn, as also the Greek doth so translate it. The Roman translation turneth it and saith, He hath made me an example: The Friar will have this tympanization to be Purgatory: or had there been here any speech of a tub, or of a lantern, he would also have found some shift to prove that those things signified Purgatory. job therefore by his account, albeit alive, yet complaineth that he was placed in Purgatory. Secondly he doth contest that the children were not burned or consumed in Tophet, but only purged: this cannot proceed but either of gross ignorance, or of extreme malice: for the Scripture is full of proofs to the contrary. jeremy, 7.31. saith, They have built the high place of Tophet in the valley of the sons of Hynnon, to burn their sons and daughters. Again, They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons with fire, for offerings unto Baal. It is in the Hebrew Baar, which signifieth to burn. And this word Holocaust signifieth a sacrifice which they burned and wholly consumed. But because of late they begin to prefer the Roman translation before the Hebrew text, that is to say, a corrupt translation before the original, a troubled ditch before the clear spring: Let us produce the same text of the common translation: Aedificaverunt excelsa Baalim ad comburendos filios suos igni in Holocaustum. jerem. 19.5 Immolaverunt filios & filias suas daemonijs. Likewise in the second of Kings, 3. Accipiensque Rex primogenitum suum, obtulit holocaustum: It is therefore contrary both to the history and to the language to say that the self same translation in sundry places turneth lustrare filios, for cremare, purge for burn. Here the Friar hath bethought him of a notable fable, fetched out of the bottom of his budget. He saith that myself being reduced to a shameful silence, An Englishman whom I had brought for my Gossip, whispered me in the ear and told me that lustare signified to burn. This is a double untruth: for on the one part he maketh as if all the assistants holp him, and that I was in a manner alone: on the other part there was never an Englishman in the company: indeed there was a young Fleming, whom I never saw before: when the Friar said that Excogitatum commentum signified a Commentary, confirmed this explication by the authority of Rabelais, who said, weight of lard with a Comment. As for this word lustrare I maintained that it ought to have been Cremare, to burn: also that the translation was false, and I suppose I needed not make many protestations upon a matter so unworthy the meanest scholar. In vain therefore did he borrow out of Calepin and from the jesuits of Tournom those passages where lustrare signifieth to purge. Wherein nevertheless he spiteth nothing but barbarism and blockishness. Demost. contra Aristocratem ait, cum qui aliquem accusavit tactis sacris suovetaurisibus jurare solitum. I will therefore read him a lesson, therein doing him good for evil. He allegeth a passage out of the third of Livy. Ibi instructum exercitum ove sive tauris tribus lustravit, and then he doth expound it. He purified his army by the sacrifice of one sheep or three bulls. But had he had but a cast of antiquity, he might have heard of a kind of sacrifice frequent among the heathen, named Suovetaurilia and he would not have put Oue sive tauris instead of Ouesuet auris, but this passed the Monk's learning and capacity. 11 They also make use of the first of Samuel, cap. 2. in the song of Hannah in these words, The Lord killeth and maketh alive, bringeth down to the grave & raiseth up. Now in lieu of grave they put hell, and this hell [if we believe the] signifieth Purgatory: In Hebrew it is Shelo which signifieth the state and condition of the dead, the pit, the Sepulchre. The Roman translation still translateth it hell. As in the 140. Psalm, Our bones lie scattered along the hell: In the Hebrew it is the 141.7. also in the 30 Psalm. Thou hast brought my soul out of Hell: jacob also in Genesis saith, You shall bring my white hairs into hell. Again, Psalm 49. They shall be laid in hell, or in the sepulchre like sheep. In these & such like places who seethe not that the word hell is evil put instead of death or the grave. As for the passage in the song of Hannah the Friar confesseth that the same is meant of tribulatitions, but he saith, If it be by comparison, who ever heard of things done, that are not? He saith true: and therefore this comparison must not be taken of Purgatory which is not: as also the chief interpreters of the Romish Church Caietan, Lyra, and the ordinary Gloss, do not by this passage mean Purgatory. S. Augustine in his 17. book, and 17. Chapter of the City of God expoundeth this Canticle at large, yet speaketh not one word of Purgatory. The Friar speaketh as if it had been himself that produced this Rabbin. Read Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. 21 cap. 13. One of the Assistants upon this passage, meaning to help the Friar, produced a Rabbin Isaac Alfeci the Arabian, who speaketh of two hells: whereunto albeit I could have answered and proved that that had no community with Purgatory: yet I thought it better to say That God's enemies were not to be judges in the cause of God: That the truth borrowed no weapons of her adversaries: that Virgil and Plato had also spoken of Purgatory. 12 The Friar saith he hath a whole sea of witnesses: he might have said a forest: for that would have served to kindle Purgatory: he thus therefore entereth into this sea, the sixth Psalm, O Lord rebuke me not in thy rage, neither chasten me in thy wrath. This rage is hell, this wrath Purgatory: with a law [saith he] of satisfaction and chastisement of the faithful deceased, but most severe. S. Augustine upon the sixth Psalm and these words Rage and Wrath saith thus. Ego puto unam rem duobus verbis significatam: I think that one thing is signified by these two words. As for the purging pains whereof in some places he speaketh, in my next Chapter I will show that my adversaries do corrupt and wrong him. The like we say of S. Hierom. 13 Then followeth an other out of the fourth of Esay. The Lord shall wash the filthiness of the daughters of Zion: and purge the blood of Jerusalem out of the midst thereof by the spirit of judgement, and in the spirit of heat. This purging and this spirit of judgement and of heat is Purgatory. But note that this purging is made in the midst of Jerusalem. There then is Purgatory: not under the earth, not in the rivers, not in the ice: for it is too hot in judea. 14 Here cometh a brave one out of Malachi the 3. Who may abide the day of his coming, and who shall endure when he appeareth? For he is like a blowing fire and the fullers soap. This blowing fire is Purgatory: for in his bible he hath Ignis conflans, that is, by the explication of this poor doctor, a blowing fire. What Regent is there that would not whip his scholar for such a gross fault. Learn doctor that Conflare signifieth to forge, or bake in the furnace. Et curuae rigidum falces conflantur in ensem. Surely it is a shame to overcome a man so impertinent. 15 In the 7. of Daniel. Pag. 37. A fiery stream ran before him. This stream is Purgatory: why did he forget gedeon's bottles, or Sampsons' jaw bone of an Ass: for in these things cold he by the subtlety of his brain have found out Purgatory. But to let pass these toys, let us see whether in the new Testament they can find any proofs more apparent. 16 The first passage in the new Testament is in Matthew the 5.22. Whosoever is angry with his brother unadvisedly shall be punishable by judgement: and whosoever saith to his brother Racha shall be punishable by a Counsel, & who so shall say fool shall be punishable by hell fire. Here see I never a word of Purgatory. Likewise the principal Interpreters of the Romish Church as Lyra, Caietan, Maldonat and the ordinary Gloss have otherwise expounded this passage, as also S. Hierome, S. chrysostom, S. Hillary & Theophilact, who writ express Commentaries upon Matthew: but against all these doth the Friar oppose S. Augustine, and saith that in this place he hath found Purgatory, in the first book of the words of our Lord upon the mountain, and then he exclaimeth S. Augustine found it: falsehood Du Moulin denieth it: I had rather find it with this holy doctor, than so much as hear the blasphemy of the denial, from this tiercelet of an heretic. Hereupon I beseech the reader to see the place of S. Augustin wherein in truth this good doctor expoundeth this passage, but he speaketh not of Purgatory neither of the torment or purgation of souls separate from the bodies. falsehood. This Monk allegeth also his 31. sermon upon the words of the Lord, wherein this passage is not so much as quoted, so far is it from being expounded. Nay more, all the fourth sermon is upon this passage, wherein nevertheless there is not any speech of Purgatory. O frock! how many untruths dost thou cover? how dearly wilt thou buy this licentious abusing of the people, unless God be merciful unto thee? But the weakness of this argument doth appear in that our doctors do contradict themselves in the expounding thereof. Pag. 33. The Monk by hell understandeth Eternal pain: Cayer affirmeth that this Gehenna is Purgatory. Pag. 21. A cup of theological wine to reconcile our doctors. The author of the fire of Helie saith that these three different punishments are after this life. If judgement signify Purgatory and Gehenna hell, what shall become of the punishment by Counsel? Undoubtedly that is our flowered meadow: or some other part of Purgatory. 17 This that followeth is pleasant and proceedeth from the same Evangelist and the same chapter. and from S. Luke cap. 12. v. 58. who saith, When thou goest with thy adversary to the ruler, as thou art on the way labour to be delivered from him, lest he bring thee before the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the jailor, and the jailor cast thee into prison: I tell thee thou shalt not departed thence until thou hast paid the last penny. S. Matthew saith, Agree quickly with thy adversary. Instead of these words, labour to be soon delivered from him: The allegory pleaseth them to say the adversary is the devil: the way is the life: the Magistrate is God: the prison is Purgatory. 1. would they have us to agree with the Devil: or if the devil shall be the executioner, who shall be the adverse party? Some weening to speak skilfully, do say that the adverse party is the law: but it is worse. 2. For S. Luke saith that we must labour to be delivered from this adverse party whiles we be on the way with him: Are we on the way with the law? Or do we go to the Magistrate with it? 3. Where shall we labour to deliver ourselves & to shake of this yoke? Rather should she always rule and guide us in this pilgrimage. 4. But if the Devil be the jailor, would they have the Devil to lead the souls into Purgatory? 5. How dare they say that Purgatory is a prison, from whence none shall departed before they have paid the last penny, considering that the Pope fetcheth forth the souls before the term of the full satisfaction expired? The sense of this passage is clear. jesus Christ exhortet us to peace & atonement with our neighbours that trouble and molest us: so do all the ancients take it: S. Ambrose upon this place saith that jesus Christ speaketh, De reconcilianda pace dissidentium fratrum: of knitting again of peace between disagreeing brethren. Maldonat the jesuit the same. S. Hilary in his comment upon this place is more express. Tertul de Anima, c. 35 Tertullian in his book of the soul, of the same. Theophilact rejecting the allegories expoundeth it thus. Etiamsi iniuria affectus fueris, ne abeas ad tribunal, ne ob potentiam adversarij graviora patiaris. Albeit thou hast wrong yet go not to the judicial seat lest it fall out worse with thee through the power of thy adversary. S. Hierome & S. chrysostom say the same. Tertul. de Anima. c. ult To all this our men be dumb & champ on the bit. Only the Friar allegeth an heresy of Tertullian, wherein he saith that the last penny implieth the least sins, which are paid by the delaying of the resurrection. And is it our Master friars will that this resurrection be the issue of Purgatory? But he maliciously doth dissemble the words of Tertullian ensuing: falsehood. Hoc etiam paracletus frequentissime commendavit. For he upholdeth this doctrine under the authority of Montanus an Arch-hereticke, who nameth himself the paraclete & holy Ghost. The same Friar committeth a notable falsehood in that to defend the explication of this passage he bringeth the authority of S. Cyprian, who throughout all his works hath not expounded this place: besides those words of S. Cyprian which he hath alleged, he hath wrested and taken in a contrary sense to kindle Purgatory, as in our last Chapter we will prove. After all this the friar, as writing the Cock to the Ass, in lieu of answering accuseth us that we do believe that the souls shall not enjoy the glory until the day of judgement: falsehood. which is false & most slanderoous: for we all do believe that the souls of the faithful departed out of the bodies, do enter into the heavenly glory. It may be that in some places in the writings of our men some of them may say that they doubt whether the souls in the day of judgement shall receive any increase of glory: or draw nearer to the contemplation of the face of God, not in place, but in degree of glory: but this is nothing to salvation, neither toucheth the purity of faith: & withal it was the opinion of many of the ancients, namely of S. Augustin who upon Genesis in his twelfth book, cap. 35. saith, They see not God as the Angels do see him, because they have still a natural desire to move their bodies, which withhold them, etc. A reason whereto we will not subscribe: howbeit we see that he did think that after the resurrection, the Saints shall have an increase of glory. Finally he accuseth us of slandering Pope john the 22. Note the Monk saith joh. 22. for 23. so to omit Pope johan. Pag. 35. of being tainted with this heresy: wherein he showeth himself a slanderer in print: for how is it possible we should hold that opinion, sith we condemn it in others? As for john the 22. alias 23. the case is to plain to be dissembled: William Ockam in his work of 53. days, and Adrian in the question of confirmation, do accuse him to have held that the souls should not see God before the resurrection: Gerson in his sermon of the witnesseth the same and saith that the Divines of Paris, with the assistance of Philip the long, king of France, forced him to unsay it. Neither doth it any whit help the Monk to search whether the time quoted by Calvin be free from error▪ for it importeth not whether Gerson lived in the time of the said john or after, so long as the matter is true: as Bellarmine [from whom the Monk borrowed this Arithmetical disputation] doth confess in his fourth book De Pontifice Rom. in these words. In the behalf of Adrian I answer that this john did indeed believe that the souls shall not see God until after the resurrection. johannem hunc revera sensisse animas non visuras Deum nisi post resurrectione. The authorities of the Fathers that he doth afterward allege are false, and hereafter shall be spoken of. 18 They do yet add one passage more out of the 12 of Matthew. v. 32. The fire of Helie. Whosoever shall speak against the holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven him in this world nor in the world to come. This would not jesus Christ have spoken [say our masters] if there were not some sins that shall not be forgiven in this world, but shall in the world to come: and this world to come is Purgatory: wherein their memory faileth them: for they say that Purgatory was already in the time of jesus Christ, then could not jesus Christ call it in the world to come. But if our men's reply be true, that Purgatory is the world to come, in regard of every particular living person to whom this punishment is yet to come, there shall be by that reason a thousand millions of worlds to come, all differing in beginning and in continuance. This at the least doth remain, that with jesus Christ [who spoke] Purgatory could not be the world to come. 2. Again jesus Christ speaketh of a world wherein sins are forgiven: but they say that in Purgatory sins are punished: and that the pardon for all manner of sins is already granted in the life through jesus Christ only: In Purgatory they bear the punishment of the sins already pardoned, Thus do they run themselves on the Pikes, as also they answer nothing to the matter. And as for the Friar his answers are ridiculous & have no correspondence with that which I have said. The author of the fire of Helie doth show by the example of David & Achab that the sinner obtaineth mercy by the punishment: but he deceiveth himself: for it is true as concerning such pains of this life as tend to the amendment of the sinner: but not of Purgatory, where there is no amendment: neither could this have been better confuted then by citing S. Augustine, who saith, High ure hic seca, ut in aeternum parcas. For he saith Hic, not in purgatorio. 3. Thirdly, what is this world to come then? Let us learn it, not of these people which transform all things into matches to kindle their Purgatory, but of jesus Christ himself and his word. jesus Christ Luke, 20.35. telleth us that this other world beginneth by the resurrection. They [saith he] that shall be counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead. Neither must we think it strange that it is said that in that day sins shall be forgiven. 2. Tim. 1.18 1. Sigh S. Paul desireth that God would show mercy to the house of one Sephorus in that day: which is as much as to pardon the sins. 2. S. Peter also Act. 3.19.20. saith that in that day our sins shall be blotted out Amend your lives that your sins may be blotted out when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord, and that he shall have sent jesus Christ who was before preached unto you. 3. Rom. 8.23. Luk. 21.28. For as the holy Scripture calleth that day the day of our redemption and adoption, because that then it shall be fully revealed and consummate, so the same day upon the same reasons may be called the day of remission of our sins. And some sins there be which albeit by the judgement of the Church they may be pardoned in this life, yet they shall not be pardoned in the last day: such is the sin against the holy Ghost. To all this our adversaries are as dumb as a fish, and endeavour by a great heap of the Fathers to prove that sins are also forgiven in the world to come: but to what purpose, sith we do grant it? Shall this people be suffered to pervert our words & turn our speech contrary to that which we believe? They beat the air and lose their blows: and our Monk sclandereth me saying that I call the fathers our adversaries: Slander. but where did I so? 19 The passage whereupon they do most insist is taken out of the first to the Corinth. cap. 3. where S. Paul saith Other foundation can no man lay them that which is laid which is jesus Christ. If any man build upon this foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, timber, hay, stubble, every man's work shallbe made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire: and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is: If the work of any that hath built thereupon do abide, he shall receive ways. If any man's work burn he shall lose, but he shall be safe himself, howbeit as by fire. For fire [say my men] is Purgatory, wherein the works are tried by fire: for it is said, If any man's work burn, and again, He shall be saved, but as it were by fire. All this is full of impossibilities and absurdities. 1. First an article of faith must not be grounded upon allegories saith S. Hierom on Mat. lib. 2. Nunque Parobolae & du bia aenigmatum intelligentia potest ad autoritatem dogmatum proficere. & so saith Tertullian also. But albeit S. Paul, who by revelation received the sense of the Scriptures, did sometime use the Allegory as in the fourth to the Galathians, it followeth not that it is to be permitted to every new comer: much less to men that plead for their own profit. Besides, the self same thing that S. Paul teacheth by Allegories is elsewhere proved by evident demonstrations. jerem. 30. Heb. 12.9. But these men produce no manifest passage where it is said that after this life there is a place wherein the souls of such as have not satisfied to the full in this life must be purged by fire. They resemble foxes who being hunted do save themselves in some thick bush: for they seek only thorny and dark places. 2. It is here spoken of a fire that trieth the work, but tormenteth not the persons. 3. Also even in Purgatory the souls are not tried but punished: for God needeth not their trial to know them. 4. Again here it is spoken of a fire wherein every man's work shall be manifest. In Purgatory nothing is manifest to us. 5. Again, of a fire wherein every man's works are tried: Pag. 17.18 then also the work of the Virgin Mary and of the Apostles, which moved the author of the fire of Helie to make them also to pass through Purgatory: But, he saith, this fire shall be to them as the fiery furnace was to the three children, which seemed a moist wind. Thus doth this doctor imagine or mock: but his companions say nothing. 6. It is here spoken of a fire that burneth the work, but not the souls: and upon this place it was that the Friar being demanded whether was whipped, the thief, or the theft, answered [with the mirth of all the assistants] that it was the theft that was whipped. 7. Hereto adjoin that it is said, if it burn the workman shall have loss: but in Purgatory nothing is lost beside, although the sins were burned, yet in such burning there should be no loss. 8. This examen and trial by fire is called Day: but Purgatory [if we list to believe them] is under earth. The fire of Helie denieth that this fire is called Day: but note these words of the Apostle, Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire. For he setteth this proof in the day & in sight and therefore the fire of Helie hath omitted these words, The day shall declare it. It is in Greek. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And the Friar hath changed them & saith The day of the Lord shall declare them: This day of the Lord [say they] is the day of death: so large is their liberty to falsify, and to wrest. For who did ever hear death called the day of the Lord? Yea and admit this explication were receaveable: how is every man's work then revealed and manifested? But the sense of this word, day, must be taken from the same Apostle in the 13. verse of the next Chapter, where this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth trial and judgement. 9 Again, S. Paul saith as by fire, it is not then by fire: and to no purpose do they bring us in the words of S. john Vidimus gloriam quasi unigeniti: for the barbarism and incongruities of the vulgar translation must not be admitted for a rule. The author of the fire of Helie produceth yet another passage out of the 125 Psalm, where this word Quasi importeth no similitude: but the truth itself. When Zion returned out of captivity we were as comforted: but according to the Hebrew original, We were as they that dream, and so hath Pagnine and Arias, and all good translations. 10. Also throughout all this passage there is not one word whereby it may appear that this trial is made after this life: I confess that the reward of the faithful is after this life: and the fire of Helie need not to admonish us with such exclamations: for the question concerneth not the time of the reward, but the time of the trial. 11. Neither is there any word that speaketh of the torment of the souls: for the said fire of Helie endeavouring to prove that here it speaketh of torments is deceived in his Logic. For these be his words. Doth not S. Paul say, Pag. 16. If any man's works burn he shall incur damages? Is not he that is tormented, endamaged? An argument in the second figure, composed all of affirmatives. He that is tormented endureth damage He whose works burn endures damage Then he whose work burneth is tormented Besides the first proposition is many times false and particularly in this matter, considering that the torment of the souls in Purgatory is [if we believe these men] without loss & to the good of the souls. Now herein I must frankly confess that the auctor of the fire of Helie hath yet some dexterity in sophistry: Du Val. but the Friar speaketh like an Idiot and a man of a crazed brain, for all his discourse is spent in laying of maxims and principles, whereby he will have this case decided, as if it were in him to impose laws and principles in this business. And indeed if you look narrowly into the matter, you shall find these principles to be the case itself: for they set down as a plain case and confessed, that in this fire the people are tormented, and do feel the trial of this fire. Now this is the point of the controversy and that which we do stiff and steadfastly deny: that S. Paul speaketh no such thing. Howbeit in the end he must have the grace of it, & admireth my slackness, as being incapable to comprehend his so childish principles. As for the explication of this passage, it must be gathered out of that that goeth before. S. Paul in the 5. verse of this chapter speaketh of doctors and pastors, and of the preaching of the Gospel. And particularly of Doctors, who holding a good foundation, which is Jesus Christ, do nevertheless add of their inventions and slight doctrines, which he calleth wood, hay and stubble, in regard of the pure and doctrine, which he termeth Gold, silver and precious stones. This wood therefore & this stubble being examined by the word of God, as metals in fire, can not subsist, but must needs be consumed. But as concerning the parson of the pastor he shall be saved in regard of the good foundation that he hath holden, yet after trial made as it were by fire. This explication is natural, and springeth of itself: and every one that knoweth that S. Paul here speaketh of shepherds whom he nameth Builders, Hieron. contra jovinian lib. 2. will easily admit this explication. And hereto do agree Saint Ambrose, S. Hierome, Sedulius, Tertullian, in his first book against Martion, cap. 6. yea even the chief doctors of the Romish Church, Lyra, Thomas, Caietan, and Bellarmine in his first book of Purgatory. cap. 4. They all hold, I say, that these builders are the pastors and the preachers, § utraque Hormildas' Pope in the Tomes of the counsels saith that the builders are the doctors and the fire the Synod. Dial. 4. c. 39 and the building the preaching of the Gospel: yet doth the Friar make a scorn of all this and saith that they be mere fopperies. This also is the reason that in the front of his book he armeth himself with these titles, The reverend father Friar james an Observantin Portugal: Doctor of Divinity and preacher ordinary to the King, that so he may with the greater authority fight against his own Doctors and all antiquity. As concerning this fire S. Augustine and Pope Gregory the first do say that they be the tribulations of this life: chrysostom, Nazianzen, Theophilact & Oecumenius do understand it of hell: & among them there is marvelous discordance: It is also a pleasure to read Bellarmine and to consider how he gathereth the opinions of the fathers and confuteth them all: for of five or six several opinions sometimes he alloweth never a one, but bringeth in a new: sometime he retaineth that which he best liketh, or that most favoureth Purgatory. 20 The Friar also citeth this passage out of the 21. of the Revelation. And there shall enter into the city of Jerusalem no unclean thing, how little soever, wherein we find a double falsehood, for these words how little soever are his addition: afterward in this passage by the unclean are meant the profane and reprobate, as appeareth by that which is added thereto. There shall not enter therein any thing that is unclean or any that worketh abomination or falsehood. This last word might have terrified him and caused him to have apprehended the punishment denounced against falsifiers. Moreover nothing that is unclean shall enter into Paradise: for the wicked are excluded, and as for the good Jesus Christ purgeth them from all sin. 21 Cayer obstinately armeth himself to make use of the resurrection of Lazarus in his proof of Purgatory: and yet is this argument trivial among our adversaries: The soul of Lazarus [say they] where was it before it did rise again? It was not in hell: for from thence none cometh again: neither in Paradise: for then jesus Christ should have done him wrong to fetch him from thence: them must there be a third place, and the tail that they here add is notable: that is, that this third place is a place of torment, Luk. 16.25. and a fire called Purgatory. Hereto we say, That the soul of Lazarus whom Christ raised was in the same place with the soul of the other Lazarus mentioned in the 16. of Luke, that is in Abraham's bosom, which is no place of torment: for Abraham was there, & jesus Christ saith that Lazarus after the miseries of this life was comforted. Neither should our adversaries think it strange that God taketh a soul out of the place of rest, to return it for a short time into a place of combat and affliction, sith jesus Christ in john 11.4. saith that it was done to the end the son of God might be glorified: for the glory of God ought always to take place above all particular interest: beside that God was able afterward to reward him with greater glory: The best is that our adversaries at unawares do argue against themselves: for they believe that Henoch and Elyas men already blessed, shall return down to fight against Antichrist, and shall suffer persecution, yea and death itself. They also say that the Pythonesse fetched the soul of Samuel from his rest. If they hold that God permitted this to a witch & sorceress for the contenting of the ungodly curiosity of Saul, why will they not permit as much to jesus Christ for the glory of God and the advancement of the Gospel? But if this Lazarus came forth of a burning fire, why brought he no news? Or could he conceal a matter of such importance? or had he so soon forgotten so sensible a torment? There are yet two passages that are common to all these doctors, S. Paul, Philip. 2.10. saith, Like as at the name of jesus every knee should bow, both of things in heaven, of things in earth, and of things under the earth. Also in the fifth of the Revelation. And all the creatures which are in heaven and on the earth, or under the earth, and in the sea, yea and all things comprehended in them heard I saying: to him that sitteth on the throne, and to the lamb be praise, honour, etc. With these passages they blow their Imaginary fire, and say that they that are in heaven are the Saints: They that are upon the earth are the people living. That they are under the earth are the souls that are tormented in Purgatory. 1. But who shall be the creatures that are in the sea? The fire of Helie saith. They be the inhabitants of the islands: that is to say. The English, the Corpse's: the Candiots, etc. He taketh these people to be creatures that are not upon the earth. Let us not laugh but proceed and hear how he proveth it. He produceth the sixth of Esay in these words. Thy heart shall rejoice when the whole multitude of the sea shall come unto thee. A passage for the purpose. But read over all the whole Chapter and I will turn Monk if you find any such word. 2. But why do they rather say that they be the souls in Purgatory, than the souls of children that died without baptism, who they say are under the earth. 3. Withal note that they add a pretty patch which S. Paul and S. john had forgotten: namely that they that are under the earth are tormented in fire for a time: for in defence of new Divinity we must seek new Logic. 4. Neither are we to omit that this passage is become a pair of bellows to Purgatory. Sith they hold that it is under ground: for according to Pope Gregory, Alcuyne, Peter Damyan, and others, that place Purgatory in baths, in Rivers, in the Ice, in the wind, and under the leaves, this passage is to no use. And surely the fire of Helie who saith that the Church hath defined nothing concerning the place where Purgatory standeth, Pag. 33. hath greatly overshot himself in using this passage and defining that Purgatory is under the ground. Now to prove that those that are under the earth are not the devils, they urge these words of bowing the knee also these words of giving praise and glory which the Friar falsely accuseth me to have omitted. They say then that the devils never bow their knees before God, neither praise him. For the bowing of the knee doth import a submission and voluntary obedience. 5. In answer I say that S. Paul himself in this self place shall decide this controversy: For in saying that every knee shall bow, Slander of those that are in earth, he evidently comprehendeth all men both good & bad: whereby it appeareth that bowing the knee doth not in this place signify voluntarily and religiously to serve, but only to be in subjection: or else they must say that the wicked do voluntarily serve jesus Christ. 6. Also in this place S. Paul speaketh of the sovereign Empire given to jesus Christ over all creatures, than withal over the wicked and devils which have been and shall be forced to give glory to jesus Christ. 7. We have another passage of the same Apostle taken out of the five and forty of Esay where this word to bow the knee is plainly expounded: Luk 8.27.28. for in the 14. to the Romans he speaketh thus of the last judgement. We shall all appear before the judgement seat of Christ, for it is written I live saith the Lord: let every knee bow before me, and every tongue give praise unto God. In this place S. Paul taketh to appear before the judgement seat of God, for bowing the knee before God. The wicked therefore & the devils shall bow the knee because they shall appear and be forced to acknowledge the justice of God. In this regard doth justine the Martyr in his dialogue against Triphon say that the Infernal spirits are subject to jesus Christ bowing their knees at the bare pronountiation of the Cross. 8. As for the praises spoken of in the fifth of the Revelation, they are the praises of all creatures: of whom, even of the inanimate, as of the heavens, the earth, the son, etc. The Scripture in above a hundred places saith that they praise the eternal: Psal. 19 Psal. 140. Psal. 145. especially in the Psalm 148. where this is repeated some twenty times. Neither need we go any further than this passage, namely of the Revelation to prove it. For he saith, I heard EVERT CREATURE which is in heaven: them the sun, the stars, the Angels, etc. he also saith, All that is on the earth, under the earth, and in the sea, yea even all things that are comprised in them, etc. It appeareth then that he speaketh of all creatures: and this is it that made our adversaries to omit these words yea all things that are comprised in them, with a notable falsehood according to their custom, thereby to abate the edge of God's word and to take from him that which pierceth the very untruth. I should wrong the author of the fire of Helie if I should suppress one invention which he doth very gallantly produce to show that the devils do not bow to jesus Christ. If [saith he] Duke Moulin himself will not put of his hat when we speak of the name of jesus how can the devils be forced to do it? The devils then by this Doctors saying, do wear hats, but they will not put them of when we speak of jesus. Is it because they are somewhat surly and proud, or for that they fear the air? Note also that by this argument taken from the more to the less, he doth us this honour that he holdeth us less wicked than the devils: and yet we flee not for his holy water. But in the end I say this doctor is deceived in one point, and deceiveth in an other: he is deceived in that he thinketh that by the name of jesus Saint Paul in this place meant the word JESUS considering that the scripture by the name of God ordinarily understandeth his authority, his glory, his strength, his power, etc. and so say we, Our help be in the name of God also hallowed be thy name and I come against thee in the name of the Eternal. 2. Sam. 17.45. In this sense we honour the name of jesus: but our adversaries honour the syllables: and thereof cometh the feast & Mass of the name of jesus: for as concerning his parson there is a feast apart. But in this that he falsely accuseth us, he deceiveth. For if a man hearing the name of jesus putteth of his hat, we like it well, so as it be done without superstition. But mark what it is. They use many salutations to the name of jesus, whiles in the mean time his parson is wronged and his benefit abused: and they find out other redeemers and an other purging for our sins: he is entreated as he was by those that buffeted him saying unto him, All hail: Thus is Religion corrupted, which at this day hold her hands in rule and giveth godliness her passport. Hereof it cometh that the service of the Church of Rome, namely the Mass consisteth in gestures, in a set number of bowings in frisking from one end of the altar to the other, in Allegorical habits, historied at pleasure, whiles the people looking on learneth nothing: and is entertained with gestures, when they should be instructed by the intelligible word. Thence cometh also the gallant Interpretations of Pope Innocent the 3. of Durands Rationals and others, which say that the Priest turneth his back to the people because God said to Moses, Thou shalt see my back parts. That the miss all is laid upon a Quisheon because it is written, Mat. 11. My yoke is easy & my burden light. That he that serveth the Priest at Mass moveth and steppeth up and down as the Priest doth because jesus Christ said, Where I am there shall my servant be also. That the Gospel book is laid upon a desk in form of an Eagle because it was written in the 18. Psalm, He flieth upon the wings of the wind. That the deakon goeth in at one side of the pulpit & cometh out at the other, because it is written, Mat. 2. They were warned from heaven to return an other way. And he that serveth a Bishop at his Mass kisseth his shoulder looking a scance on his face because it is written, 1. Cor. 13. We see now in part. Thus is the whole battery of our adversary dismounted, which was not charged but with stubble and hay against the truth: and here would I shut up this chapter, did not the falsehoods of the fire of Helie detain me yet a while, so extremely licentious is he in falsifying. Many of his falsehoods have we already produced, yet here follow some more. In the pages 40 & 41. to prove the Limbo of the fathers he allegeth the Apostle in the 11. to the Hebrews, Having been tried by the testimony of faith, This word salaried is of his own invention. they received not the promises, that they without us should not be made perfect and salaried. In the 43. page he saith that God by the leaves of the fig three closed up Ezechias sore and for that citeth the 4. of Kings 26. and Esay 38. In page 44. to defend Purgatory in baths, in ye, in rivers, etc. he allegeth job. 24. in these words. The wicked that are in hell from a heat of fire do pass to a coldness as snow. All this is false, and by him devised. In the same place where S. Peter, Act. 2.24. saith that God raised up jesus Christ having loosed the sorrows of death, he saith the sorrows of Hell. In page 56. to prove that the Pope may grant Indulgences for the dead, he maketh S. Paul, 1. Cor. 5. say The stewardship of Indulgences was by jesus Christ left to the Church, whereof there is not a word in the whole chapter. In page 66. be corrupteth this excellent passage of Esay, 57 Whosoever walketh before God goeth in peace, he maketh him say Whosoever walketh before God walketh in peace. In pages 69 & 70. he maketh S. Paul say to the Colossians, 1.24. I fulfil in my flesh that which wanteth in the passion of the Lord for his body, which is the Church. Whereas it is I fulfil the rest of the afflictions of jesus Christ. Let the reader look upon the places and he shall find that almost every where he corrupteth and changeth the words of the scripture: for of many, we deliver but few examples, that so we may be the more brief cal●ing to mind the commandment that is in the rule of S. Frances, Dominus fecit verbum abbreviatum super terram, Rom. 9.28. And therefore we must study for brevity. CAP. 7. That the Doctors of the four first ages knew not Purgatory, with the refutation of the passages alleged by our adversaries. Also the beginning and progress of Purgatory, of prayer for the dead, of Indulgences and satisfactions, etc. OUR controversies do not consist only in contrariety of opinions but also in diversity of means to search out the truth. Our adversaries will have the truth to be judged by antiquity: we will have antiquity judged by truth. They seek to prove the antiquity of their doctrine by the testimonies of men: we prove the truth of ours by divine testimonies taken out of the holy Scriptures. The Antiquity that they pretend requireth infinite passages out of diverse authors: Tertul. in Marcionem lib. 1. Viva & Germana divinitas nec de novitate, nec de Vetustate sed de sua veritate censetur. the truth that we maintain may be defended by one only passage of the holy Scripture. The way that we take is so much the shorter and better assured, because reasons in disputations are better than years: and the authority of God than the testimony of men. And which is more No man can deny but the truth is more ancient than the lie: for the lie is but a corruption of the truth: whereof it doth ensue that when a man hath proved the truth of a doctrine, he hath also proved the antiquity thereof. But contrariwise antiquity proved a man may nevertheless doubt of the truth. For lying hath been even from the beginning and is in a manner as ancient as the truth: which even since the fall of Adam hath borne the devils contradictions who said, No, you shall not die. And that we may speak but of Christianity, S. Paul, 2. Thess. 2.7. telleth us that in his time the entry of the son of perdition was prepared and the mystery of iniquity was in working. But if we guide ourselves only by the time, what is there in the Church of Rome whereby she may oppose against judaisme or Paganism? Again, if prescription may have place in Religion, let them tell us how many years may suffice to auctorise a doctrine? Or how many testimonies of men shall we need to institute an article of faith? But we say that lapse of time giveth no authority to the gospel: also that the truth is of as great force alone as in company: That for the decision of doubts we are to bring the balance of reason, rather than the calculation of years. Yea I say that he that teacheth the truth but underproppeth it with the testimonies of men, in weening to establish it doth overthrow it: Theod hom. Eccl. l. 1. c 7 a lie being no greater fault than such a defence of the truth. For it is as much as if a man should arm himself with paper & taking up straws instead of weapons, should in this furniture expose himself to the power and malice of the Devil. The word of God naked is of more force than so armed. Synod. Constantinop. 6 Act. 1. Propositis in medio sacrosanctis Evangeliis. In that regard did the ancient Church in the beginning of their Synods lay nothing upon the table but the books of holy scripture: but our adversaries have great interest not to be content with this simplicity: for even in the beginning a number of questions should be decided, considering that in the Romish Church they confess that they teach many things whereof they have neither commandment nor example in the holy scripture: As Invocation of Saints: worshipping of Images: praying in a language unknown to him that prayeth: Priests vows and single life: Elevation and adoration of the Sacrament, etc. Therefore do they seek a farther way about, and having wrested the holy scripture out of Lay men's hands, they cry out the fathers, nothing but the fathers: in lieu of the sovereign father, which is God: whom nevertheless they do at every opportunity hit handsomely over the thombs: and when these ancient doctors do contradict each other in the explication of the scriptures [as many times they do] these our Masters take upon them to be the moderators and judges in their contrary opinions: allowing sometime one and reproving sometimes an other, and sometimes rejecting all and bringing in some explication more to the Pope's avail. They will grant the fathers to be our judges, but with proviso that the Church of Rome shall judge of the Fathers. Let any man read the writings of the jesuits, Maldonat, Gregory of Valentia, or Bellarmine, and he shall see that I say the truth. This manner of disputation is to them more commodious, as giving than means in their need to find a starting hole: for it is an infinite field, a bottomless sea, a thick darkness wherein to shroud themselves; as seeking only how to cavil and delay their plea. For among so many authors as might fill a house it is an easy matter to find somewhat to wrest to a man's own advantage, and never to be perceived, because few men have these books, & of them that have them few do read them, and of those that read them fewest of all do understand them: for the fathers ordinarily are repugnant among themselves, and not only among themselves, but every man in himself, and do retract & confess his ignorance. Yea I dare say there is never an heresy, howsoever extravagant, for the which we cannot find some especial passages in some of the doctors: besides these diverse ages have retained the ancient words, but altered the doctrine: as also the phrase of many of them is obscure & subject to sundry interpretations: besides that many usual words have altered their significations. As these, Indulgences, satisfaction, Pope, Bishopric, altar, oblation, sacrifice, merit, station, sacrament, excommunication, penance: words extant in many authors, but in an other sense then in these days: and yet it is an easy matter to make them pass for such, as at this day we take them, and in regard of the resemblance of the mark, to persuade men that they are of the same substance. Moreover if any Doctor hath forgotten himself or hath used any difficult terms, these will our adversaries stand upon, and use them to their most advantage: therein resembling such beasts as can live upon serpents, At Paris by Nivel. in S. james Street at the storcks 1571. Ex sanctiss. concilii Trid. Decreto veterum patrum Codices sunt expurgendi Cum in Catholicis veteribus plurimos feramus erreres, & extenu●mus, excusemas excogitato per saepe negem●●. or beetles: or Cham who discovered his father's shame. But the greatest inconvenience is that the copies are diverse & discordant, mangled and falsified, yea & so far as to have some tracts of other men suggested and inserted into them: whereupon I remember that I propounded to the friar the preface to the last edition of S. Augustine, wherein our masters the correctors do confess that they have changed some things and taken forth the errors intruded by the malice of heretics: that is to say, all that mislike them: and in plain terms they say that The books of the ancient fathers must be purged according to the decree of the tridentine Council, and to the same purpose I alleged the Confession of the doctors of Douai in their Expurgatory Index in the letter. The Index is printed at Antw. by Plantin 1571. by authority of K. Phil. & the D Alua. B. where speaking of the purging of the book of Bertram, they say thus. Considering that in all other Catholic authors we bear with many errors, which we do extenuat, shake of, and often times, excogitato commento, deny by some feigned Invention, and do insert into them some commodious sense, we see no reason wherefore Bertram deserveth not the like equity, and the same diligent review. And this was the place where the Monk said that Excogitatum Commentum signified a Commentary. But in this book page 1. He saith that it is an explication devised contrary to the text. Thus doth he confess that it is his occupation to bring in such explications, unless he should shrink from the union of those purgers authorised by his holiness. Here might I allege a great heap of falsifications brought in by these correctors, albeit we know not the hundred part. Yet are we greatly to praise God, who hath not suffered them to compass their intents: but among the father's hath yet left us sufficient weapons to fight with the Church of Rome: And that is it that in this chapter we are to produce: yet with this protestation, that I allege not the doctors & fathers, as meaning upon their authorities to hang the truth of my cause: but to show how our adversaries do abuse them and make them to speak many things contrary to their own opinions. I take them not to be advocates in my cause: but am myself their advocate: For jesus Christ john. 5.14. telleth us that he craveth not the testimonies of men, neither doth his word need their witness. The truth that those good men have spoken we do believe, not because they spoke it, but because we find it in the word of God. And this is the reason that I reserved this tract to the end, lest I should mix divine authority with human. This is a chapter rather not superfluous then necessary: which we give not to the necessity of the matter, but to the stiffneckednesse of the age, wherein the holy scripture is grown into suspicion: and men open their cares when we speak of Origen, Ambrose, Tertullian, etc. But stop them when we speak of the Prophets or Apostles. Bellarm. de verbo Dei. lib. 4. cap. 12 The holy Bible [say they] is a book for heretics: a sword for all hands: a pecce of a rule: a forest of foraging: yea, saith the author of the three truths It will make a man become an Atheist. Passages of the ancient Doctors against Purgatory. justin Martyr in his 75 question. After the departure of the soul out of the body there is immediately made a distinction between the good and the bad: for by the Angels they are brought into the places worthy for them: the souls of the good into Paradise, where is the haunt and view of the Angels: the souls of the bad into hell Himself in his 60. question saith, that men cannot after the soul is departed from the body by any provision care, or study, get help and secure. Cum anima à corpore evellitur, statim aut in Paradiso promeritis bonis collocatur, aut certè pro peccatis in in ferni tartara praecipitatur. S. Augustine in his book of the vanity of the world. tom. 9 c. 1. Know ye that when the soul parteth from the body, she is for her good works instantly placed in Paradise, or for her sins cast headlong into the pit of hell. And our masters the Expurgators in their last edition at Paris found themselves so puzzled with this saying that they set down in the margin. Vbi nunc Purgatorium. Where now Purgatory is. Himself in his first Chapter of his second sermon of Consolation over the dead saith. Recedens anima ab Angelis suscipitur & collocatur aut in sinu Abrahae etc. Tertium penitus ignoramus immo nec necesse esse in Scriptures sanctis venimus. The soul at her departure, if she be faithful, is by the Angels taken and carried into Abraham's bosom: if a sinner, into the charter of the infernal prison. Himself in the fifth book of his Hypognostique saith The Catholic faith grounded upon divine authority believeth the first place which is the kingdom of heaven, from whence all that are baptized are excluded: also the second, which is hell, where every Apostata & such as are estranged from the faith of Christ shall endure eternal punishments. For any third place we know none, neither do we find any such place throughout the holy Scriptures. Yea and which is more: In this place S. Augustine maintaineth that Children not baptized are excluded out of the kingdom of heaven, & thereupon gathereth this consequence S●th they are not in Paradise they must of necessity be in hell and in eternal torment, because there is no third place. Surely he would never have been so rigorous towards these children, had he known of any place of punishment more gentle and easy, as Limbo or Purgatory. The fire of Helie pag. 37. saith that S. Augustine denieth any such place as Pelagius doth paint forth. A matter that this Doctor very presumptuously hath invented: for he there doth simply deny and saith that there is no third place at all neither doth he there speak of any delights, as he would make us believe. In his 14. sermon upon the words of the Apostle he termeth the right hand the kingdom of heaven and the left damnation with the Devil: and then addeth There is no middle place where thou mayst put the children. And soon after, Nullum medium locum in Evangelio novimus. We find not any middle place in the Gospel. In his 18. Sermon he reproveth those who taking liberty to do evil, have nevertheless some hope. Duo enim sunt loci nec tertius est ullus. He [saith he] that is such a man let him choose where he will dwell whiles yet be hath time to change, for there are but two habitations, the one in the eternal kingdom, the other in everlasting fire. In his 232. sermon, which is against drunkenness, Dear brethren, let no man deceive himself for there are but two places and no third. He that hath not deserved to reign with Christ shall no doubt perish with the devil. In his book of the deserts of sin and of the forgiveness of the same, cap. 28. There is no middle place, and therefore he that dwelleth not with jesus Christ cannot abide any where but with the devil. Our adversaries say that S. Augustine speaketh of eternal places and acknowledgeth but two: wherein they do diversely deceive us. 1. Read the passages and you shall see that he speaketh in general of all the places whatsoever. 2. Had he known of any place of temporal punishment, when he so often said that there were but two, and no third at all; he would surely have added some restriction, as that he meant not to exclude Purgatory, and the places of temporal torment but spoke this only of the eternal places. 3. Which is more, we see by these passages that he excludeth the children's Limbo, which cannot be eternal: for the Church of Rome placeth it under the earth, which also cannot be eternal, but according to the Scriptures, must perish. 4. But what an absurdity is it to say that he speaketh but of the eternal places? For that is it that we maintain: neither could he speak but of these two eternal habitations Heaven and Hell, because there is no other. 5. Finally we have alleged such passages as can in no sort admit this distinction: as where he saith that instantly after death they are carried either into Paradise or into Hell. But let us again hear the same Father. In quo quecunque invenerit suus novissimus dies in hoc cum comprehendet mundi novissimus dies, quia qualis in die isto quisque moritur, talis judicatur In his 80. Epistle which is to Hesichius. In like estate as the last day of man's life shall find him, in like estate also shall the last day of the world take hold of him: for such as a man shall die in that day, such shall he be judged in the last day. Confer this with that which our adversaries do say: and represent to yourselves a man that dieth loaden with many sins, for the which he must be a long time tormented and purged in Purgatory: at the end of which Purgation he shall come forth purged and cleansed: Surely I say that the soul of such a one cannot in the day of judgement appear such as she came forth of his body for [say our men] she came forth unclean and in need of purging, but now she is represented clean and purged in the day of judgement, & so this saying must be false, Qualis moritur talis in die illo judicatur. Such as he dieth such shall he be judged in the day of judgement. Himself in the 9 book of his confessions cap. 3. saith that his friend Nebrides deceased liveth in Abraham's bosom, sine fine foelix, for ever happy. Again in the fifth of his 50. homilies Let us be at one with the word of God while we are in this life: Posteaquam de hoc saeculo transierimus nulla compunctio vel satisfactio remanebit. Index restat & minister & carcer. for when we are gone out of this world there shall be no more compunction or satisfaction: there remaineth no more but the judge, the sergeant and the prison. But Purgatory is the principal and grievous satisfaction of the church of Rome. After this life there is no satisfaction saith S. Augustine, than no Purgatory. This is also to be noted that this good Doctor saith this in his exposition upon that passage of Matthew which our adversaries do make most use of for their Purgatory. Agree with thy adversary quickly whiles thou art in the way with him, lest thy adversary deliver thee to the judge, etc. It is much to be marveled that throughout all this homely he speaketh not of Purgatory: but how much more is it that even there he overthroweth it? Himself in his 37. sermon upon the words of the Lord, wresteth from our adversaries their chiefest principle, which is the sole foundation of Purgatory. That jesus Christ hath indeed discharged & acquitted us from the fault, but not from the punishment. But he saith. Suscipiendo paenam & non suscipiendo culpam & culpam delevit & poenam. jesus Christ taking upon him the punishment, but not the fault hath there by blotted out both the fault and the punishment. And this after Tertullian in the fourth Chapter of his book of baptism. Exempto reatu, eximitur & poena. Now all these sentences of the doctor should be taken for so many resolutions upon a doubt that sometimes had troubled him: Whether after this life there were any temporal torment and a purging fire. In his manual to Laurentius cap. 68 he saith that this fire which trieth every man's work, and is spoken of by S. Paul. 1. Cor. 3. is the trial of affliction & he saith it is in this life. In the next chapter following, Tale aliquid post hanc vitam fieri incredibile non est, & utrum sit queri potest. etc. continuing the same argument, he saith, It is not altogether incredible but that some such matter may hap after this life: and a man may doubt or inquire whether it be so: whether it may be found, or whether it be a matter hidden, that some faithful have been saved by some purging fire either sooner or later according as they have more or less loved the transitory goods. Again in his first question of his book of Dulitius 8. questions. Be it that men do suffer such afflictions only in this life, Sive etiam post hanc vitam talia quaedam judicia subsequuntur non abborret quantum arbitror à ratione veritatis. or that some such punishments may follow after this life, it is not a matter as I think altogether estranged from appearance of truth, thus to understand this sentence. In this 26. Chapt. of his 21. book of the city of God he is yet in greater doubt: & having doubted whether men are to suffer a fire of transitory tribulations, whether there only, that is, to say after this life, or both here and there: or here to the end not there, he lastly concludeth without conclusion, I do not reprove it, for peradventure it may be true. As for some other passages wherein he seemeth to speak for Purgatory, we will come to them hereafter. Tertullian is so far from believing that the souls after their departure out of their bodies are sent into any temporal fire, that he doth even think that the soul cannot suffer any torment so long as it is separate from the body. Neque pati quicquam potest anima sola sine stabili materia, id est carne. Testes nobis sunt Evangelii dives & pouper, quorum unum angeli in sedibus beatarum & in Abrahae sinu locaverunt alium statim poenae regio suscepit. These be his words in the 48. chapped. of his Apologetical. The soul alone can suffer no thing, without some matter [that is] without flesh. Hilary upon the second Psalm toward the end saith. Hell receiveth us at the very instant: and if we have lived so when we depart out of this body we perish from the right way. Hereof have we for witness the rich man and the poor in the Gospel of whom the one was by the Angels placed in the seat of the blessed, and in Abraham's bosom: the other was received into the Region of torments. Theodoret in the fifth book of his history, cap. 9 Dominus nost●● humano generi absolutissimam contulit salutem, ut hominem totumà toto peccato occupatum à toto peccato liberaret. citeth an Epistle of Damasus which saith, Christ the son of God, our Lord hath by his passion conferred to mankind a most accomplished salvation, to the end to deliver from all sin man wholly possessed with all sin. But this must be false, if the faithful shall yet endure torments to satisfy to God for their sins. We have also S. Cyprian, a mighty enemy to Purgatory. In his works he hath an excellent tract of mortality, wherein we are to note that he therewith comforteth his auditory in a time of Contagion, & speaketh of the death, not of the Martyrs, but of such as died by sickness. Lord now leavest thou thy servant in peace, protesting and proving that the servants of God do them enter into peace, Expuncta hac morte ad immortalitatem venimus yea into a free and quiet rest, when being taken out of the troubles of this world, they arrive in the haven of Eternal rest, and when from this mortality they enter into immortality. And again, God doth promise thee immortality at thy departure out of this world, and dost thou doubt of it? Then dost thou not know God. Again wishing the living not to weep over their dead brethren, he saith, accersione dominica de saeculo liberatos. Non exitus sed transitus & temporali itinere & de cursu ad aeterna transgressus. That God having called them to him, they are delivered from this world. Non amitti, sed praemitti. That they be not lost but sent before. That we should not put on black garments when our friends put on white: that death is the passage to eternity. How cold would these comforts be to such as should think their deceased friends to be tormented in a fire? Surely such have great cause to lament as think that their friends are in such horrible flames and of so long continuance: Eius est mortem timere qui ad Christum nolitire Eius est ad Christum nolle ire qui non credit cum Christo incipere regnare. who cannot be said to put on white but red robes when they shall be thrown into such scorching flames and scalding heats. In the same sermon. He may fear death that will not go to Christ jesus. It is not for him to be willing to go to jesus Christ who believeth not that he doth begin to reign with jesus Christ. Aevi temporalis fine completo ad aeternae vel mortis vel immortalitatis hospitia dividimur. Amplectamur diem qui assignat singulos domicilio suo, qui nos laqueis secularibus exutos paradiso restituit & regno celesti. Quando istinc excelsum fuerit nullus iam locus poenitentiae est, nullus satisfactionis effectus. Tusub ipso licet exitu, & vitae temporalis occasu pro delicto roges Deum, venia confitenti dabitur, & credenti Indulgentia salutaris de divina pietate conceditur, & ad immortalitatem sub ipsa morte transitur. In the same place speaking of death, Ad refrigerium justi vocantur ad supplicium rapiuntur iniusti. Datur velocius tutela fidelibus, perfidis poena. That is, the righteous are called to a refreshing: the wicked are haled to torments. Safety is soon granted to the faithful: and to the transgressor's punishment. The same in his tract against Demetria, This temporal life ended, we are severed into the habitations either of death or of Eternal life: he also speaking of the day of death, saith. Let us embrace the day that bringeth every man into his house, which having drawn us out of the snares of this world returneth us into Paradise and into the kingdom of heaven. Also toward the end of the same treatise. Being departed hence, there is no farther place for penance neither any fruit and effect of satisfaction. Then he addeth, If at God's hand thou cravest pardon for thy sin, were it even at thy end and departure out of this temporal life, yet upon thy confession it should be granted thee, and through the Divine goodness salutary forgiveness is given to all believers: and in death itself we pass to immortality, What could he have spoken more expressly against Purgatory? Again in his aforesaid sermon of mortality, Qualem te invenerit Deus cum vocat, talem iudicabet, such as God shall find then when he calleth such will he judge thee. He there speaketh of the day of judgement. One place of Cyprian do our adversaries allege, but they corrupt it, as we will hereafter show. Cyrill of Alexandria in his 12. book upon john cap. 36. saith, The souls of the Saints departed from their bodies remain not upon earth [then not in a fire under the earth, Firmitur credentes in manibus Dei nos post mortem futuros vitamque multo meliorem ac perpetuo cum Christo victuros. not in baths, not in rivers crept] but are in the hands of God the father. And then he addeth, For jesus Christ hath returned his soul in to the hands of his father, to the end that the beginning being made by her we may have a steadfast hope hereof: steadfastly believing that after death we shall be in the hands of God and shall for ever live with Christ in a far better life. S. Hierome in his Epistle to Marcelia concerning the death of Lea, Scimus Nepotianum esse cum Christo. also in his Epitaph of Nepotian and Basill, saith that their souls do already enjoy the eternal beatitude, that they are already entered into the light, that they were received by a quire of Angels. Himself upon the 9 of Amos. When the soul freed from the bonds of this body hath her liberty, Quando anima vinculis relaxata corporis, volandi quo velit seu quo ire compellitur propter tenuitatem substantiae habis erit libertatem aut ad inferna ducetur, aut certe ad sublimia sublevabitur. in regard of the thinness or lightness of her substance to fly where she list, or at the least where she is enforced to go then shall she be led into the hell whereof it is written: sinners shall be reduced or cast into hell: or else she shall be exalted into the Celestial heavens. Bellarmin in his first book of Purgatory cap. 9 allegeth this place and falsifieth it both in the words and in the sense. He saith that S. Hierom speaketh of the unbinding of the soul that is made by speculation: not of the transporting of the soul in her substance, but by imagination: and to set the greater show upon this gloss and contemplation, he omitteth these words propter tenuitatem substantiae, which do prove that S. Hierom spoke of the transport of the soul in her substance: with all that contemplation doth not deliver the soul from the body, neither necessarily transporteth her into Paradise, or into hell: for Contemplation hath infinite other objects. Can. in praesenti. In the decrees of the Romish Church. Causs. 13. Quest. 2 there is a Canon taken out of S. Hierom and these be the words. In this present world we know that we may help one another, either by prayer or by Council: but when we shall come before the tribunal seat of Christ, neither job, nor Daniel, nor Noah can pray for any but every one shall bear his own burden. But the decree hath clouted on a tail and saith that S. Hierom spoke of the impenitent. But how can that be? For S. Hierom putteth himself in the number saying, But when we shall come. Gregory Nazianzen in the Epitaph of his brother Caesarius saith. I believe the words of the wise, namely that every honest soul that loveth God, when it is delivered from this body that is tied thereto, and is departed away IMMEDIATELY it is admitted to the fruition and contemplation of that good that attend it, and doth rejoice in admirable pleasure. Upon this principle doth he ground his steadfast persuasion that his brother is already blessed. Now was he neither Martyr nor Saint, nor otherwise qualified then the ordinary of the faithful. The like he speaketh in the Epitaph of his sister Gorgonia. S. Ambrose hath written an excellent treatise of the benefit of death, De bono mortis. corpus resolvatur acquiescat, anima autem convertatur in requiem svam. which is no other but a refutation of the Purgatory of the Romish Church. And it is to be noted that he speaketh of the death of all the faithful: but omitteth the Saints and Martyrs more privileged by God. In this third Chapter he doth thus define death: Death is a separation of the soul from the body. Then he addeth, Now what doth this separation saving that the body dissolveth and resteth but the soul is set in quiet and free, who if she be faithful shall be with Christ. In the fourth Chapter he saith that Death is a haven after a storm: and that she reserveth us to judgement, such as she found us: and addeth that by her Transitura corruptione ad incorruptionem: à mortalìtate ad immortalitatem: à perturbatione ad tranquillitatem. We pass from corruption to incorruption: from mortality to immortality: from trouble to rest. Again in the 7. Requies post labores, finis malorum. Mors stipendiorum plenitudo summa mercedis gratia missionis. Chapter. The fool doth fear death as the sovereign evil: the wise man doth desire it as a rest after labour, and the end of all calamities. In the same place. Death is the fullness of wages: the sum of rewards: the favour or grant of dispensation or licence. In the tenth Chapter he mocketh such as think that the habitation of souls is upon earth and saith Animarun superiora esse habitacula, scripturae testimonijs varijs probatur. It appeareth by many testimonies of the scriptures that the habitation of the souls is above. In the last Chapter speaking of himself and of all that believe in jesus Christ, he saith, Intrepide ad Abrahamum patrem nostrum cum Dies advenerit proficisca mur, intrepide pergamus ad illum sanctorum coetum etc. When that day shall come let us go boldly to Abraham our father; to the assembly of Saints: and congregation of the righteous: for we shall go to our fathers; to the schoolmasters of our faith, to the end that albeit our works fail us, yet faith may secure us and the inheritance be kept for us. And to the end no man should think that he speaketh only of the most holy and perfect, he saith Etiamsi opera desint, albeit works fail us: and soon after he saith that it doth appertain to all the believers in God, and that When the day of death shall come: to the end the Pope's factors should not put of that day to the issue out of Purgatory. Also that our adversaries may no longer shroud themselves under this passage in the 12. of Matthew, Blasphemy against the holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, neither in this world nor in the world to come: he saith in the second Chapter of the same book Qui hic non acceperit remissionem peccatorum, illic non erit. He that will not here receive remission of sins shall not be there. S. chrysostom hom. 75. in Matth. If we now do not that we should, when we come there, we shall have no means to satisfy. Again, hom. 22. ad populum Antiochenum. Read the Scriptures of our Saviour, and learn that none can help us when we depart hence. Also in his 2. hom. upon Lazarus. Pay all here, that without trouble thou mayst come to that tribunal seat, while we are here we have great hope: but so soon as we are departed to go thither it remaineth no longer in our power to do penance, or to blot out, or amend that we have done amiss. Hereto Bellarmine answereth that chrysostom speaketh of the remission of mortal sins which no man saith are remitted in Purgatory. And all this is false: for Chrysostom speaketh of all sins: and in any of all these places: never maketh distinction between mortal and venial sins: & indeed he speaketh of the wicked rich man, who was not punished for one sin only but for all his sins: withal that our adversaries do hold that in Purgatory they may bear the punishment for mortal sins: but that by the mercy of God of eternal they be made temporal. Yea they proceed so far as to limit the time of this punishment, namely seven years for every sin, as we showed in the first Chapter. Likewise upon the 23. of Matthew, hom. 25. he saith that penance after death is as unprofitable as the Physician, who after death can do no good. The same he saith upon the first of Genes. hom. 5. Also upon the fourth to the Romans, hom. 8. Where there is grace, there is forgiveness: where there is forgiveness there is no punishment. Now punishment being taken away and righteousness through faith granted, nothing may hinder us but that we shall be made heirs of this promise which is by faith. Himself upon Matth. hom. 32. asketh of the parents of the deceased these questions: Wherefore after the death of thy friends, dost thou call them poor? Why dost thou desire the Priest to pray for them? I know that thou wilt answer, it is to the end the deceased may obtain rest, and find his judge favourable? & thou weenest that thou must weep for these matters: but seest thou not that even in the same thou dost wrong him? For considering that thou thinkest he is gone into the flowered fields, why dost thou yet stir up great storms against him? Again in his 70. hom. ad populum Antiochenum: speaking of the funerals and the duty that we perform to the dead with torches and hymns, he saith. What is the meaning of these flaming lamps? No other but that we convey the Champions after the combat ended? and these hymns, but that in them we glorify God and give him thanks that he hath crowned the dead, and freed him from all sorrows? that he now keepeth him about him having taken from him all uncertainties? all which are actions of joy. He hath almost the same words in the morality of his fourth homily on the Hebrews. Both there and in his third homily on the Philippians, he gathereth that the duties that we perform to the dead, do testify that their souls are in rest: for the people say Convertere anima mea in requiem, My soul return into thy rest. Again in his 32. homily upon Matthew. Tears and lamentations beseem the enemy, not thee that goest to rest: & surely Death is a quiet haven from all troubles: Again, There is the spiritual bride bed, and celestial. And he saith that after death there is no more sorrow. To be brief. In Nilus' B●shop of Thessalonica we have an express book against Purgatory, which is an Apology for the Greek Churches: wherein they say that this temporal fire was condemned in the fifth Council: as also to this day, the Churches of the Greeks and Russians, the Abyssines and the Armenians know not what this Imaginary fire meaneth. There also the Greek Churches do protest that S. chrysostom never believed any such matter, neither any of their ancient Doctors: whereof we do gather that some places of this doctor, which seem to make for Purgatory either must be understood of an other kind of Purgatory, such as was the purging fire of Origen and Ambrose, which shall be spoken of hereafter, or else that those passages are corruptly inserted and suggested: Tunc est tentatio finienda quando finitur & pugna & tunc est finienda pugna, quando post hanc vitam succedet secura victoria: & paulo post, milites Christi labori osa peregrinatione transacta regnant felices in patria. Illis omnia remissa sunt delicta, nihil ob delicta puni●is. for likewise in the counsel of Florence, where the Greeks' armed themselves with the authority of their Doctors, the Latins would not have forborn to bring in these passages to convince them. Prosper in his first book of Contemplative life cap. 1. saith, Temptation shall end, when the Combat is ended: and the Combut shall end when after this life an assured victory shall succeed. Again soon after he saith, The soldiers of jesus Christ after they have finished their laborious pilgrimage, do reign happily in their Country. Procopius upon Exodus. To those who by faith are entered into the number of their confederates and brethren, and have been made partakers of the divine nature by the participation of the holy Ghost, all their sins are pardoned, & they have received no punishment for their offences. Epiphanius in his second book of heresies, heresy 39, which is the same of the Catares and Novatians, seemeth to have taken a smatch in the Confutation of Purgatory, where he saith, In the age to come after a man's death there is no more help by fasting; no more vocation of penance: no more exhibition of Alms: he also saith, It is as the corn that swelleth not after it is reaped: neither can be spoiled with the wind. Finally he concludeth, The Garners are sealed up: the time is past, the combat is finished: the lists are voided, and the Garlands are given. Now, saith he, all this is finished at the departure out of the body: after which departure our adversaries do impose grievous penances, and augment the difficulty of the fight and torments, and do defer the giving of the Crowns until the coming out of Purgatory: that is to say, many hundreds and thousands of years after death. Arnobius in his second book against the gentiles saith, that Plato after this life hath set down Rivers of fire, in quibus animas asseverat volui, mergi, exuri: where the souls are tossed, plunged, and burned. But himself contrariwise doth hold that the souls out of the bodies can endure no sorrow. Quis hominum non videt quod sit immortal, quod simplex, nullum posse dolorem admittere. Wherein albeit he erreth not, yet doth it sufficiently show that he believeth not that the souls without bodies can after this life be cast into a fire. Note also that throughout all antiquity we find no mention of bulls: of fetching of souls out of Purgatory, of Indulgences for the dead, altars, and of fraternities that have privilege to fetch a soul out of Purgatory: As this is but lately invented, and as old age increaseth in covetousness, so hate Avarice been more inventive in this declining old age of the world: for it is credible, that the Apostles and their first successors omitted the fetching of fowls out of this fire by indulgences, for want either of knowledge, either of ability, either else of good will. Also that together with their greatness and riches, skill, spiritual power, piety, and charity have grown up in the Bishops of Rome. That the Doctors in the primitive Church in this matter had their errors, which the Church of Rome rejecteth namely in this, that for the most part they believed that the souls are detained in dens or corners until the day of judgement: whereof nevertheless it appeareth that they knew not Purgatory. Irineus toward the end of his fourth and last book condemneth two opinions: the one that hell is in the world: the other, that the soul which he calleth the inward man coming out of the body ascended into the region that is above the heavens. Then he addeth, For sith our Lord went into the midst of the shadow of death, where the souls of the dead remained, and is since corporally risen again, and after his resurrection was received on high: It is evident therefore that the souls of his disciples, for whom jesus Christ acted and suffered these things, shall also go into an invisible place to them appointed by God, where they shall remain until the resurrection: afterward being perfectly, that is, corporally raised as jesus Christ was, they shall appear in the presence of God: for no disciple is above his master, etc. In sum his meaning is that herein the condition of the faithful deceased shall be conformable to that of jesus Christ, whose soul came not into the presence of God before his resurrection, but was in darkness and in the shadow of death: hereupon also doth Erasmus in his preface to the fifth book of Irineus note that Irineus did suppose that the souls dismissed from the bodies did not immediately enjoy the sight of God, but are reserved in some secret place until the resurrection The same father in the same book not far from the beginning saith that God hath placed man in Paradise, Quapropter dicunt presbyteri quisunt Apostolorum discipuli eos qui sunt transtati illuc translatos esse. which is the garden of Eden, from whence for his disobedience he was driven into the world: and then he addeth, Therefore the ancient fathers that were the Apostles disciples, do say that such as are translated from hence, are translated into that place. He therefore did think that the garden of Eden from whence Adam was expelled, was the secret corner where the souls are hidden until the resurrection. A frivolous doctrine, yet such as testifieth that in his time there was yet no speech of purgatory: which Erasmus also hath noted in the same preface. Origen in his seventh homily upon Leviticus saith thus. Nondum sancti receperunt laetitiam svam etc. The Saints no not the Apostles themselves have not yet received their joy, but they expect until I be made participant thereof with them. And in his second book of his principles toward the end he saith with Irineus That the saints after their decease are transported into the earthly Paradise. Eam Regionem sinum dico Abrahae: et si non coel●stem sublimiocem tamen inferis interim refrigerium praebituram animabus justorum, donec comsummatio rerum resurrectionem omnium plenitudine mercedis expungat. Quae infra terram jacent neque ipsa sunt digestis & ordinatis potestatibus vacua. Locus enim est quo piorum animae & impiorum ducuntur, etc. Tertullian in his fourth book against Martion, cap. 34. I call Abraham's bosom that region, albeit not celestial, yet higher than the hells: which nevertheless must give rest to the souls of the righteous, until the consummation of things accomplish the resurrection through the fullness of reward. The same he repeateth in his fourth poetical book against Martion. cap. 6. & in his book of the soul cap. 55. Constituimus omnem animam apud inferos sequestrari in Diem Domini. We hold assured that every soul is sequestered into the lower parts unto the day of the Lord. The same he also saith, cap. 56.57.58. Novatian in his book of the Trinity and is to be found among the books of Tertullian, cap. 1. saith. The things that are under the earth, are not void of powers digested and ordered. For it is the place whether the souls both of the faithful and of the wicked are brought, feeling already the forejudgement of the judgement to come. Now were it to no purpose to say that Novatian was an heretic: for it is well known he was never holden to be an heretic for this opinion, but because he refused reconciliation to the Church to those that were once fallen. chrysostom on the first to the Corinthians, hom. 39 If the body riseth not again the soul shall not be crowned, but be kept out of the celestial beatitude. The same he saith hom. 28. upon the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the same father we find some sentences to the contrary: as indeed it was his fault, to be of small constancy: and yet all that he saith doth yet make more against Purgatory. And in his homily upon the Epistle to the Philippians. The righteous whether it be here, or whether it be there, are ever with the king, but there much more yea & more near: not as it were by the way: not in faith: but face to face. And we consequently do say, not in a fire, not in a prison under earth. Theophil●ot, a follower of Chrysostom, upon the 11. to the Hebrews. The saints have not yet obtained the celestial promises Omnes in una communi que custodia detinentur, donec temp adveniat quo maximus judex meritorum faciat examen. Lactantius, lib. 7. cap. 11. Let no man think that the souls be judged immediately after death: for they are all detained in a common prison until the time come that the great judge taketh the examination of what they have deserved. Victor in Martyr upon the sixth of the Revelation, saith that Saint john saw under the alter the souls of the Martyrs, and those that were slain: and these words sub ara he doth expound sub terra. Thus than he placeth the souls of the Martyrs and Saints under earth. S. Hillary upon the 38. Haec humanae lex necessitatis est ut sepultis corporib. animae ad inferos descendant etc. Psalm. It is the law of necessity where to man is subject that the souls should descend into the lower parts, after the dead be buried. Which law jesus Christ for the accomplishment of a very perfect man, did not refuse. Neither may we say that he speaketh of the fathers of the old Testament: for in all that place he hath not a word of them: beside he would have said This was the law: but he saith, This is the law: Finally saying it is a human necessity, which jesus Christ underwent, to become very man he showeth that it is a condition imposed upon all man kind, which if jesus Christ had not vndergon, he had not participated in all that was proper to mankind. He also upon the second Psalm saith. The dai● of judgement is the eternal retribution of beatitude, or of punishment: but the hour of death in the mean time, holdeth every one under her laws, whiles the bosom of Abraham, or the pain reserveth every one to judgement. Euthimius upon Luke. 16. saith that the history of Lazarus is a parable, wherein is described unto us what shall be done in the day of judgement. And upon the 23. Psalm, he saith, None of the righteous have received the promises, and the kingdom shallbe given in the day of the universal retribution. Whereupon also Io. Hentenius a Monk of the order of S. Hierom hath noted in the margin that Euthimius as a Greek followeth the errors of the Greeks'. S. Bernard in his 3. sermon of all Saints maketh three habitations for souls. Primum in Tabernaculis, secundum in Atrijs, tertium in C●●lis. The first in Tabernacles, that in, this body, the second in Porches, the third in heaven: these receptacles he termeth hals. As for S. Ambrose and S. Augustine, we find them wavering and unlike to themselves sometimes speaking according to the truth, sometime carried away with the common error. Ambrose indeed hath before told us that the habitation of the souls separated is above and in the 11 Chapter he saith, Incer●● supremi judicij non verentur eventum. But in his second book of Abel and Cain, cap. 2. he saith thus. The Pilot arrived at the shore, thinketh not himself at the end of his travail: for immediately he seeketh a beginning of another journey. The soul is loosed from the body, Solvitur corpere anima ad huc tamen futuri iudidii ambiguo suspenditur. but yet abideth in suspense upon the doubt and uncertainty of the future judgement. If this be so, then doth she not enjoy felicity before the day of judgement. S. Augustine is of the same mind for in him we find sundry places, wherein speaking of the souls of some persons deceased he thinketh them to be translated into heaven, and to be with God: but we find more places where he holdeth the contrary and followeth the common error, upon the 36. Psalm he saith that the soul departed from the body, shall not be in the kingdom of heaven: well it may be in Abraham's bosom with Lazarus: for so doth he call this receptacle and to show that this was the common opinion, he saith that no man was ignorant thereof: These be his words. Post vitam islam parvam, nondum eris ubi erunt sancti, quibus dicetur venite Benedicti, etc. Non dum ibi eris: Quis nescit? So in the ninth book of his Confessions cap. 3. he thus speaketh to God, Thou hast loosed Nebridius out of this flesh, Nebridiu● carne solvisti & nunc ille vivit in sinu Abrahae, quicquid illud est quod ille significatur. Tempusquod inter hominis mortem & ultimam resurrectionem interpositum est animas abditis receptaculis continet. Socratis animarum receptaculis sedibusque requiescit. Secundum apertissimam Domini sententiam etiam ipse sentit tunc visuros faciem Dei, cum in Angelos profecerimus, 1. aequales Angelis facti fuerimus, quod erit utique in resurrectione mortuorum and now he liveth in Abraham's bosom: whatsoever it is that is signified by this bosom. Here he speaketh as doubting. In his manuel to Laurentius cap. 108. The time that is between death and the last resurrection, containeth the souls in secret receptacles, according as every one is worthy of rest, or of affliction. And in his 17. book of the City of God, cap. 9 This part of the city of God which is gathered together from among mortal men, & must be conjoined with immortal Angels, is now a traveller upon earth, being subject to death: whereas for those that are dead, they rest in the hidden receptacles or seats of souls. In his Epistle to Fortunatianus According to the most evident sentence of our Lord, and S. Paul holdeth that we shall see the face of the Lord when we shallbe advanced even to the Angels, that is to say, that we be made equal to the Angels, which shall be in the resurrection of the dead. I will therefore make any man of understanding judge whether, the words wherewith at this day they pray in the mass for the souls in Purgatory do not testify that when this prayer was penned, the belief of the latin Church was not concordant with it. Qui nos praecesserunt in signo fidei & dormiunt in somno pacis. These be the words. Remember O Lord thy servants that are gone before us in the sign of faith, and do sleep in the slumber of peace: To them O LORD and to all that rest in Christ, we beseech thee to grant place of refreshing, of light, and of peace. Can this be spoken of souls so long tormented in a fire, like to hell fire? What rest what quiet sleep in fire seven times more hot than our ordinary fire? A fire that continueth hundreds and thousands of years? Undoubtedly this prayer was made for the souls that they thought to be in the hidden receptacles, where they rested in expectation of the resurrection: and felt some refreshing by the prayers of the living: Indeed we have heard that such was the opinion of Tertullian, who also useth the like terms in his book of Monogamy and willeth the wise to pray for her husband In refrigerium & adpostulet, ut in prima resurrectione consortium, entreating some refreshing for him, and that he may accompany her in the first resurrection. For this doctor believed that all the faithful should not rise together, as in the last chapter of his book of the soul he doth expressly say, yea even all the Greek Church is yet of that opinion: who denying Purgatory do nevertheless pray for the dead, Vide Concil. Ferrariense seu Florentinum & Nilun de Purgatorio. as not yet enjoying celestial felicity. And Guido in his sum of heresies attributeth the same error to the Churches of Armenia. This was it that induced Pope john the 23. to maintain this opinion, & to prohibit the divines of Paris from teaching otherwise: as witnesseth Gerson in his pascal sermon, & john Villanus in the tenth book of his history. This is one of the heroical actions of the College of Sorbon and one of her last gaps of her dying liberty: for [saith Erasmus in his preface to the fifth book of Ireneus] johannes coactus, opere Theologorum Parisiorum, ad palinodiam coram Galliarum Rege Philippo: non since buccina. By all the premises it appeareth how irresolute the ancients are in this question: how unfit they are to decide it: & into what Laberinthes they that send us to the fathers to be directed by them do endeavour to entangle the consciences. It also appeareth that the prayers for the dead, that are to be found in these doctors do make nothing for Purgatory: but were made for their refresh in those receptacles, and for their salvation in the day of judgement: also for other intents whereof we will speak hereafter. This is one degree of the bad dealing of my adversaries in their citing of the fathers. That diverse of the fathers believed that the fire in the last judgement should purge the souls of all men: even of the Apostles and Saints. Clement of Alexandria was the first that declined from the purity & simplicity of the doctrine of the Gospel, intermingling Platonical Philosophy there with: also his wheeling and capricious style did blast and corrupt all that was natural or forcible in the simplicity of God's word yea he proceeded so far as to say in the sixth book of his Tapisseryes that the Greeks' were just, by Philosophy: also that Philosophy was given unto them in lieu of the Testaments. By the same vanity was he likewise induced in the same book to say that Christ and his Apostles descended into hell and there preached the Gospel to the souls of the Gentiles and Infidels, who [saith he] were by that preaching converted: he also holdeth that the souls of Infidels that are in hell may yet be converted and come to salvation. Orig hom. 3. in Psal. 36. Omnes nos necesse est venire ad illum ignem etiam si vel Paulus sit vel Petrus Origen his disciple succeeded him in time, but outstripped him in heresies, and to this Platonical humour hath added thus much more: The wresting of all the scriptures into allegories. He held that all must pass through fire, Iste transit unam & aliam septimanam immunditia sua & tertia demum incipiente ob oriri septima na purgatur. and that the Saints & such as were least laden with sin should but pass through, and be but slightly singed: others not so pure should stay there a week or two: but the wicked and the devils should abide there a longer time, yet in the end after a long purgation should come forth of that fire & be saved: as appeareth in his homily upon Leviticus: on the 25. of Numbers, and in the sixth upon Exodus. He is of opinion that this Purgation by fire must begin at the day of judgement, & at the entry into the world to come. In many places, namely in his 8 homily upon Leviticus. Of which purgation S. Augustin in his book of heresies [wherein he rancketh Origen among the heretics] in 43 heresy saith, Many doctrines hath this Origen which the Catholic church doth not receive, whereof he is not wrongfully reproved, neither can his defenders excuse him: but principally in the point of purgation and deliverance. Now let all men judge with what conscience our adversaries can use the authority of Origen to establish their Purgatory. Now albeit this doctrine was rejected by such as came after, yet the active and quick spirit of Origen drew many to admire him, and into the minds of some infused the sparks of this purgative fire: yet such as hath no resemblance with the Purgatory of the Church of Rome. Whereas he limiteth an end to the purgation of the devils, and then will have them to be saved, therein he is not followed: otherwise he hath followers so far forth as he will have the fire in the last judgement to serve to purge even the Saints and Apostles, Medico quoque de licto morâ resurrectionis expenso. justos cum iudicaverit, Deus igni eos examinabit. Tum quorum peccata vel pondere vel numero praevaluerint, perstringentur atque amburentur. some more, some less, according to the multitude and weight of their sins. We have already heard one opinion of Tertullian in his last chapter of his book of the soul that cometh near to this, where he saith, They shall pay even their least sins by the delay of their resurrection. Lactantius in his seventh book cap. 21. When God shall have judged the righteous, he shall examine them by fire, thou they whose sins shall prevail either in weight or number shall by the fire be singed and lightly scorched. He speaketh of a fire that is not yet, but shall begin at the day of judgement. The Friar page 63. useth this passage for his Purgatory but he doth but quote it, for he could not for shame allege it at large. S. Ambrose upon the 36 Psalm is as plain as any. Igne purgabuntur filii. Levi igne Ezechiel, igne Daniel. The sons of Levy shall be purged by fire, and Ezechiell, and Daniel. And these, is they shall be examined by fire shall also say, We have passed through fire & water. Two things he here delivereth. The one that even the most holy must pass by this fire: The other, that this purgation of the Saints, of Ezechiel and of Daniel, etc. is not yet: for he saith, Purgabuntur, Examinabuntur. Omnes op●rtet transire per flamma●, sive ille johannes Evangelista sive ille sit Petrus. They shall be purged and examined. Again in his 20 sermon upon the 118 Psalms he saith thus, All must of necessity pass through the flames, yea were it john the Evangelist whom our Lord loved: or were it Peter, to whom he delivered the keys. And there he still speaketh of a fire which is not yet: which also must be even for the most holy. Again in the same place he useth the Allegory of the flaming sword placed in the entering into the earthly Paradise, and that with far more dexterity than our adversaries, who practise to make use of it for their Purgatory: for Ambrose who referreth this purging fire to the day of judgement hath some small colour for his Allegory because the last judgement is the entry & as it were the gate into the Eternal kingdom, as this sword was in the entry into the terrestrial Paradise: But there is no more proportion between this sword and the roasting of souls after death, then between S. Peter & the Pope. S. Hierom taketh the same course, and as he was a great imitator of Origen, so doth he follow him in this: excepting so much as concerneth the purging of devils and Infidels. He therefore in the last lines of his Commentary upon Esay setteth down two sorts of Impious and wicked persons. The one that are Christians: the other that are not. Peccatorum, atque impiorum & tamen Christianorum quorum operae igne probanda sunt atque purganda, moderatam arbitramur & mixtam clementiam sententium judicis. He holdeth that the torments of the devils and of the wicked that are no Christians shall be Eternal: but as for the wicked and ungodly Christians, their works shall be purged by fire: and that the sentence of the judge shall be moderated and mixed with mercy. The Friar according to his usual fidelity pag. 36. citeth this place for his Purgatory: as also he maketh use of the authority of Origen. The same father upon the 46. of Ezechiell termeth the last day, which is the day of the Resurrection, Omnis creatura ad comparationem creatoris immunda est ac divino igne parganda. The Sabaoth and the seventh day, and saith, Every creature in comparison of the Creator is unclean, and must be purged by divine fire. He then here telleth us two things: one that this fire is for every creature, and consequently for the Saints and Martyrs: the other, that this fire is not yet, for he saith purganda and expressly he specifieth that it shallbe in the last day which he termeth The Sabaoth & the seventh day. Emundatio que nos S. spiritus sanctificet ad●●entu, judicii igne no● decoquat. Hilar. Can. 2. In Matt. Baptisatis in spiritu sancto reliquum est ●●●summari igna judicii S. Hilary upon the 119. Psalm, in the pause Gimel expoundeth how many things are to be used in the purging of us from our sins, besides Baptism: and there he bringeth in the holy Ghost sanctifying of us, and the fire of judgement that doth purify us. And in the same pause or section he doth more plainly deliver his opinion: which is, that the fire in the day of judgement must bake and burn the faithful, yea even the Virgin Mary. These be his words. An cum ex omni otioso verbo rationeu● simus praestituri, diem judicij concupiscimus in quo nobis est indefessus ille ignis obeandus in quo subcunda sunt gravia illa expiandae à peccatis animae supplicia. Again soon after. Si in judicij severitatem capax illa Dei virgo ventura est, desiderare quis à Deo audebit judicari? To be brief, his fear of the heat of this fire, which must burn even the Virgin Mary doth keep him [saith he] from desiring the day of judgement. Of this fire than doth Gregory Nazian speak in the passage alleged by the Friar page 84. Whereout I gather two things. First how easily man's spirit is misled, when it strayeth from the word of God: secondly that my adversaries do abuse the people and persuade them that these Doctors do speak of Purgatory. They do indeed speak of the fire of the last judgement: likewise that they make mention of a torment reserved to those only that have not sufficiently satisfied in this life when they speak but of a torment or purgation common to all the faithful, to the saints, to the Martyrs and to the Virgin Mary. And this is a second degree of their unfaithfulness in their allegations. S. Augustine, who throughout the whole course of this question, hath showed himself inconstant in his 20. book of the City of God, cap. 25. saith well that in the day of judgement the fire shall to some only stand instead of the pains of Purgatory. Ex his quae dicta sunt videtur evidentius ap parere in illo judicio quasdam quorundam poenas purgatorias futuras. The Friar pag. 37. citeth this passage, but to dissemble that S. Augustine spoke of the day of judgement, he concealeth these words, In illo judicio. Again in his 16. book of the city of God. cap. 24. Significatur isto igne dies judicij dir imens carnales salvandos per ignem & igne damnandos. This day signifieth the day of judgement, which must discern the carnal men who are to be saved by the fire, and who to be condemned into the fire. There is nothing so evident. This error is condemned then by the Church of Rome, which could not fit itself to this Purgatory that beginneth not until the day of the resurrection: very well foreseeing that the Pope's Indulgences & dispensations could have no colour, if they should dispense with this purging: whereto the fathers subjecteth the Apostles, yea even the blessed Virgin, which also is of so short continuance. And therefore it was requisite to make a Purgatory that should begin immediately after death, and a torment equal with the torments of hell, long and horrible, from whence the Pope might exempt and fetch forth by his Indulgences such as it pleased him. That the Fathers do speak of another purgation by fire, which is in this life The ancients do often use the Allegorical words of S. Paul, 1. Corin. 3. namely of stubble, hay, wood, of trial by fire, and they term the afflictions and penance of this life a fire, or a trial or purgation by fire, S. Hierom upon the 3. of Matthew speaking of this fire saith that when the children of Levi shall be purged, they shall offer sacrifices acceptable to God for juda and for Jerusalem, which cannot be done but in this life and that by fire. S. Augustine in the 21. book of the city of God, cap. 13. We confess that in this life there be Purgatory pains: Nos in hac mortali vita esse quasdam purgatorias poenas confitemur. but such as are purging to those who being exercised in them, do amend their lives. And in cap. 26. Such delights and carnal loves shall be burned by the fire of tribulation. To this fire do belong the loss of kindred and all sorts of calamity. Mark this Canon of Pope Siricius which is to be seen in Luityrandus and others. in suis ergastulis detrusi Purgatorio possiat poenitud nis igne decoqui. He commanded that the Monks should immediately be driven out of the Monasteries: to the end that being shut up in their workehouses they might be baked in the Purgatory fire of penance. He termeth the labour of a Monk shut up in a shop and tied to travail [as it was the custom of the first Monks to have an occupation and to labour with their hands] a Purgatory fire. S. Gregory in his fourth dialogue, cap. 39 speaking of the fire whereby men be saved, saith, It may be meant of the fire of the tribulations of this life. And S. Augustine in his Manuel to Laurentius cap. 68 Est ignis tribulatio tentationis, This fire is the temptation of afflictions. Again soon after he saith that This fire is in this life. S. Cyprian in his fourth book and 2. Epistle speaking of Ecclesiastical penance imposed upon such as for fear had revolted to Idolatry, compareth the condition of those penitents, which he saith are to be purged by fire, with the condition of such as never shrunk, but suffered martyrdom: And he holdeth the condition of such Martyrs to be more blessed than the condition of those penitents: mark his comparison. It is one thing standing up, to ask forgiveness [as did these penitents after their revolt] another thing to attain to the glory [as they did that persevering received Martyrdom] One thing it is, being cast into prison, not to come forth until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing, another thing immediately to receive the reward of thy faith and virtue. One thing it is being afflicted by a long sorrow for sin, to be corrected and purged a long time by fire: and another to be cleansed from all sin by passion and martyrdom. To be brief One thing it is long to hang in suspense concerning the sentence that the Lord shall give in the day of judgement: and another to be incontinently crowned by the Lord. According to the manner of the ancients, he termeth penance and long affliction after sin, a purging fire, & opposeth it against the present and assured glory of the Martyrs, as against a condition more assured and far more blessed. And this said he to the end that such as were prisoners for Christ, should not revolt upon this persuasion that afterwards repenting they should enjoy like bliss and assurance as others that suffered martyrdom. But of temporal torment after this life, or of any purgation of souls separated from the bodies, there is not one word throughout that Epistle, neither elsewhere throughout all Cyprian, who in purity giveth place to none of the Ancients. And indeed we need not to seek farther than the same Epistle, wherein he willeth that the penitents [confessing their fault] should be received. For, saith he, Apud inferos confessio non est, nec Exomologests illic fieri potest. Which is more none of the words uttered in this passage can in any wise stand with our adversaries Purgatory. 1. For he saith Longo dolore cruciatum emendari & purgari diu igne. The penitent long time tormented is amended and purged by the fire: Now our adversaries say that the souls do not or cannot amend themselves in their Purgatory. 2. It is also said that he that is thus purged resteth in suspense and doubt of the Lords sentence in the day of judgement. The friars falsehood. But our adversaries say that the souls in Purgatory are assured of their salvation, and therefore the Friar pag. 56. omitteth these last words of S. Cyprian. 3. Finally sith he speaketh of such as do penance after their revolt, it is not possible he should speak of souls separated from their bodies, either of Purgatory. Wrongfully therefore do my adversaries make so many brags of this passage for it is most unjustly and fraudulently alleged. As also the Friar, pag. 63. citeth S. Hierom upon the fourth of jeremy and in his second book against jovinian: also Nazianzen in his 39 oration, and Basil in his oration upon the 9 of Esay, where he speaketh of purging torments and afflictions, & of a fire that trieth the faithful: but in this life, or at the day of judgement. And here do our adversaries show the third degree of their bad consciences in their allegations of the Doctors. Of Commemoration and prayer for the dead, practised by diverse of the ancients: and that it maketh nothing for their Purgatory. Throughout the books of my adversaries there is nothing more gross than their false presuppositions that they make above an hundred times: whereby so soon as they have alleged any father that speaketh of Commemoration, Alms, Oblations, or Sacrifice for the dead, they straight conclude, Then is there a Purgatory. A matter false, and that for sundry reasons. 1. Wherefore did Saint Augustine in writing a whole tract of the care for the dead set down never a word therein of Purgatory? 2. Why did they offer for the Apostles, Prophets & Martyrs, and made sacrifices for them? As witnesseth Cyprian in his third book Epist. 6. and in his fifth book Epist. 4. dare my adversaries thereupon infer that the primitive Church believed that the Apostles were in Purgatory? 3. Epiphanius accuseth Arrius of heresy because he rejected prayer for the dead, and bringeth many reasons to prove that this prayer made for the patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles and all the faithful is profitable & to be received: yet speaketh he not one word of Purgatory: albeit that was the place where to speak of it, or not at all. 4. Denis [falsely termed] Areopagite disputing of the commodity of prayer for the dead, still presupposeth that those for whom we pray, are blessed & propounded for examples to the living, and for matter of thanksgiving: but of Purgatory, or of any fire that purgeth souls he hath not a word. 5. We have heard in the second of the Macchabees that to pray for the dead is but mere madness: unless we have regard to the Resurrection: so not to the torment of Purgatory. 6. The Greek churches do pray for the dead: yet do they deny Purgatory. 7. We heard before by chrysostom in his 32. homily upon Matthew that such as procured prayers for their dead parents, did believe that they were in flowered meadows: & in that homily in above twenty places, he saith, that Death is the entry to rest and an end of sorrow. S. Augustin in the ninth book of his Confessions prayeth for his mother Monica: and S. Ambrose for the Emperor Valentinian, yet do they protest that they believe that these parsons deceased are with God, & do enjoy the pleasures of Eternal life. But the matter of greatest consideration is that S. Ambrose saith that Valentinian died without Baptism. Oratione de obitu Valentiniani. Valentinian I say who was a great Emperor and a Christian even from his birth, having so many clergy men at his command, at whose hands to have received Baptism: who then did better deserve to be confined into Limbo or Purgatory than he? yet saith Ambrose, He is in celestial felicity. 9 We have heard that most of the ancients shut up the souls of all men in certain hidden receptacles, where they desired refreshing: thereupon had they some ground to pray for the dead, albeit they did not believe Purgatory: wherein appeareth the corrupt faith of the Friar: for he sets a brag upon the words of S. Augustine in the 110. chapter of his Manual. We must not deny but that the souls of the dead are relieved by the piety of the living: but he was wiser than to allege the words going before, namely The souls are in hidden receptacles even from their decease until the resurrection. For so it would have appeared that the opinion of S. Augustin touching prayer for the dead, was grounded upon an error which the Church of Rome rejecteth, also that from an error will soon spring an abuse. 10. We have already heard the opinion of Origen and his followers touching the fire of the day of judgement, that should scorch and burn the souls even of the most holy and perfect. Also we have showed how fearful S. Hillary was of this fire. All this therefore might have ministered unto them argument sufficient to have prayed for the dead, as trembling at the punishment to come. 11. What more can we desire? Let us make our adversaries our judges in this case. Do not the Priests many times receive money for saying Masses for the young children that died soon after Baptism, who nevertheless [as they believed] were neither in Limbo, nor in Purgatory? Let them now choose whether they will confess their error, or acknowledge their Avarice; their want of knowledge, or their bad consciences. 12. Do they not in their daily Mass pray for the souls that sleep in a slumber of peace and therefore are not in the horror of flames. 13. Let us therefore hear the form of the ordinary prayers of the Church of Rome for the dead. This book of sacred cerem. sect 5. c. 1. libera domine à morte aeterna in die illo tremendo Save them O Lord from Eternal death in that terrible day when the heavens and the earth shall be moved: when thou shalt come to judge the world by fire: I tremble and fear when the trial shall come: and the wrath to come, that day of wrath, of calamity, of misery; that great and marvelous bitter day. They pray that the souls of the dead may be saved from eternal death and the last judgement: & which is more. Throughout all the public prayers of the Church of Rome for the dead we find not one word of Purgatory: which proveth that it was not yet established in the Church at that time, when they prayed only for the refreshing of souls in their hidden receptacles: or for the last judgement, or to eschew Eternal death. 14. Finally, is it not a matter marvelous notable that among such a multitude of the passages of the fathers, by our adversaries quoted for prayer for the dead, there is not one that saith that these prayers were made to redeem souls out of Purgatory? This then is the fourth degree of the deceits and fraudulent allegations that our adversaries do make, when at every speech they still inculcate prayer for the dead for proof of their Purgatory: & there upon have they spent at the least three quarters of their allegations. Now as concerning this prayer for the dead, the truth is that the Apostles in the celebration of the Lords Supper retained the institution of jesus Christ: and Pope Gregory hath before testified unto us that to that Institution that is set down in the holy Gospel they added only the Lords prayer, which argueth an untruth in chrysostom, who saith that the Commemoration of the dead in the Eucharist is an Apostolical tradition. Soon after Martyrdom increasing, for the better encouragement of the Christians, they brought in a custom in the celebration of the sacrament, to name the Martyrs with the Prophets and Apostles, and in every. Church they had a list or double tables called Diptiches, wherein were writ ten the names of all such deceased as were to be mentioned in Commemoration, and so far there was no harm. The custom increasing, the parents and friends of the deceased began to give alms upon the day of the Commemoration of the deceased. The alms together with the commemorations they called oblations of the dead: also sacrifices for the dead: as we may see in the sixth epistle of the third book of S. Cyprian, speaking of the Martyrs deceased in prison Celebrentur à nobis oblationes et Sacrificia in Commemorationem eorum. Let us celebrate sacrifices and oblations in commemoration of them. Likewise in the fifth Epistle of his fourth book, speaking of Laurence, Heb. 13.16 Phillip 4 18. Celerine and Ignatius Martyrs, Sacrificia pro eis offerimus quoties Martyrum passiones & dies Aniversariae Commemoratione celebramus. That is to say, We do offer sacrifice for them always, and so often as from year to year we do celebrate the days and passions of the Martyrs. In sum this is it. The alms called in the Scripture sacrifices, were offered for the dead, that is to say in remembrance of them, and in their steed, as if the dead gave them. Thus in the eight book of the Institutions of Clement, cap. 18. The Bishop or minister prayeth, We do offer unto thee for all those that have pleased thee from the beginning of the world, for the Saints, patriarchs, Prophets, righteous men, Apostles, Martyrs. etc. For such doth the Church of Rome hold that we ought not to pray or to offer. That these oblations and sacrifices were alms it appeareth by two Canons: Vases, Can. qui oblationes, & can. Clerici. one of the Council of Vases, the other of the Council of Agatha. Which are in Can. 13. quest. 2 The Council of Vases saith thus. Can. Qui oblatione & can. clerici. Such as detain the oblations of the dead, & are slack in bringing them to the Churches, are to be cut of from the Church as Infidels, because they do deprive the faithful of the accomplishment of their vows, and the poor of their food and substance. That of Agatha condemneth those that detain the oblations of their deceased parents, as murderers of the poor. Burchard in his fifth book allegeth many examples. Now because part of these offerings were employed in the Communion of the holy supper, S. Cyprian in his sermon of Alms complaineth that the rich offering nothing, yet came to take part of the sacrifices offered by the poor. Domini cum sine sacrificio venis, partem de sacrificio quod pau per obtulit sumis. Now that this nomination of the dead in the administration of the sacrament tended not to fetch him out of Purgatory it appeareth even by the same that our adversaries allege out of Cyprian, namely for that he would not permit any nomination of of a certain deceased person, who had charged a clerk with a tutorship: for surely it had been excessive inhumanity to deprive a soul tormented in fire from ordinary relief for so slight an offence, and where it was rather want of consideration then of piety: as also to hold such a one for that sin to be damned were a rash and precipitat judgement. It was therefore a deprivation of honour among the living, not a prohibition from succouring of the soul of the deceased. And yet in all this there is no harm. In those days sprang up the error of the receptacles of souls, and of the fire of the last judgement, that should purge even the Virgin Mary and the Apostles, & began to take footing in the church. Hereby men's minds growing into fear and being perplexed concerning the estate of the dead, prayers for the succour of the dead soon after came to be adjoined to the oblations, sacrifices, and alms. And thus error begat abuse, which sprang from the love of friends, yet without any conceit of Purgatory: and without any foresight of such abuses as might ensue, and did befall in the days of Gregory Bishop of Rome, who lived in the year of jesus Christ six hundred. For than learning being smothered by the inundation of the barbarous nations, the Goths, the Huns, the French, the Vandals, etc. And these lights of the primitive Church extinct, whiles there were no more Basils, Cyprians, or Augustins etc. The devil taking his time, and making use of the covetise of the Clergy, cozened the world with visions and apparitions of souls returning from Purgatory, as we see in Gregory's dialogues, and Beda his works: who made report of a soul that appeared muzzled in a cloak of fire: of an other that had been a master of the baths, and being there in Purgatory, offered to pull of a man's hose. They also tell us a fable of one Nocholas who getting forth of Purgatory by a hole that is in Ireland, reported that he had seen souls, some broiled, some fried, get-some roasted, etc. Gregory in the fourth of his dialogues cap. 41. putteth to himself this question. Quid hoc est quaeso, quod in his extremis temporibus tam multa de animabus clarescunt, quae ante latuerant? And ordinarily these souls in their appearance showed the cause of their torment: either that they had not paid the Church what they ought, or had vowed: and so entreated the living to satisfy for them: or that they had withstood the Bishop of Rome etc. Then began these great donations to the Church: especially after the stations and Indulgences of Rome were added, which are of the top-gallant, & the last & supreme top of all Babylon. Against this progress of abuse what better remedy then to reduce the people to the spring head, which is the holy Scripture? And to say as jesus Christ said to the Saduces Mat. 22. You err, not knowing the scriptures: but from the beginning it was not so. For throughout the old Testament, that is, for the full space of four hundred years there was no prayer either for the dead, or to fetch any soul out of Purgatory: neither in the days of jesus Christ or his Apostles, nor of a long time after. Thus shall we attribute the glory to God & to his word, & clear the people's minds from all doubts or difficulties, & withal cut of the paths that lead to this traffic. How unjustly the Friar and his fellows do make use of the example of the primitive Church, in matter of Indulgences. In the times of persecutions, the primitive Church sought all means possible to honour martyrdom and to encourage the Christians thereto. Among other means they had taken up a custom that such as for any notorious offence were cut of from the Church for some long time did resort to the prisons wherein such as suffered for the gospel were detained, & there besought these Martyrs to make intercession to the Church that the time of their penance and excommunication might be abridged: and thus did the Bishops use at the intercessions of these prisoners appointed to martyrdom, to readmit the penitent into the Congregation. S. Cyprian in his sermon of the fallen, also in the second Epistle of his fourth book, and Tertullian in his book De pudicitia, do disallow this custom, & think they they yield too much to these imprisoned Martyrs. Yea Tertullian speaketh thereof in his book of the Martyrs. cap. 1. Our adversaries, like the Israelites that gathered straw under the bondage of Pharaoh, for want of more substantial proofs, do make use of this custom in their establishing of the Pope's Indulgences, and in the distribution of the overplus works and superabundant satisfactions of the Saints collected into the Pope's treasury and converted into payments for others: Tertullian calleth them appointed Martyrs wherein I suppose they have no intent that men should believe them: so far from all appearance do they speak. 1. These Martyrs that S. Cyprian spoke of, were yet alive those that our adversaries spoke of are dead. 2. We cannot find that ever the pain of any sinner was abridged by the merits and superabundant sufferings of these Martyrs, who would never have vndergon those torments, had they not believed that God called them thereto, and consequently that they were bound to endure them, & so it followeth that they neither did, nor suffered any thing supererogatory. for they could not do otherwise, unless they would have denied the Gospel. 3. These imprisoned Martyrs commended to the Church this or that penitent, and besought that they might be received into the Communion: but they neither paid for them nor redeemed them: as our adversaries do say that the Saints by their sufferings are in some sort our redeemers. 4. These Martyrs entreated only that the sinner might be admitted to the Communion: not that he might be exempt from Purgatory. 5. In those days there was no speech of this worthy treasure of the Church, composed of the superabundant satisfactions of jesus Christ and his Saints. 6. Every Bishop imposed or abridged the pains or excommunications in his own flock without expecting either advice or bulls from the Bishop of Rome. 7. In those days men knew not the meaning of pardons hanged upon certain Churches by his holiness authority. O what a goodly sight it would have been in those days to have seen such bulls set up and fixed upon the Church doors, or some one that might have instructed the people in this new Gospel: namely that his Papal holiness, having in his treasury all the superabundant satisfactions of jesus Christ & his Saints, doth give ten thousand or fifty thousand years of plenary pardon, and as many quarentines, with the third of all their sins, or even full Indulgence to every one that shall say a stinted number of Pater's or Avees, or his rosary or beads, or wear or kiss some hallowed grains: or contribute some piece of money; or that shall join himself to the fraternity of the Cord: likewise that such a stinted number of Masses said upon a certain privileged altar shall fetch out of Purgatory any one soul, even such a one as he shall choose that must pay for it: also that such venerable pardons are to be purchased in such a Church & upon such a day, even until sun set: beside that he that shall buy these pardons may choose him a ghostly father, such a one as in the hour of death shall absolve him from all his sins, both from the pain and from the fault? Surely I say if any man in the primitive Church should shave preached so prodigious a doctrine, even the little children would have hissed after him or the Physicians would have felt his pulse, so to have learned the cause of his frensey, and to purge his hypochondrial humour: for as yet it was not the custom to burn any man for heresy. Now in our interview the Friar alleged unto me this intercession of the Martyrs for the penitent to defend papal Indulgences: I answered that that intercession had no resemblance with the Pope's Indulgences besides that that custom did Tertullian condemn. Then did he take me up in a most impudent manner, saying that I was deceived: also that I took Tertullian for S. Cyprian: but I told him that both the one and the other condemned this custom: howbeit we wanted books to satisfy the assistants upon this point. This did not the Friar forget in his book, and therefore mark his words, pag. 12. The Minister should remember what a Novice be showed himself in the reading of the fathers, how he mistook himself in citing them, quoting Tertullian for S. Cyprian. But let him now learn that which he yet knew not, & so confess himself to be the Novice. Tertullian in his book de Pudicitia, cap. 22, complaineth of this custom at large, even so far forth as to say That divers procured their own imprisonment, that so they might be Intercessors for some of their friends: or that they might commit folly with women detained in the same prison Violantur viri & feminae in tenebris plane ex usu libidinum notis. Et pacem ab his quaerunt paenitentes, qui de sua periclitantur. In the end he concludeth thus. Sufficiat Martyri propria delicta purgasse. Ingrati vel superbi est in alios quoque spargere quod pro magno fuerit consecutus. Quis alienam mortem sua soluit, nisi solus Dei filius, etc. that is to say, Let it suffice the Martyr that he hath purged his own sins. It is the part of an unthankful and proud person to seek to impart to others that which hath been granted to himself for a great grace. What man did ever by his own death satisfy for another's death, but the only son of God. In all this appeareth both the Monk's ignorance in common matters; as also his assurance in speaking that which he knoweth not; besides his childish waunting of prevailing in so slight a cause. For had I named Tertullian for Cyprian, can the weakness of my brain amend his cause? but it is memory that faileth him; or rather knowledge: but especially conscience. Note in the mean time how well these Indulgences are underpropped with antiquity: for my adversaries in all their three burning books do not bring from the Fathers any other proofs, but this custom, to support their Indulgences: Indeed the fire of Helie saith that Sylvester Bishop of Rome gave Indulgences: but that is false: neither can he hereof produce any good author that lived in the time of the said Sylvester, or a long time after. I know that this word Indulgence is to be found in sundry ancients: yea, it is to be found in Cicero. But the point is to prove whether the Bishop of Rome in the first ages of the Christian Church gave any pardons throughout Christendom: and the same tied to some one Church & some one day: and upon condition to contribute, or to say a set number of Pater's or Aves, or to wear some hallowed grains: also whether by Indulgences he fetched souls out of Purgatory, or distributed to others the surplusage of the sufferings of Saints, laid up in his treasury? Here are they all quiet: for never an ancient will depose for a matter so frivolous. That our adversaries for the establishing of their satisfactions, do corrupt the Fathers. The ancient Christians found themselves much troubled in preventing such faint-hearted people as to avoid persecution did for the time fit themselves to Paganism, & the storm once over, returned to Christianisme. To those they enjoined many years of penance, and quartered them apart by themselves in the Church, so as they were a long time excluded from the Communion. Hereof read Zozomenus, lib. 7. c. 16. where he describeth the form of public penance in his time. Their behaviours and testimonies of repentance are many times termed Satisfactions, of which word we have before spoken, and showed that it signifieth confession of the fault, or humiliation, and ask of forgiveness. Read the sermon of S. Cyprian concerning the fallen, where this word is common: he inviteth the sinners ad precem satisfactionis, to a prayer of acknowledgement of their fault. Again, According to our adversaries exposition, we should turn it. A prayer of payment, which beareth no sense Dominus orandus. Dominus nostra satisfactione placandus. We must pray to God: we must appease God with our satisfactions. In the same sermon. Let not the sinner cease from doing penance, and entreating for the mercy of God, lest sin that seemeth small, grow great through contempt of satisfaction. Who seethe not that he here taketh entreating for the mercy of God, and satisfaction for one only thing? And again, Illi se anima prosternat; illi maestitia satisfaciat. He saith that humiliation and sorrow do satisfy God and appease him. Fraudulently then do they allege the Fathers for the laying of the foundation of their satisfactions, which they say to be payments, redemptions and purchases towards the justice of God: and endeavour out of a bad grammar to gather as bad divinity: by the corruption of one latin word, a perverting of Christian faith. If Origen, or any man after him hath said that our good works, or that Repentance doth redeem our sins, it is to be understood in the same manner as we say, to redeem a man's peace by prayer: or to redeem the time by diligence: in which form of speech this word to redeem importeth neither payment nor redemption. We must therefore mollify whatsoever the ancients have spoken over harsh: & beat with the impropriety of their words. If nevertheless any of them, were he in never so great estimation with us, did ever mean that there was any other redemption from the pain due to our sins, but the blood of the some of God: or that hath believed that a sinful man may be the redeemer either of himself or of any other, The friar pag. 108. falsely saith that it is the opinion of the fathers, yet citeth none but Origen. as my adversaries do hold, we say freely with S. Paul, Gal. 1. If an Angel from heaven shall preach any other Gospel than the Apostles have preached unto us, let him be to thee accursed. Now would I wish the curious reader to examine the passages of the fathers quoted by these doctors, so shall he find that still they do pervert the passages in some one of the six forms that we have represented: so it be not in passages vainly alleged to no purpose, or upon matters by us granted: besides that a great part of their allegations are false and the passages either maimed or changed. And hereof have we set down many examples as a taste, thereby to judge of the rest. The confession of the Portugal Friar page 40. where in he acknowledgeth that in the old Testament there is no speech of Purgatory. His words be these The old Testament hath not proved the immortality of the soul: neither Paradise: neither the creation of Angels, neither many other like things; as well for the reasons before alleged, as because the Doctors of the law, that taught others, never doubted of them. In like sort must we understand it of Purgatory. The Reasons that he allegeth, are the same that are contained page 18. & 19 1. First for that it was for fear of giving occasion to the jews together with the Gentiles to think that we should sacrifice to the Infernal powers. 2. Secondly by reason that before the redemption of mankind the estate of the dead was not so well known, as after that our Lord descended into hell. 3. Thirdly because men had not so great means to secure them before, as they had after that the merits of the death and passion of our Lord were committed into the hands of the Church to apply them. FINIS.