any will do, if it be observed. For let a dying sinner have only what they call attrition, such a sorrow as arises merely from the fear of being punished without the least degree of dislike to sin or love to God, this sorrow, though not sufficient without absolution, yet with it, is. So that if a person who hath disregarded God all his life, can but be made afraid of him at his death, the priest shall deliver him from Hell, and secure Heaven to him, by a word speaking. Some lesser punishments indeed he doth remain subject to first: as to which however there are ways of making matters as easy as can well be wished. But in order to understand them, another head of Popish doctrine must be explained. Our Saviour, they tell us, having procured for repenting sinners the forgiveness only of the eternal punishment due to their sins, there remains a temporal punishment due to them still, which, if it be not in this life either inflicted by worldly sufferings, or satisfied for by good works and penances, must be undergone after death, in the pains of a place called Purgatory: which pains may, however, be mitigated and shortened, partly by offering up prayers for such persons, and partly by granting indulgences to them. And these things also we are heretics for not believing. Yet for the necessity of our believing these doctrines, they pretend no Scripture-proof, and they have no proof for so much as the truth of them. Heaven and Hell we read of perpetually in the Bible, but Purgatory we never meet with though surely, if there be such a place, Christ and his Apostles would not have concealed it from us. St. Paul indeed mentions, a fire that tries every man's works, and persons that shall be saved, yet so as by fire. But what is he there speaking of? * 1 Cor. iii. 13. 15. He had been laying amongst them, he says, the foundation of religion, the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ. On this, says he, another man hath built: but let every man take heed how he buildeth; what he teaches for Christian doctrine: for the day shall declare it, and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is: either the day of the fiery trial of persecution, or rather, the final judgment of God, whose day shall burn like an oven*, this shall try every man's work, search it as thoroughly as fire does things that are put into it. Then, if any man's work which he hath built, abide, if the doctrines he hath taught bear the test, he shall receive a reward: but if his work be burnt, if, preserving the fundamentals of Christianity, he hath built errors on them, he shall suffer loss; the pains he hath taken shall be of no benefit, and though he may be saved himself, it shall be like one that escapes through the fire, with great danger and difficulty. For so St. Jude speaks: Some save with fear, pulling them out of the fire † : and the prophet Amos, Ye were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning t. This passage therefore relates not to punishing, in purgatory, the persons of some men, before the Day of Judgment, but to trying the works of all men at the Day of Judgment: and far from patronizing the Church of Rome, gives them indeed an awful warning not to build on the foundation of Christianity hay and stubble; such useless trash as this, and many other of their doctrines; which that great Day of the Lord will show to have no solidity in them: but their works shall be burnt up, themselves suffer loss, and at best be saved only so as by fire. Their other texts for purgatory are, if possible, less to the purpose than this: that blasphemy + Jude, ver. 23. Amos iv. 11. * Mal. iv. 1. against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven, either in this life or that to come*; which is only saying it shall never be forgiven, but punished both here and hereafter that he who agrees not with his adversary in the way, shall be cast by the judge into prison, and not come out till he hath paid the uttermost farthing†; which perhaps is only saying, that whoever doth not make up a difference with his neighbour before trial, must expect no favour after: Or, if God be the judge meant, the sense will be, that the person condemned shall never come out of prison, because he can never pay the uttermost farthing. For uncharitableness unrepented of, which is the crime here mentioned, the Papists themselves own, sends men not to purgatory but to Hell. As for their notion, that our Saviour hath not procured forgiveness of the temporal punishment of sin, it is certain from Scripture, that he hath procured the forgiveness of every thing that can properly be called punishment. For his blood cleanseth us from all sin; and therefore no purgatory is needful. And there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus §, and consequently no such place to be condemned to. Correction indeed there is but this correction is the work, not of an offended judge, but a merciful Father: and as he, by these and many other means endeavours to amend us, so we should use all proper means to amend ourselves but such penances as tend only to give pain, are not proper means even in this life, which is our only time of amendment; much less will any such be inflicted on good men in the other, when they will come too late for any valuable purpose. Blessed, says the Angel, are the dead that die in the Lord, * Matth. xii. 32. ‡ 1 John i. 7. + Matth. v. 25, 26. from henceforth, from the hour of their death, for they rest from their labours*. But miserable, says the Church of Rome, are many of the dead that die in the Lord, for a long time after, for they rest not from their labours, but labour under most grievous sufferings. But indeed, even their own apocryphal Scriptures might have taught them better than this. The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them†. Nor is their plea from antiquity better than that from Scripture. For though many had adopted strange notions of these things, out of heathen fable and philosophy, into the Christian religion, yet purgatory, in the present Popish sense, was not heard of for 400 years after Christ; nor universally received even in the Western churches for 1000 years; nor almost in any other church than that of Rome to this day. But supposing there were such a place, how do they know concerning any particular person that he ever comes into it, or how long he stays in it? And if not, what is it but offering the sacrifice of fools, to make thousands of prayers for one, who may be quite out of the reach of them, either in Heaven, or perhaps in Hell? Though indeed, by praying for the very wickedest of men, as only in purgatory, they strongly tempt other wicked men to conclude, that none of their communion ever go to Hell. And thus is this invention at once so great a terror to good persons, and so great a comfort to bad ones, that one cannot help applying to it the Prophet's words: With lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad: and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked *Rev. xiv. 13. † Wisd. iii. 1. + Eccles. v. VOL. III. 1. way, by promising him life*. But were they to pray not for particular persons, as they do, but only in general for all that are there; where is the command, where is even the permission for it? Our brethren on earth we pray for, because the time of their trial is not yet over. But the state of the dead is fixed, and they shall receive, every man, not according to our prayer, but their own past works. Purgatory, they tell us, is that prison whence men shall not come out till they have paid the last farthing: and what room is there then for our prayers for them there? We own indeed, some sort of prayers for the dead were used by the church (though without any warrant for them that appears) very early, within 200 years after Christ. But then originally these were made, not for souls in purgatory, for whom the Papists pray, but for saints in Paradise, for whom they do not pray; for all righteous persons deceased, prophets, apostles, martyrs, even for the blessed Virgin herself: and hence it appears by the way, that they did not pray to these since they prayed for them. And the subject-matter of their prayers was, that God would grant them his promised mercy in the Day of Judgment, and speedily complete their happiness in body and soul. In process of time, it must be owned, men fell into a variety of groundless suppositions, concerning the state of Christians between death and the resurrection; and upon these suppositions they formed their prayers, which many persons went so far as to imagine could benefit even sinners in Hell. But as all these suppositions, for a long time, were different from, and inconsistent with, the Romish notions of purgatory, so the prayers, which the ancients used for the dead, even were they of authority, * Ezek. xiii. 22. |