The Grecians allege this for one of their arguments against purgatory that whereas "their fathers had delivered unto them many visions and dreams, and other wonders concerning the everlasting punishment," wherewith the wicked should be tormented in hell; yet none of them had "declared anything concerning a purgatory temporary fire." Belike the doctor was afraid that we would conclude, upon the same ground, that St. Patrick was careful to plant in men's minds the belief of a heaven and hell, but of purgatory taught them never a word. And sure I am, that in the book ascribed unto him, De Tribus Habitaculis, which is to be seen in his Majesty's library, there is no mention of any other place after this life, but of these two only. I will lay down here the beginning of that treatise, and leave it to the judgment of any indifferent man, whether it can well stand with that which the Romanists teach concerning purgatory at this day. "There be three habitations under the power of Almighty God: the first, the lowermost, and the middle. The highest whereof is called the kingdom of God, or the kingdom of heaven, the lowermost is termed hell, the middle is named the present world, or the circuit of the earth. The extremes whereof are altogether contrary one to another: for what fellowship can there be betwixt light and darkness, betwixt Christ and Belial? but the middle hath some similitude with the extremes. For in this world there is a mix

ture of the bad and of the good together, whereas in the kingdom of God there are none bad, but all good: but in hell there are none good but all bad. And both these places are supplied out of the middle. For of the men of this world some are lifted up to heaven, others are drawn down to hell. Namely, like are joined unto like, that is to say, good to good, and bad to bad: just men to just angels, wicked men to wicked angels; the servants of God to God, the servants of the devil to the devil. The blessed are called to the kingdom prepared for them from the beginning of the world the cursed are driven into the everlasting fire that is prepared for the devil and his angels." Thus far there.

Hitherto also may be referred that ancient canon of one of our Irish synods, wherein it is affirmed that the soul being separated from the body is "presented before the judgment seat of Christ, who rendereth its own unto it, according as it hath done": and that "neither the archangel can lead it into life, until the Lord hath judged it, nor the devil transport it unto pain, unless the Lord do damn it"; as the writings of Sedulius likewise, that after

VOL. II

M

the end of this life "either death or life succeedeth," and that "death is the gate by which we enter into our kingdom": together with that of Claudius; that "Christ did take upon him our punishment without the guilt, that thereby he might loose our guilt, and finish also our punishment." Cardinal Bellarmine, indeed allegeth here against us the vision of Furseus, who "rising from the dead, told many things which he saw concerning the pains of purgatory," as Bede, he saith, doth write. But, by his good leave, we will be better advised, before we build articles of faith upon such visions and dreams as these, many whereof deserved to have a place among "the strange narrations of souls appearing after death," collected by Damasius the heathen idolater, rather than among the histories and discourses of sober Christians.

As for this vision of Furseus: all that Bede relateth of it to this purpose, is concerning great fires above the air, appointed to "examine every one according to the merits of his works," which peradventure may make something for Damasius his purgatory in circulo lacteo (for in that circle made he a way for the souls that went to the hades in heaven; and would not have us wonder, that there they should be purged by the way); but nothing for the papist's purgatory, which Bellarmine by the common consent of the schoolmen determineth to be in the bowels of the earth. Neither is there anything else in the whole book of the life of Furseus, whence Bede borrowed these things, that looketh toward purgatory, unless peradventure that speech of the devil may be thought to give some advantage unto it. "This man hath not purged his sins upon earth; neither doth he receive punishment for them here. Where is therefore the justice of God?" as if God's justice were not sufficiently satisfied by the sufferings of Christ: but man also must needs give further satisfaction thereunto by penal works or sufferings, either here, or in the other world, which is the ground upon which our Romanists do lay the rotten frame of their devised purgatory.

The latter visions of Malachias, Tundal, Owen, and others that lived within these last five hundred years, come not within the compass of our present enquiry: nor yet the fables that have been framed in those times, touching the lives and actions of elder saints, whereof no wise man will make any reckoning. Such, for example, is that which we read in the life of St. Brendan: that the question being moved in his hearing "whether the

sins of the dead could be redeemed by the prayers or almsdeeds of their friends remaining in this life," for that was still a question in the church, he is said to have told them, that on a certain night, as he sailed on the great ocean, the soul of one Colman, who "had been an angry monk, and a sower of discord betwixt brethren," appeared unto him, who complaining of his grievous torments, entreated that prayers might be made to God for him, and after six days thankfully acknowledged that by means thereof he had gotten into heaven. Whereupon it is concluded, “that the prayer of the living doth profit much the dead." But of St. Brendan's sea pilgrimage, we have the censure of Molanus, a learned Romanist, that there be " 'many apocryphal fooleries in it; and whosoever readeth the same with any judgment, cannot choose but pronounce of it, as Photius doth of the strange narrations of Damasius, formerly mentioned; that it containeth not only apocryphal, but also "impossible, incredible, ill-composed, and monstrous fooleries. Whereof though the old legend itself were not free as by the heads thereof, touched by Glaber Rodulphus and Giraldus Cambrensis, may appear, yet for the tale that I recited out of the new legend of England, I can say, that in the manuscript books which I have met withal here, in St. Brendan's own country (one whereof was transcribed for the use of the friars minors of Kilkenny, about the year of our Lord one thousand three hundred and fifty), there is not the least footstep thereof to be seen.

(From Religion of the Ancient Irish.)

JOHN SELDEN

[John Selden (1584-1654), the only son of a yeoman, was born at Salvington on the Sussex coast, and was educated at Chichester Grammar School and at Hart Hall, Oxford. In 1604 he was admitted to the Inner Temple, where he rapidly gained a name for his antiquarian erudition. In 1621 Selden, though not a member, assisted the Commons in drawing up a protest against the King's refusal to receive the petition of grievances; for this he suffered a five weeks' imprisonment. In 1624 he entered Parliament, and for twenty years took a prominent part in the struggle between Commons and Crown. In 1627 he supported Hampden in his resistance to Charles' forced loan, and the following year helped to frame the Petition of Right. For his share in the proceedings of the Parliament of 1629, when protests against tonnage and poundage were read while the Speaker was forcibly held in the chair, Selden was again imprisoned this time for nearly two years. In the Long Parliament Selden's firm moderation opposed the zeal of the more violent reformers as well as the unwarranted pretensions of the royal prerogative. He was one of the committee appointed to draw up a remonstrance on the state of the nation; but he voted against Strafford's impeachment, and attempted to defeat the Declaration against Episcopacy in 1641. When matters came to a head shortly after with the impeachment of the five members, Selden maintained the illegality alike of the King's Commission of Array, and of the Commons' Ordinance for the Militia. He was a member of the Assembly of Divines, in which, according to Whitelock, Mr. Selden spake admirably, and confuted divers of them in their own learning." His closing years were spent under the roof of the Dowager-Countess of Kent. His library is preserved in the Bodleian, Oxford. The list of Selden's legal and Rabbinical treatises in Latin is too long for insertion here. His two principal works in English are Titles of Honour (1614), and History of Tithes (1618), which was suppressed by James I. on the ground that it denied their "divine right." The Table-Talk-collected and recorded by Selden's amanuensis, the Rev. Richard Millward-was not printed till 1689. But it seems probable, from Millward's dedication to Selden's executors, that he had prepared it for publication soon after Selden's death.]

IT is by his conversation rather than by his writings that Selden claims a place in this series. Most of his learned treatises were written in Latin, and the few that are in English can hardly be regarded as specimens of English prose. Documents and