FIETRQ GIANNONE. 399 



bleired # . Thofe queftions ftarted by your fcholaftic 

 divines, whether the pope could remove all purgatory 

 at once ? and that other : Whether a pope of Rome 

 is not more gracious than Chrift himfelf was, lince we 

 no where read of the latter, that he ever delivered a 

 foul out of purgatory ^ ? — thefe queftions I anfwer 

 by a plain, yes. Experience fhews us, that he is far 

 more gracious, yea, above all meafure gracious ; lince 

 the popes have been delivering for many centuries pail, 

 and are ftill delivering innumerable fouls, by their in- 

 digencies, from the torments of purgatory. I find 

 therefore not the lean: difficulty in believing, what is 

 related of the fouls of Falconilla and others, but parti- 

 cularly of the foul of the emperor Trajan, which pope 

 Gregory the great delivered from hell by his prayer, 

 although they were heathen iili fouls. I hold them for 

 •perverfe and contumacious who have taken upon them 

 in our times to call fuch true, real, and authentic 

 ftories into doubt. — Nothing is more true than what 

 the excellent decretift Felinus teaches : The pope can 

 as eafily plunge the fouls of thoufands into hell, as he 

 can deliver them from it. If it ihould pleafe the pope, 

 fays he to call down into hell whole troops of human 

 fouls, no man dare afk him : Why doft thou fo ? 



* Papam tantarr. habere turn in purgatorio turn in inferis potef- 

 tatem, ut quantum velit animarum, quae in illis locis cruciantur, 

 per fuas indulgentias liberare et confeflim in coeiis et beatorum 

 fedibus colloeare poffit. Art. iii. tit. 22. 



f An papa poilit univerfum purgatorium tcllere ? 



t An clementior -lit papa, quam fuerit Ch rift us, cum is non 

 lcgatur quenquam a purgatorii poenis revocaffe ? 



§ Si papa catervas animarum in inferos detrucieret, non tamen 

 cuicjuam liceret ex ilia quserere ; Cur ita . facis ? Cap, Si papa. 

 *Uft. 40. 



V. The 



