XXII. temporal punishment of its fins; which may continue longer ART. 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 infused into the confciences of the people. Therefore I fhail only examine that which is the established doctrine of the whole Roman Church. And first as to the foundation of it, that fins are only pardoned, rs to their eternal punishment, to thofe who being justified by Rom. v. L faith have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Chrift: there is not a colour for it in the Scriptures. Remiftion 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 expressly said, that this is a main part of the new covenant, that he will remember our fins and iniquities no more. Jer. xxxi. Now it feems to be a maxim, not only of the law of nations, 34. but of nature, that all offers of pardon are to be understood in Heb. viii, the full extent of the words, without any secret reserves or limitations; unlefs 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 should be told that they were to be fecured 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 fo to do, might not have made this diftinction; nor do we deny that the grace of the Gofpel 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 punishment on us, to be expiated by ourfelves. But then we fay, this ought to have been expreffed: the diftinction 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 these reasons it is, that we conclude that this doctrine not being contained in the Scriptures, is not only without any warrant in them, but T that 12. 8. XXII. ART. 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 referves to be underflood for punishments, when the offers and promifes are made to us in fuch large and unlimited expreffions. 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 punifh good men for thofe fins, which yet are forgiven them through Chrift, according to thofe words in the Pfalm xcix. 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 vifible 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 alfo 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 crofles and afflictions in this life. He has made faith and patience in adverfities a main condition of this New Covenant; he has declared that thefe 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 justice, 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 seems abundantly clear, that no argument can be drawn from the temporal punishments of good men, for their fins in this world, to a referve of others in another ftate. The one are clearly mentioned and referved in the offers of mercy, that are made in the Gospel, whereas the others are not. This being the most plaufible thing that they fay for this diftinétion of thofe twofold punifhments, it is plain that there is no foundation for it. Matth. v. 26. . As for those words of Chrift's, ye shall not come out till ye have paid the uttermoft farthing; from which they would infer, that there is a ftate in which, after we fhall be caft into prifon, we are paying off our debts; this, if an argument at all, will prove too much; that in hell the damned are clearing scores; and that they shall be delivered when all is paid off. For by prifon there, that only can be meant, as appears by the whole contexture of the XXII. the difcourfe, and by other parables of the like nature. It is a AR T. figure taken from a man imprifoned for a great debt; and the continuance of it, till the laft farthing is paid, does imply their perpetual continuance in that state, fince the debt is too great to be ever paid off: from a phrafe in a parable, no confequence 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 fhew the fevere punishment of thofe, who hate implacably, which is a fin that does certainly deferve 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 which Matt, xii. is to come; is allo urged to prove that fome fins are pardoned in 32. the next life, which are not pardoned in this. But still this will feem a ftronger argument against the eternity of Hell-torments, than for Purgatory; and will rather import, that the damned may at last be pardoned their fins, fince thefe are the only perfons whofe 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 phrase of the Jews, which is founded on the prophefies, are to be understood the difpenfation of the Law, and the difpenfation of the Meffias; the age to come being a common phrafe for the times of the Meffias; according to thote words in the Epiftle to the Hebrews, He hath not put in fubjection to angels the world to Heb. ii. 5. come. By the Mofaical Law, facrifices were only received, and by confequence pardon was offered for fins of a lefs heinous nature; but those that were more heinous were to be punished by death, or by cutting off without mercy; whereas a full promife of the pardon of all fins is offered in the Gofpel: fo that the meaning of thefe 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 these words can by no means be urged to prove this distinction of temporal and eternal punishment; therefore we must conclude, that fince repentance and remiffion of Luke xxiv. fins are joined together in the firft commiffion to preach the 47. Gofpel; and fince life, peace, and falvation, are promifed to fuch as believe, that all this is to be understood fimply and plainly, without any other limitation or exception than that which is exprelled, T 2 ART. expreffed, which is only of such chastisements as God thinks fit to exercise good men with in this life. XXII. In the next place, we fhall confider 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 ftates after this life, of happiness, and mifery; 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 finners; fo it propofes always the end of the one to be everlasting happinefs, and the end of the other to be everlasting punishment, without the leaft hint of any middle ftate 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 first sermons, nor in their epiftles; here was a great treachery in the discharge 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 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 cafe 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 fay infpiration. A fair way of procceding, is to make men fenfible of dangers of all forts, and to fhew them how to Acts xiv. avoid them: the Apoftles told their converts, that through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of heaven; they allured them, that their prefent fufferings were not worthy to be compared to the glory that was to be revealed: and that thofe light afflictions, which are for a moment, 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 thefe atflictions they fhould be delivered from thofe torments. 22. Rom. viii. 18. 2 Cor. iv. This argument goes further than mere filence; though that is very ftrong. The Scriptures fpeak always as if the one did immediately follow the other; and that the faints, or true Chriftians, pafs from the miferies of this ftate, to the glories of the next. So does our Saviour reprefent 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 promifed alfo to the repenting Thief, To day 8. XXII. Phil. i. 23. To-day thou shalt be with me in Paradife. St. Paul comforts ART. himself in the apprehenfion of his diffolution that was approaching, with the profpect of the crown of righteoufnefs that should Luke xxiii. be given him after death, and fo he ftates thefe two as certain 43. confequents one of another, to be diffolved and to be with Chrift, 2 Tim. iv. to be abfent from the body, and prefent with the Lord: and he makes it appear that it was no peculiar privilege that he promised 2 Cor. v. 6. to himself, but that which all Chriftians had a right to expect; for he fays in general, this we know, that if our earthly houfe of v. 1, 2. this tabernacle be diffolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In the Epistle to the Hebrews the patriarchs under the Old Difpenfation are reprefented as looking for that city whofe builder and founder is Heb. xi. 10. 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 state. And finally St. John heard a voice commanding him to write, Bleffed are the dead, who die in the Lord (that is, being true Rev. xiv. Chriftians) from henceforth (or immediately); yea, faith the fpi- 13. rit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. From the folemnity with which these words are delivered, they carry in them an evidence fufficient to determine the whole matter. So that we must have very hard thoughts of the fincerity of the writers of the New Teftament, and very much difparage their credit, not to fay their infpiration, if we can imagine that there are scenes of fuffering, and thofe very dismal ones, to be gone through, of which they gave the world no fort of notice: but fspoke in the fame ftyle that we do, who believe no fuch dismal interval between the death of good men and their final bleffedness. The Scriptures do indeed speak of a full re- 2 Ep. John, ward, and of different degrees of glory, as one star exceeds v. 8. another. They do also represent the day of judgment upon the 41. refurrection of the body, as that which gives the full and entire pofsession of blessednefs; fo that from hence fome have thought, upon very probable grounds, that the bleffed, though admitted to happiness immediately upon their death, yet were not so completely happy as they shall be after the refurrection and in this there arofe a diverfity of opinions, which is very natural to all who will go and form systems out of fome general hints. Some thought that the fouls of good men were at reft, and in a good measure happy, but that they did not fee God before the refurrection. Others thought that Chrift was to come down and reign vifibly upon earth a thousand years before the end of the world: and that the faints were to rife and to reign with him, fome fooner and fome later. Some thought that the laft conflagration was fo to affect all, that every one was to pass through it, and that it was to give the laft and highcft purification I Cor. xv. |