consent put into the instrument of union; how they were yet constrained to it by their chiefs, being obnoxious to the pope; how a while after, they dissolved that union, and to this day refuse to own this doctrine; -are things so notoriously known, that they need no further declaration. S We add this only, to make the conviction more manifest : we have thought fit to annex some few, but very clear testimonies of antiquity, expressly destroying the new doctrine of purgatory. St. Cyprian saith", "Quando istinc excessum fuerit, nullus jam locus pœnitentia est, nullus satisfactionis effectus:" "When we are gone from hence, there is no place left for repentance, and no effect of satisfaction." St. Dionysius calls the extremity of death, τέλος ἱερῶν ἀγώνων, "The end of all our agonies ;" and affirms, “That the holy men of God rest in joy, and in never-failing hopes, and are come to the end of their holy combats."-St. Justin Martyr affirms, "That when the soul is departed from the body, εibùs vívetαi, ́ presently there is' a separation made of the just and unjust: the unjust are, by angels, borne into places which they have deserved; but the souls of the just into Paradise, where they have the conversation of angels and archangels.". St. Ambrose saith", "That death is a haven of rest, and makes not our condition worse; but, according as it finds every man, so it reserves him to the judgment that is to come." The same is affirmed by St. Hilary *, St. Macarius', and divers others; they speak but of two states after death, of the just and the unjust: these are placed in horrible regions, reserved to the judgment of the great day; the other have their souls carried by choirs of angels into places of rest. St. Gregory Nazianzen expressly affirms2, "That after this life there is no purgation."-" For after Christ's ascension into Heaven, the souls of all saints are with Christ," saith Gennadius ; and going from the body, they go to Christ, expecting the resurrection of their body, with it to pass into the perfection of perpetual bliss ; and this he delivers r Ad Demetrian. sect. 16. Eccles. Hier. c. 7. y Homil. 22. * Quæst. et Respons. ad Orthod. qu. 5. Justino imputat. u De bono mortis, c. 4. * In Psal. 2. 2 Orat. 5. in Plagam grandinis et orat. 42. in Pascha. de Eccles. dogmat. c. 79. a In Eccles. c. 11. as the doctrine of the catholic church:-"In what place soever a man is taken at his death, of light or darkness, of wickedness or virtue, ἐν ἐκείνῳ μένει τῷ βαθμῷ καὶ τάξει, “ in the same order, and in the same degree;' either in light with the just, and with Christ, the great king; or in darkness with the unjust, and with the prince of darkness,” said Olympiodorus. And, lastly, we recite the words of St. Leo', one of the popes of Rome, speaking of the penitents who had not performed all their penances; "but if any one of them, for whom we pray unto the Lord, being interrupted by any obstacles, falls from the gift of the present indulgence (viz. ecclesiastical absolution), and, before he arrive at the appointed remedies (that is, before he hath performed his penances or satisfactions), ends his temporal life, that which remaining in the body he hath not received, when he is divested of his body, he cannot obtain." He knew not of the new devices of paying in purgatory, what they paid not here; and of being cleansed there, who were not clean here and how these words, or any of the precedent, are reconcilable with the doctrines of purgatory, hath not yet entered into our imagination. To conclude this particular, we complain greatly, that this doctrine, which, in all the parts of it, is uncertain, and in the late additions to it in Rome is certainly false, is yet, with all the faults of it, passed into an article of faith by the council of Trent. But, besides what hath been said, it will be more than sufficient to oppose against it these clearest words of Scripture," Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth; even so saith the Spirit; that they may rest from their labours." If all the dead that die in Christ, be at rest, and are in no more affliction or labours; then the doctrine of the horrible pains of purgatory is as false as it is uncomfortable. To these words we add the saying of Christ, and we rely upon it; "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but passeth from death unto life"." If so, then not into the judgment of purgatory: if the servant of Christ passeth from death to life, then not from death to the terminable pains of a part of hell. d Jolin, v. 24. b Epist. 59. c Rev. xiv. 13. They that have eternal life, suffer no intermedial punishment, judgment, or condemnation after death; for death and life. are the whole progression, according to the doctrine of Christ: and Him we choose to follow. SECTION V. THE doctrine of transubstantiation is so far from being primitive and apostolic, that we know the very time it began to be owned publicly for an opinion, and the very council in which it was said to be passed into a public doctrine, and by what arts it was promoted, and by what persons it was introduced. For all the world knows, that by their own parties, by Scotus, Ocham, Briel, Fisher, bishop of Rochester, and divers others, whom Bellarmine calls most learned and most acute men,' it was declared, that the doctrine of transubstantiation is not expressed in the canon of the Bible; that in the Scriptures there is no place so express, as (without the church's declaration) to compel us to admit of transubstantiation, and, therefore, at least, it is to be suspected of novelty. But further, we know it was but a disputable question in the ninth and tenth ages after Christ; that it was not pretended to be an article of faith, till the Lateran council in the time of pope Innocent III., one thousand two hundred years, and more, after Christ; that since that pretended determination f, divers of the chiefest teachers of their own side have been no more satisfied of the ground of it, than they were before; but still have publicly affirmed, that the article is not expressed in Scripture; particularly, Johannes de Bassolis, cardinal Cajetan, and Melchior Camus", besides those above reckoned: and, therefore, if it was not a In 4. lib. sent. d. 11. q. 3. • Lect. 40. in can. missæ. b Ibid. q. 6. d Cap. 1. contr. Captiv. Babyl. e De Euchar. lib. iii. cap. 23. sect. Secundo dicit. Venêre tum quidem multi in consultationem, nec decerni tamen quic quam apertè potuit. Platina in vita Innocen. III. Apud Suar. Tom. 3. disp. 46. sect. 3. Loc. com. lib. ii. c. com. fund. 2. expressed in Scripture, it will be too clear, that they made their articles of their own heads: for they could not declare it to be there, if it was not; and if it was there but obscurely, then it ought to be taught accordingly; and, at most, it could be but a probable doctrine, and not certain as an article of faith. But that we may put it past argument and probability, it is certain, that as the doctrine was not taught in Scripture expressly: so it was not at all taught as a catholic doctrine, or an article of the faith by the primitive ages of the church. Now for this, we need no proof but the confession and acknowledgment of the greatest doctors of the church of Rome. Scotus says, that before the Lateran council, transubstantiation was not an article of faith, as Bellarminei confesses; and Henriquez affirms, that Scotus says, it was not ancient; insomuch that Bellarmine accuses him of ignorance, saying, he talked at that rate, because he had not read the Roman council, under pope Gregory the seventh, nor that consent of fathers which (to so little purpose) he had heaped together. "Rem transubstantiationis patres. ne attigisse quidem," said some of the English Jesuits in prison: "The fathers have not so much as touched or meddled with the matter of transubstantiation ;" and in Peter Lombard's time, it was so far from being an article of faith, or a catholic doctrine, that they did not know whether it were true or no: and after he had collected the sentences of the fathers in that article, he confessed, he could not tell whether there was any substantial change or no. His words' are these: "If it be inquired what kind of conversion it is, whether it be formal or substantial, or of another kind? I am not able to define it: only I know that it is not formal, because the same accidents remain, the same colour and taste. To some it seems to be substantial, saying, that so the substance is changed into the substance, that it is done essentially. To which the former authorities seem to con sent. But to this sentence others oppose these things: if the substance of bread and wine be substantially converted into the body and blood of Christ, then every day some Lib. iii. de Euch. c. 23. sect. Unum tamen. Sum. lib. viii. c. 20. m substance is made the body or blood of Christ, which before was not the body; and to-day something is Christ's body, which yesterday was not; and every day Christ's body is increased, and is made of such matter of which it was not made in the conception:" these are his words, which we have remarked, not only for the argument's sake (though it be unanswerable), but to give a plain demonstration that in his time this doctrine was new, not the doctrine of the church and this was written but about fifty years before it was said to be decreed in the Lateran" council, and therefore it made haste, in so short time, to pass from a disputable opinion, to an article of faith. But even after the council, Durandus, as good a catholic, and as famous a doctor as any was in the church of Rome, publicly maintained, that even after consecration, the very matter of bread remained › : and although he says, that by reason of the authority of the church, it is not to be held; yet it is not only possible it should be so, but it implies no contradiction that it should be Christ's body, and yet the matter of bread remain: and if this might be admitted, it would salve many difficulties, which arise from saying that the substance of bread does not remain. But here, his reason was overcome by authority, and he durst not affirm that of which alone he was able to give (as he thought) a reasonable account. But by this it appears, that the opinion was but then in the forge, and by all their understanding they could never accord it; but still the questions were uncertain, according to that old distich; Corpore de Christi lis est, de sanguine lis est, And the opinion was not determined in the Lateran, as it is now held at Rome; but it is also plain, that it is a stranger to antiquity. "De transubstantiatione panis in corpus Christi rara est in antiquis scriptoribus mentio," said Alphonsus à Castro: "There is seldom mention made in the ancient writers, of transubstantiating the bread into A. D. 1160. n A. D. 1215. • A. D. 1270, secund. Buchol. sed secundum Volaterranum 1335. a De Hæres. lib. viii. Verbo Indulgentia. |