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ARTICLE XIV

OF PURGATORY

The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardon, worshiping and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but repugnant to the Word of God.

I. THE ORIGIN

This Article was framed by the English Reformers, first appearing in 1553. At that date the first words were, "The doctrine of the School-authors." In 1562 the phrase was changed to "The Romish doctrine." In that form it has remained, and was copied entire by Wesley.

II. THE AIM

At an early period in the Christian Church the thought was entertained that after death those who were not ready for heaven were kept in a place of preparation until fitted for the divine presence, and that the prayers of the living were an advantage to them in this intermediate state. This applied to believers who died in a state of grace, and was not a second probation for the wicked. The place of durance was purgatory-a word derived from the Latin purgatorium, the root of which is the verb purgo, "I cleanse." To the process of preparation Gregory the Great, in the year 595, added a tormenting fire. This the School-authors converted into a doctrine which they associated with papal indulgences till it came to apply to the dead generally. The change of the phrase from "The doctrine of the School-authors" to "The Romish doc

trine" changed its aim from the Schoolmen, whose day was long past, to the current doctrines and practices of the Church at the time of the Reformation. The Article was framed before the Council of Trent, and could not have been aimed at the decision of that body.

The Church, at the time this Article was written, had long practiced the granting of pardons or indulgences, which were the remission of a temporal punishment without penance. The extreme mediæval or Romish party had also adopted gross forms of image and relic worship, and favors or graces the Church assumed to hold at her disposal could be bought with money. The more thoughtful and conservative party in the Church abhorred these things, and many were driven by them into the ranks of Reform. The Council of Trent had under consideration the subjects treated of in this Article at its twenty-fifth and last session, December 3 and 4, 1563. Instead of sweeping away the whole system of purgatorial punishments and papal indulgences, the Council endeavored to check the grosser forms of abuse, but established the unscriptural doctrines underlying them. This Article is therefore applicable to doctrines and practices of the Roman Church of to-day, and condemns them as repugnant to the Word of God.

III. THE EXPOSITION

The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory.

The idea of purgatory as taught by the Church of Rome is not known in Scripture, though there is clear evidence that the Jews and early Christians believed in an intermediate state between death and the judgment day. Into this state the souls of the dead entered, both good and bad. They did not believe that the pious dead entered a state of suffering, or that the suffering of the

wicked was of short duration. A few passages of Scripture indicate a place where departed souls abide until the time of the resurrection. Jesus said, in regard to the rich man and Lazarus, “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." In contrast with the place and condition of the rich man he speaks of "Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom" (Luke 16. 23). Without pressing in any degree the meaning of the parable, Hades is represented as a place of two distinct regions, and its inhabitants as souls in two distinct conditions; the righteous beyond the reach of pain and sorrow even in Hades. In accord with this are the words of Christ to the dying thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise” (Luke 23. 43). "The primeval paradise was lost, and the name was transferred by the Jewish Church to the blessed section of Hades, or to the intermediate state between death and the resurrection. Beyond all doubt it was the intention of Jesus to designate this by the term paradise to the dying thief. The passage, therefore, presents an unanswerable proof of the existence both of a human soul separate from the body and a state of happy consciousness of the justified soul immediately after death and before resurrection."1

It was in connection with this intermediate state and place that in a gradual way the concept of purgatory was built up, the idea of fires and cleansing being borrowed from heathen writings. Virgil, in his great epic “The Eneid," incorporates the idea. In the sixth book of that poem Anchises, the dead father of Eneas, when the Sibyl conducts him to the world of departed spirits, tells his son:

"So penal suffering they endure

For ancient crime to make them pure:

1 Whedon, Commentary, in loco.

Some hang aloft in open view

For winds to pierce them through and through,
While others purge their guilt deep-dyed

In burning fire or whelming tide.

Each for himself, we all sustain
The durance of our ghostly pain.
Then to Elysium we repair,

The few, and breathe the blissful air;
Till many a length of ages past
The inherent taint is cleansed at last,

And naught remains but ether bright,
The quintessence of heavenly light.""

Plato, on the state of the soul after the death of the body, says: "The soul of the good man goes at once to some happy place; the souls that are incurable from the magnitude of their offenses are hurled into Tartarus never to come forth; and as for those who have passed a middle life, they suffer punishment for the iniquities they have committed, and then are set free, and each receives the reward of his good deeds according to his deserts."

The difference between the purgatory of Plato and that of the Roman Church is not great; the first is the seed, the second is the flower. Again he says, "I entertain a good hope that something awaits those who die, and that, as was said long since, it will be far better for the good than the evil.""

The early Church fathers incidentally allude to the abode of the righteous after death as a place of happiness, distinct from the abode of the wicked. Clement of Rome says: "All the generations from Adam, even unto this day, have passed away; but those who, through the grace of God, have been made perfect in love, now possess a place among the godly, and shall be made manifest at the revelation of the kingdom of Christ. For it is writ

1 Translation of Professor Conington, Oxford, England.

"Plato and Paul, p. 54.

ten, Enter into thy secret chambers for a little time, until my wrath and fury pass away; and I will remember a propitious day, and will raise you up out of your graves."1 Justin Martyr says, "The souls of the pious remain in a better place, while those of the unjust and wicked are in a worse, waiting for the time of judgment."

Mr. Wesley gives us the same thought in his sermon on "Dives and Lazarus." He says: "It is plain that paradise is not heaven. It is, indeed (if we may be allowed the expression), the antechamber of heaven, where the souls of the righteous remain till, after the general judgment, they are received into glory. . "The rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes.' . . . The word which is here rendered hell does not always mean the place of the damned. It is, literally, the invisible world, and is of very wide extent, including the receptacle of separate spirits, whether good or bad."

So also our modern divines: "The intermediate world must necessarily consist of two departments, the one for the righteous, the other for the wicked. So we find it in the Scriptures, Paradise standing for the former and Gehenna for the latter. Dr. L. T. Townsend speaks of the one as Paradise-Hades, and of the other as GehennaHades, a division clearly justified by the New Testament.'

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The opinion prevails to a large extent that the souls of the righteous when separated from the body immediately enter heaven. Stephen said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7. 56). "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon the Lord, and saying, Lord Jesus,

1 First Epistle, chap. i.

2 Dialogues, chap. v. Plato and Paul, p. 605.

Works, vol. ii, p. 417.

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