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to justify that diversity. The second difference is only the ART. leaving out of a severe word. Perniciously repugnant to the XXII. word of God, was put at first; but perniciously being considered to be only a hard word, they judged very right in the second edition of them, that it was enough to say repugnant to the word of God.

There are in this Article five particulars, that are all ingredients in the doctrine and worship of the church of Rome; purgatory, pardons, the worship of images, and of relics, and the invocation of saints; that are rejected not only as illgrounded, brought in and maintained without good warrants from the scripture, but as contrary to it.

The first of these is purgatory; concerning which, the doctrine of the church of Rome is, that every man is liable both to temporal and to eternal punishment for his sins; that God, upon the account of the death and intercession of Christ, does indeed pardon sin as to its eternal punishment; but the sinner is still liable to temporal punishment, which he must expiate by acts of penance and sorrow in this world, together with such other sufferings as God shall think fit to lay upon him: but if he does not expiate these in this life, there is a state of suffering and misery in the next world, where the soul is to bear the temporal punishment of its sins; which may continue longer or shorter, till the day of judgment. And in order to the shortening this, the prayers and supererogations of men here on earth, or the intercession of the saints in heaven, but above all things, the sacrifice of the mass, are of great efficacy. This is the doctrine of the church of Rome, asserted in the councils of Florence and Trent.* What has been taught among you say were owned as catholic doctrines then; that we may see, that at least in the judgment of your church they were accounted so. Tell us, when and where those doctrines were defined before the Council of Trent? and, I hope you will not say, that was before the beginning of the Reformation. If then there were no such definitions concerning them, they could not by your church be accounted as catholic doctrines; at the most, they could be but only pious opinions, as that of the pope's infallibillity among you is, and consequently men might be catholics still, though they disputed or denied them. And how then come the Protestants to be accounted heretics in their reformation, if, upon your own principles, those things which they denied were then no catholic doctrines?'-[ED.]

The council of Florence decreed, That if true penitents depart in the love of God, before they have satisfied for their sins of omission, or commission, by fruits of repentance, their souls go to purgatory to be purged.' The council of Trent has thus decreed concerning this doctrine :

'Decretum de purgatorio.

'Cum catholica ecclesia, spiritu sancto edocta, ex sacris litteris, et antiqua patrum traditione, in sacris conciliis, et novissime in hac œcumenica synodo docuerit, purgatorium esse; animasque ibi detentas, fidelium suffragiis, potissimum vero acceptabili altaris sacrificio juvari; præcipit sancta synodus episcopis, ut sanam de purgatorio doctrinam, a sanctis patribus et sacris conciliis traditam, a Christi fidelibus credi, teneri, doceri, et ubique prædicari diligenter studeant. Apud rudem vero plebem difficiliores ac subtiliores quæstiones, quæque ad ædificationem non faciunt, et ex quibus plerumque nulla fit pietatis accessio, a popularibus concionibus secludantur. Incerta item, vel quæ specie falsi laborant, evulgari ac tractari non permittant. Ea vero quæ ad curiositatem quamdam aut superstitionem spectant, vel turpe lucrum sapiunt, tanquam scandala et fidelium offendicula prohibeant. Curent autem episcopi ut fidelium vivorum suffragia, missarum scilicet

Heb. viii.

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ART. them concerning the nature and the degrees of those torments, XXII. though supported by many pretended apparitions and revelations, is not to be imputed to the whole body; and is indeed only the doctrine of schoolmen, though it is generally preached and infused into the consciences of the people. Therefore I shall only examine that which is the established doctrine of the whole Roman church. And first as to the foundation of it, that sins are only pardoned, as to their eternal punishment, Rom. v. 1. to those who being justified by faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:' there is not a colour for it in the scriptures. Remission of sins is in general that with which the preaching of the gospel ought always to begin; and this is so often repeated, without any such reserve, that it is a high assuming upon God, and his attributes of goodness and mercy, to limit these when he has not limited them; but has expressly said, that this is a main part of the new covenant, that Jer. xxxi.he will remember our sins and iniquities no more.' Now it 34. seems to be a maxim, not only of the law of nations, but of nature, that all offers of pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the words, without any secret reserves or limitations; unless they are plainly expressed. An indemnity being offered by a prince to persuade his subjects to return to their obedience, in the fullest words possible, without any reserves made in it, it would be looked on as a very perfidious thing, if when the subjects come in upon it, trusting to it, they should be told that they were to be secured by it against capital punishments; but that, as to all inferior punishments, they were still at mercy. We do not dispute whether God, if he had thought fit so to do, might not have made this distinction; nor do we deny that the grace of the gospel had been infinitely valuable, if it had offered us only the pardon of sin with relation to its eternal punishment, and had left the temporal punishment on us, to be expiated by ourselves. But then we say, this ought to have been expressed: the distinction ought to have been made between temporal and eternal: and we ought not to have been drawn into a covenant with God, by words that do plainly import an entire pardon and oblivion, upon which there lay a limited sense that was not to be told the

sacrificia, orationes, eleemosynæ, aliaque pietatis opera, quæ a fidelibus pro aliis fidelibus defunctis fieri consuverunt, secundum ecclesiæ instituta pie et devote fiant; et quæ pro illis ex testatorum fundationibus, vel alia ratione debentur, non perfunctorie, sed a sacerdotibus, et ecclesiæ ministris, et aliis, qui hoc præstare tenentur, diligenter et accurate persolvantur.'-Sessio xxv.

We see from the above how careful the council was not to entangle itself in the dispute respecting the nature of purgatory; the decree simply stating that there is such a place. Equally vague is the article in the creed of pope Pius IV. on this subject. The catechism of the council of Trent made, however, a bolder step, and has informed us that purgatory is a fire in which the souls of the faithful are tormented.

'Præterea est purgatorius ignis, quo piorum animæ ad definitum tempus cruciatæ, expiantur ut eis in æternam patriam ingressus patere possit, in quam nihil coinquinatum ingreditur.' Cat. ad Par. De Symbolo. Art. descendit ad inferos. -[ED.]

world till it was once well engaged in the Christian religion. ART. Upon these reasons it is that we conclude, that this doctrine XXII. not being contained in the scriptures, is not only without any warrant in them, but that it is contrary to those full offers of mercy, peace, and oblivion, that are made in the gospel; it is contrary to the truth and veracity, and to the justice and goodness of God, to affirm that there are reserves to be understood for punishments, when the offers and promises are made to us in such large and unlimited expressions.

Thus we lay our foundation in this matter, which does very fully overthrow theirs. We do not deny but that God does in this world punish good men for those sins, which yet are forgiven them through Christ, according to those words in the Psalm, Thou wast a God that forgavest them, though thou Ps. xcix. 8. tookest vengeance of their inventions:' but this is a consideration quite of another nature. God, in the government of this world, thinks fit, by his Providence, sometimes to interpose in visible blessings, as well as judgments, to shew how he protects and favours the good, and punishes the bad; and that the bad actions of good men are odious to him, even though he has received their persons into his favour. He has also in the gospel plainly excepted the government of this world, and the secret methods of his Providence, out of the mercy that he has promised, by the warnings that are given to all Christians to prepare for crosses and afflictions in this life. He has made faith and patience in adversities a main condition of this new covenant; he has declared, that these are not the punishments of an angry God, but the chastisements of a kind and merciful Father, who designs by them both to shew to the world the impartiality of his justice in punishing some crying sins in a very signal manner, and to give good men deep impressions of their odiousness, to oblige them to a severer repentance for them, and to a greater watchfulness against them; as also to give the world such examples of resignation and patience under them, that they may edify others by that, as much as by their sins they may have offended them. So that, upon all these accounts, it seems abundantly clear, that no argument can be drawn from the temporal punishments of good men for their sins in this world, to a reserve of others in another state. The one are clearly mentioned and reserved in the offers of mercy that are made in the gospel, whereas the others are not. This being the most plausible thing that they say for this distinction of those twofold punishments, it is plain that there is no foundation

for it.

As for those words of Christ's, 'ye shall not come out till Mat. v. 26. ye have paid the uttermost farthing; from which they would infer, that there is a state in which, after we shall be cast into prison, we are paying off our debts: this, if an argument at all, will prove too much; that in hell the damned are clearing

ART

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scores; and that they shall be delivered when all is paid off. XXII. For by prison there, that only can be meant, as appears by the whole contexture of the discourse, and by other parables of the like nature. It is a figure taken from a man imprisoned for a great debt; and the continuance of it, till the last farthing is paid, does imply their perpetual continuance in that state, since the debt is too great to be ever paid off. From a phrase in a parable, no consequence is to be drawn, beyond that which is the true scope of the parable, which in this particular is only intended by our Saviour, to shew the severe punishment of those who hate implacably, which is a sin that does certainly deserve hell, and not purgatory.

Our Saviour's words concerning the sin against the Holy Matt. xii. Ghost,' that it is neither forgiven in this life, nor in that which is to come,' is also urged to prove, that some sins are pardoned in the next life, which are not pardoned in this. But still this will seem a stronger argument against the eternity of hell-torments, than for purgatory; and will rather import, that the damned may at last be pardoned their sins, since these are the only persons whose sins are not pardoned in this world; for of those who are justified, it cannot be said that their sins are not forgiven them, and such only go to purgatory: therefore, either this is only a general way of speaking, to exclude all hopes of pardon, and to imply that God's judgments will pursue such blasphemers, both in this life, and in the next; or, if we will understand them more critically, by this life, or this age, and the next, according to a common opinion and phrase of the Jews, which is founded on the prophecies, are to be understood the dispensation of the Law, and the dispensation of the Messias; the age to come being a common phrase for the times of the Messias; according to those Heb. ii. 5. words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, 'He hath not put in subjection to angels the world to come.' By the Mosaical law, sacrifices were only received, and by consequence pardon was offered for sins of a less heinous nature; but those that were more heinous were to be punished by death, or by cutting off without mercy; whereas a full promise of the pardon of all sins is offered in the gospel: so that the meaning of these words of Christ's is, that such a blasphemy was a sin not only beyond the pardon offered in the Law of Moses, which was the age that then was; but that it was a sin beyond that pardon which was to be offered by the Messias in the age to come, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, that was then at hand. But these words can by no means be urged to prove this distinction of temporal and eternal punishment; thereLuke xxiv. fore we must conclude, that since 'repentance and remission of sins' are joined together in the first commission to preach the gospel; and since life, peace, and salvation, are promised to such as believe, that all this is to be understood simply and plainly, without any other limitation or exception than that

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which is expressed, which is only of such chastisements as ART. God thinks fit to exercise good men with in this life.

XXII.

In the next place, we shall consider what reason we have to reject the doctrine of purgatory; as we have already seen how weak the foundation is upon which it is built. The scripture speaks to us of two states after this life, of happiness, and misery; and as it divides all mankind into good and bad, into those that do good and those that do evil, into believers and unbelievers, righteous and sinners; so it proposes always the end of the one to be everlasting happiness and the end of the other to be everlasting punishment, without the least hint of any middle state after death. So that it is very plain there is nothing said in scripture of men too good to be damned, but not so good as to be immediately saved. Now, if there had been yet a great deal to be suffered after death, and that there were many very effectual ways to prevent and avoid, or at least to shorten those sufferings; and if the apostles knew this, and yet said not a word of it, neither in their first sermons nor in their Epistles; here was a great treachery in the discharge of their function, and that to the souls of men, not to warn them of their danger, nor to direct them to the proper methods of avoiding it; but, on the contrary, to speak and write to them, just as we can suppose impostors would have done, to terrify those who would not receive their gospel, with eternal damnation, but not to say a word to those who received it, of their danger, in case they lived not up to that exactness that their religion required, and yet upon the main adhered to it and followed it. This is a method that does not agree with common honesty, not to say inspiration. A fair way of proceeding, is to make men sensible of dangers of all sorts, and to shew them how to avoid them; the apostles told their converts, that through much Acts xiv. tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven;' they 22. assured them, that their present sufferings were not worthy 18. to be compared to the glory that was to be revealed;' and that 2 Cor. iv. 'those light afflictions, which are for a moment, wrought for 17. them a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' Here, if they knew any thing of purgatory, a powerful consideration was passed over in silence, that by these afflictions they should be delivered from those torments.

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Rom. viii.

This argument goes further than mere silence; though that is very strong. The scriptures speak always as if the one did immediately follow the other; and that the saints, or true Christians, pass from the miseries of this state to the glories of the next. So does our Saviour represent the matter in the parable of Lazarus and the rich glutton; whose souls were presently carried to their different abodes; the one to be comforted, as the other was tormented. He promised also to 25. the repenting thief, 'To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise.' Luke xxiii. St. Paul comforts himself, in the apprehension of his dissolu- 43.

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Luke xvi.

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