sin, how small soever, deserves punishment. 2d, That some sins are so small, either through the levity of the matter, or for want of full deliberation in the action, as not to deserve eternal punishment. From whence it is plain, that besides the place of eternal punishment, which we call Hell, there must be also a place of temporary punishment for such as die in lesser sins, and this we call Purgatory."*

In what manner the Almighty chooses to render our souls and bodies fit for the society of heaven, by freeing them from all moral impurities or sins contracted by passing through this life, we cannot tell, further than that it shall be done in consequence of the offering for sin which was made by Christ, and his forgiveness. Such a knowledge we cannot acquire from Revelation, (except in figurative language,) for God has not chosen to make us acquainted with it, and if any one shall attempt to find this out by reason, it is evidently utterly beyond all human understanding. It should also be taken into account, that we have good grounds for believing there are very different degrees of reward or happiness in heaven, and of punishment in hell; so all have not to be brought to one standard of purity.

Bishop Tillotson says on this point:-"How our souls shall be purified from those remainders of sin and dregs of corruption which are in the best men, while they are in this world, it is not necessary that we should be able perfectly to explain. It ought to be sufficient to us, that he who hath promised it is able to do it one way or another; only I am confident, and have great reason to believe so, that this purification will not be wrought by the fire of Purgatory. For if there be any such thing, as there is not the least spark of divine Revelation for it, (and how any body should come to know it otherwise, is not easy to imagine,) it is granted to be a material fire; and if it is so, it is nowise fitted either for the punishment or purification of impure souls. Indeed if men carried their bodies into Purgatory, the fire might be called a cruel torment and vexation to them: but how fire

* The End of Religious Controversy.

should scorch a spirit, is, I believe, beyond the subtilty of a schoolman to make out; much less is it fitted to purge and take away sin. And if the truth were known, it was never seriously intended for that purpose, to do any good to the dead; but to drain the purses of the living, by deluding them with a vain hope of getting their friends delivered out of that imaginary torment.

*

"But we, who take our faith from the word of God, and not from the fictions of men, do believe that the souls of good men do immediately pass out of this world into a state of happiness, and that he who bestows this happiness upon them, does qualify them for it before he admits them into it. And if we consider the matter well, we shall find, that a man who hath truly repented of his sins, and, through the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, hath obtained the pardon and forgiveness of them, and is firmly resolved against sin,"

we shall find that such a man is not far from the kingdom of God:"-" And that there hardly wants any thing to make such a man perfectly good, but only to remove out of his way those obstacles and impediments to virtue, and to free him from those circumstances of infirmity and temptation which do unavoidably encompass us in this world."+

The purgatorial fires were considered from the time of their discovery until lately, as real and actual flames, only more intense than those we can feel here; but now, the Church, which has recourse to them in aid of her power and her treasury, has begun to be uncertain of their exact nature, as it is found that Protestants have raised some substantial objections not easily answered, to material fires operating on spirits. She now holds, that although, in fact, they may be so still, yet fires of any kind will answer the purpose, and therefore that it is not absolutely necessary to believe them to be material. There is, however, a schism on the subject, and though some Romish divines, in order to

* Meaning comparatively so called-but inferior to that of heaven. + Tillotson's second Sermon on 1 John iii. 2.

See The End of Religious Controversy.

accommodate their Purgatory as much as possible to Protestant ideas, may admit these flames to be quite different from earthly fires, yet in general they are still considered of much the same kind; as the terror of any other flames might not influence men here so strongly as is required; whatever they might be able to accomplish afterwards, when in actual contact. In one respect they must be far more powerful than those of hell proper, for these last cannot consume sin, which there continues the same, according to the best information. What their particular nature, however, is alleged to be, is of inferior consequence to be inquired into, when we have such evidence of there being no Purgatory for them to blaze in, and that there is no such purification now going on.

From the proofs of Purgatory being so elusive, and the nature of its fires so uncertain, (except that they can purify from sin,) we might be inclined to infer that these flames were only meant by the Roman Church as metaphorical, but until she agrees on what should be believed concerning them, we must give up any attempt at refutation of them, from showing that they cannot be material, and as to spiritual flames, they are entirely above our comprehension. As, however, we have always considered here the popular, as well as learned belief on particular points, I shall just illustrate the one at present under discussion, with two apparently very different ways of speaking and thinking of the treatment in Purgatory, by two well known and celebrated members of the Romish Church; who both must, as good Catholics, (without imagining themselves to be saints,) have expected to go there. Their own individual opinions in the matter may not be held of great authority, but they may show a belief current in their days. Shakspeare makes the ghost of the king of Denmark thus inform us what species of flames he, for one, was in the course of being made better by; and ghosts are certainly much more likely to know than any of the living, although none who could be much Jepended on have as yet come back "to blab the secrets of

eir prison house." Ghosts are said to have leave of ab

sence only for a certain time, which terminates in general when the cock crows at the approach of day; but as it is always day light on some part of the earth, and always night on some other, it will be seen that their time of relaxation must depend on the part of the world where their individual concerns lie, and that there can be no general time for either setting out or returning. While it was day in Denmark, the ghost of the king was in Purgatory, and when the shades of night came over that country, he got back again on his special errand. If the night had protected him here, he might easily have followed it round the globe till it had returned to Elsineur again, but before the sun rose on his old country, he was anxious to be back :-telling his son

"My hour is almost come,

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames,

Must render up myself."

And there

"confined too fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature,
Are burnt and purged away."

The next example is from Mr. Pope's works, and as far as his evidence goes, the flames are by no means so tormenting as is commonly thought. He puts the following lines into the mouth of a dying penitent, who was on the eve of departure for the place where sinners rest, with flames, as it would seem, within them!

"I come, ye ghosts, prepare your roseate bowers,
Celestial palms, and ever blooming flowers;
Thither where sinners may have rest, I go,

Where flames refined, in breasts seraphic, glow."

The two first and the two last lines appear to relate, the one to paradise or heaven, and the other to a purgatory of rest, where the flames are cooled so as not to prevent souls reposing. Does the penitent, then, call on the saints in the mansions of the blest, to prepare their palms and flowers, because he is going to purgatory, or does the whole verse relate to the same place? Let a Romanist explain the meaning if he can.

When we come to examine the alleged proofs of the existence of Purgatory as arising from tradition, we find they almost always refer to the early Christians having been in the practice of praying for the souls of their departed friends. This, say the Roman Catholics, shows that the souls must have been supposed in a state of suffering, out of which prayers could deliver them, and this state could be none other than Purgatory. It will therefore be necessary for us to inquire particularly into the nature of these prayers,—the ideas entertained of the dead by the ancient church, and the object in praying for them. The fact of such prayers having been in use to be offered up in the early ages of Christianity, is indisputable, but their propriety has been questioned. Many are apt to confound all prayers for the dead, with the sole reference to praying the departed souls out of Purgatory, but an impartial inquiry into the reasons which induced the primitive Christians to use these, will show that they proceeded on no such idea. The common answer of Protestants to this argument for Purgatory is, either to deny that prayers for the dead were made at the times referred to, or to insist that they are at best wholly useless. But, as to the first, ecclesiastical history proves them, and the second objection to them, (if their having been resorted to is admitted, includes an affirmation that we now know much better than the primitive Christians, and than even many old Protestant divines of great learning, what is proper in this respect; neither of which arguments, therefore, can be expected to satisfy the Romanist that he is wrong. We must take other grounds, and these will be found in the nature of the prayers themselves, which have been corrupted and perverted from those of the early ages.

In the Clementine Liturgy, and those prayers mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, they all run (as even that one for the dead which is unadvisedly left in the canon of the mass) in this form :-"For all that are in peace or rest in Christ." Now, how can they be said to be in peace or rest in Christ, that are supposed to burn in the flames of

atory, If it shall be said that those are they who have