punishment, which he must expiate by acts of penance ART. and forrow in this world, together with fuch other fuffer- XXII. ings as God fhall think fit to lay upon him: but if he does not expiate thefe in this life, there is a state of fuffering and mifery in the next world, where the foul is to bear the temporal punishment of its fins; which may continue longer or fhorter, till the day of judgment. And in order to the fhortening this, the prayers and fupererogations of men here on earth, or the interceffion of the faints in heaven, but above all things, the facrifice of the mafs, are of great efficacy. This is the doctrine of the Church of Rome, afferted in the Councils of Florence and Trent. What has been taught among them concerning the nature and the degrees of thofe torments, though fupported 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 infufed into the confciences of the people. Therefore I fhall only examine that which is the established doctrine of the whole Roman Church. And firft as to the foundation of it, that fins are only pardoned, as to their eternal punishment, to those who being juftified by faith have peace Rom. v. 1. with God through our Lord Jefus Chrift: there is not a colour for it in the Scriptures. Remiffion of fins is in general that with which the preaching of the Gospel ought always to begin; and this is fo often repeated, without any fuch referve, that it is a high affuming upon God, and his attributes of goodness and mercy, to limit these when he has not limited them; but has exprefsly faid, that this is a main part of the new covenant, that he will Jer. xxxİ. remember our fins and iniquities no more. Now it feems to 34 be a maxim, not only of the law of nations, but of nature, 12. that all offers of pardon are to be understood in the full extent of the words, without any fecret referves or limitations; unless they are plainly expreffed. An indemnity being offered by a prince to perfuade his fubjects to return to their obedience, in the fulleft words poffible, without any referves made in it, it would be looked on as a very perfidious thing, if when the fubjects come in upon it, trufting to it, they fhould be told that they were to be fecured by it against capital punishments; but that, as to all inferior punishments, they were ftill at mercy. We do not dispute whether God, if he had thought fit fo to do, might not have made this diftinction; nor do we deny that the grace of the Gospel had been infinitely valuable, if it had offered us only the pardon of fin with relation to its eternal punishment, and had left the temporal punish

Heb. viii.

ART. ment on us, to be expiated by ourselves. But then we XXII. fay, this ought to have been expreffed: 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 fenfe, that was not to be told the world till it was once well engaged in the Chriftian religion. Upon thefe reafons it is that we conclude, that this doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures, is not only without any warrant in them, but that it is contrary to thofe full offers of mercy, peace, and oblivion, that are made in the Gofpel; it is contrary to the truth and veracity, and to the juftice and goodness of God, to affirm that there are reserves to be understood for punishments, when the offers and promifes are made to us in fuch large and unlimited expreffions.

8.

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 fins, which yet are forgiven them through Chrift, according to Pfalm xcix. thofe words in the Pfalm, Thou waft a God that forgaveft them, though thou tookeft vengeance of their inventions: but this is a confideration quite of another nature. God, in the government of this world, thinks fit, by his Providence, fometimes to interpofe in visible bleffings, as well as judgments, to fhew 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 perfons into his favour. He has also in the Gospel plainly excepted the government of this world, and the fecret methods of his Providence, out of the mercy that he has promifed, by the warnings that are given to all Chriftians to prepare for croffes and afflictions in this life. He has made faith and patience in adverfities a main condition of this New Covenant; he has declared, that these are not the punishments of an angry God, but the chaftifements of a kind and merciful Father, who defigns by them both to fhew to the world the impartiality of his juftice in punishing fome crying fins in a very fignal manner, and to give good men deep impreffions of their odioufnefs, to oblige them to a feverer repentance for them, and to a greater watchfulness against them; as alfo to give the world fuch examples of refignation and patience under them, that they may edify others by that, as much as by their fins they may have offended them. So that, upon all these accounts, it feems abundantly.

clear,

that are

clear, that no argument can be drawn from the temporal ART. punishments of good men for their fins in this world, to a XXII. referve of others in another ftate. The one are clearly' mentioned and referved in the offers of mercy made in the Gofpel, whereas the others are not. This being the moft plaufible thing that they fay for this dif tinction of thofe twofold punishments, it is plain that there is no foundation for it.

As for those words of Chrift's, ye shall not come out till ye Matth. v. have paid the uttermoft farthing; from which they would 26. infer, that there is a state in which, after we shall be caft 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 fcores; and that they fhall be delivered when all is paid off. For by prifon there, that only can be meant, as appears by the whole contexture of the difcourfe, and by other parables of the like nature.

It is

a figure taken from a man in prifoned for a great debt; and the continuance of it, till the laft farthing is paid, does imply their perpetual continuance in that flate, fince the debt is too great to be ever paid off. From a phrase in a parable, no confequence is to be drawn, beyond that which is the true fcope of the parable, which in this particular is only intended by our Saviour, to fhew the fevere punishment of thofe who hate implacably, which is a fin that does certainly deserve Hell, and not Purgatory.

Our Saviour's words concerning the fin against the Holy Ghoft, that it is neither forgiven in this life, nor in that Mat. xii. which is to come; is alfo urged to prove, that fome fins are 32. pardoned in the next life, which are not pardoned in this. But ftill this will feem a ftronger argument against the eternity of Hell-torments, than for Purgatory; and will rather import, that the damned may at laft be pardoned their fins, fince thefe are the only perfons whose fins are not pardoned in this world; for of those who are juftified, it cannot be faid, that their fins are not forgiven them, and fuch only go to Purgatory: therefore, either this is only a general way of fpeaking, to exclude all hopes of pardon, and to imply that God's judgments will pursue fuch blafphemers, 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 phrafe of the Jews, which is founded on the prophecies, are to be underfood the difpenfation of the Law, and the difpenfation of the Meffas; the age to come being a com mon phrafe for the times of the Meffias; according to

v 3

those

Heb. ii. 5.

ART. those words in the Epistle to the Hebrews, He hath not put XXII. in fubjection to angels the world to come. By the Mofaical Law, facrifices were only received, and by confequence pardon was offered for fins of a lefs heinous nature; but thofe 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 fins is offered in the Gospel: fo that the meaning of these words of Chrift's is, that fuch a blafphemy was a fin not only beyond the pardon offered in the Law of Mofes, which was the age that then was; but that it was a fin beyond that pardon which was to be offered by the Meffias in the age to come, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, that was then at hand. But thefe words can by no means be urged to prove this distinction of temporal and eternal punishment; therefore we muft Luke xxiv. conclude, that fince repentance and remiffion of fins are joined together in the first commiffion to preach the Gofpel; and fince life, peace, and falvation, are promised to fuch as believe, that all this is to be understood fimply and plainly, without any other limitation or exception than that which is expreffed, which is only of fuch chastisements as God thinks fit to exercife good men with in this life.

47.

In the next place, we fhall confider what reason we have to reject the doctrine of Purgatory; as we have already feen how weak the foundation is upon which it is built. The Scripture speaks to us of two ftates after this life, of happiness, and inifery; and as it divides all mankind into good and bad, into thofe that do good and thofe that do evil, into believers and unbelievers, righteous and finners; fo it propofes always the end of the one to be everlafting happiness, and the end of the other to be everlasting punishment, without the leaft hint of any middle state after death. So that it is very plain there is nothing faid in Scripture of men too good to be damned, but not fo good as to be immediately faved. Now, if there had been yet a great deal to be fuffered after death, and that there were many very effectual ways to prevent and avoid, or at least to fhorten thofe fufferings; and if the Apoftles knew this, and yet faid not a word of it, neither in their firft fermons, nor in their epiftles; here was a great treachery in the difcharge of their function, and that to the fouls 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, juft as we can fuppofe impoftors would have done, to terrify thofe who would not receive their Gofpel, with eternal damnation,

damnation, but not to fay a word to those who received ART. it, of their danger, in cafe they lived not up to that ex- XXII. actness 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 honefty, not to say infpiration. A fair way of proceeding, is to make men fenfible of dangers of all forts, and to fhew them how to avoid them: the Apoftles told their converts, that through Aas xiv. much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven; 22. they affured them, that their prefent fufferings were not worthy to be compared to the glory that was to be revealed: 2 Cor. iv. and that thofe light afflictions, which are for a moment, 17. wrought for them a more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Here, if they knew any thing of Purgatory, a powerful confideration was paffed over in filence, that by these afflictions they should be delivered from those tor

ments.

Rom. viii.

18.

Phil. i. 23.

This argument goes further than mere filence; though that is very strong. The Scriptures speak always as if the one did immediately follow the other; and that the faints, or true Chriftians, pafs from the miseries of this ftate, to the glories of the next. So does our Saviour represent the matter in the parable of Lazarus and the rich Glutton; whofe fouls were presently carried to their different abodes; the one to be comforted, as the other was tormented. He promised alfo to the repenting Thief, To- Luke xxiii. day thou shalt be with me in Paradife. St. Paul comforts 43. himself in the apprehenfion of his diffolution that was approaching, with the profpect of the crown of righteousness 2 Tim. iv. that should be given him after death; and fo he ftates thefe 8. two as certain confequents one of another, to be diffolved 2 Cor. v. 6, and to be with Chrift, to be abfent from the body, and prefent 8. with the Lord: and he makes it appear that it was no peculiar privilege that he promised to himself, but that which all Chriftians had a right to expect; for he says in general, this we know, that if our earthly houfe of this taber- v. 1, 2. nacle be diffolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In the Epiftle to the Hebrews the patriarchs under the Old Dispensation are represented as looking for that city whofe builder and Heb. xi. 10. founder is God: though in that ftate the manifeftations of another life were more imperfect than in this; in which life and immortality are brought to light; they being veiled and darkened in that ftate. And finally, St. John heard a voice commanding him to write, Bleffed are the dead, who Rev. xiv. die in the Lord (that is, being true Chriftians) from hence 13.

U 4

forth