A14227:279
An answer to a challenge madeAn ansvver to a challenge made
An answer to a challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland Wherein the judgement of antiquity in the points questioned is truly delivered, and the novelty of the now romish doctrine plainly discovered. By James Usher Bishop of Meath.An ansvver to a challenge made by a Iesuite in Ireland Wherein the iudgement of antiquity in the points questioned is truely delivered, and the noveltie of the now romish doctrine plainly discovered. By Iames Vssher Bishop of Meath.
Dublin: printed by the Society of Stationers and Eliot's Court Press, 1624Dublin: printed by the Societie of Stationers and Eliot's Court Press, 1624
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Neither is it to be forgotten that the invention of All Souls day (of which you may read, if you please, Polydore Vergil in his sixth book of the Inventers of things, and the ninth chapter) that solemn day, I say, wherein our Romanists most devoutly perform all their superstitious observances for the dead; was occasioned at the first by the apprehension of this same erroneous conceit, that the souls of the damned might not only be eased, but fully also delivered by the alms & prayers of the living. The whole narration of the business is thus laid down by Sigebertus Gemblacensis in his Chronic•e, at the year of our Lord 998. fThis time, saith he, a certain religious man returning from Jerusalem, being entertained for a while in Sicily by the courtesy of a certain anchoret, learned from him among other matters, that there were places near unto them that used to cast up burning flames, which by the inhabitants were called the Potts of Vulcan, wherein the souls of the reprobate according ⟨p. 235⟩to the quality of their deserts did suffer diverse punishments; the Devils being there deputed for the execution thereof whose voices, angers and terrors, and sometimes howlings also he said he often heard, as lamenting that the souls of the damned were taken out of their hands by the alms and prayers of the faithful; and more at this time by the prayers of the monks of Cluny, who prayed without ceasing for the rest of those that were deceased. The abbot Odilo having understood this by him, appointed throughout all the monasteries under his subjection, that as upon the first day of November the solemnity of all the Saints is observed, so upon the day following, the memorial of all that rested in Christ should be celebrated. Which rite passing into many other Churches, made the memory of the faithful deceased to be solemnized.
Neither is it to be forgotten that the invention of All Soules day (of which you may reade, if you please, Polydore Vergil in his sixth booke of the Inventers of things, and the ninth chapter) that solemne day, I say, wherein our Romanists most devoutly perform all their superstitious observances for the dead; was occasioned at the first by the apprehension of this same erroneous conceit, that the soules of the damned might not onely be eased, but fully also delivered by the almes & prayers of the living. The whole narration of the businesse is thus laid down by Sigebertus Gemblacensis in his Chronice, at the yeare of our Lord 998.