The like complaint was made not long since by Lindanus of the Roman Antiphonaries and Missals; wherein
"not only the apocryphal tales" saith he, "out of the Gospel of Nicodemus and other toys are thrust in, but the very secret prayers themselves are defiled with most foul faults."
But, now we have the
"Roman Missal restored according to the decree of the Council of Trent, set out by the command of Pius V., and revised again by the authority of Clemens VIII.,"
I doubt much whether our Romanists will allow the censure which their Medina hath given of the prayers contained therein. And therefore if this will not please them, he hath another answer in store; of which though his countryman Mendoza hath given sentence that it is indigna viro theologo,
"unworthy of any man that beareth the name of a divine,"
yet such as it is you shall have it. Supposing, then, that the Church hath no intention to pray for any other of the dead, but those that are detained in purgatory, this he delivereth for his second resolution:
"The Church knowing that God hath power to punish everlastingly those souls by which, when they lived, he was mortally offended, and that God hath not tied his power unto the Scriptures, and unto the promises that are contained in the Scriptures, (forasmuch as he is above all things, and as omnipotent after his promises, as if he had promised nothing at all,) therefore the Church doth humbly pray God, that he would not use this his absolute omnipotency against the souls of the faithful, which are departed in grace; therefore she doth pray that he would vouchsafe to free them from everlasting pains, and from revenge and the judgment of condemnation, and that he would be pleased to raise them up again with his elect."
