always describe the awful realities of the invisible state, with sufficient minuteness to satisfy the natural curiosity of man. They were given to us not to foster the spirit of speculation, but to guide our feet into the way of peace. They teach us all things necessary to life and godliness, but they warn us that there are secret things which belong to God. They withhold from us nothing that is required to be known, in order to our enjoyment of a good hope,—a hope full of immortality; but they caution us against intruding into things that are not revealed. If then we anxiously desire more information than the written word of God affords us, respecting the unrevealed region of futurity, we shall become liable to every species of monstrous imposition which a corrupt imagination can devise.

From the inspired volume we learn that man is a complex being, that he has a true body and an intelligent soul, that his body is material and subject to decay, that his soul is immaterial and immortal, that death is the separation of soul and body, that death is the penalty of sin, that all will die because all have sinned; that those who believe on the Son of God have eternal life, and will never come into condemnation, that those who do not believe on the Son of God are condemned already. The Scripture further teaches us, that the souls of believers, of those who die in the Lord, immediately after death enter upon a

state of perfect and uninterrupted happiness, that absent from the body they are present with the Lord; that the wicked, the impenitent and unbelieving, become immediately miserable, that the state in which both the righteous and the wicked remain from the period of death till the end of time is not a final condition,—that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust,—that the Son of Man shall come in the clouds of heaven,-that all nations shall be gathered before him,-that he will separate the righteous from the wicked, and that from thenceforth the bliss of the one and the misery of the other will be complete-immutable-eternal. Now though these solemn representations constantly recur in different forms of expression in the New Testament; we do not find a single passage of Scripture which either directly or by fair inference conveys the idea of temporary punishment, or that intimates any third condition of some-who are not wicked enough to be damned, and not sufficiently righteous to be saved. The Bible makes no allusion to any purgatorial process in the separate state, in which either the joys of the righteous or the sufferings of the wicked are diminished.

a

The Roman Catholic Church maintains that the most eminent of saints immediately after death become liable to a period of penal sufferings, before they are made meet to be partakers of the

inheritance of the saints in light; and upon this pretence encourages her clergy to drain from the bereaved of all classes, not excepting widows and orphans, large pecuniary exactions as the price of masses and prayers, for the repose of the souls of the dead. As the bare statement of this fact involves a moral accusation of no light character, I shall state the sentiment in the words of respectable and acknowledged Roman Catholic authority. "Catholics hold there is a purgatory, that is to say, a place or state, where souls departing this life, with remission of their sins as to the guilt, or eternal pain, but yet liable to some temporal punishment still remaining due; or not perfectly freed from the blemish of some defects, which we call venial sins-are purged before their admittance into heaven, where nothing that is defiled can enter. We also believe, that such souls, so detained in purgatory, being the living members of Christ Jesus, are relieved by the prayers and suffrages of their fellow members here on earth. But where this place be; of what nature or quality the pains be; how long souls may be there detained; in what manner the suffrages made in their behalf be applied, whether by way of satisfaction or intercession, &c., are questions superfluous and impertinent as to faith."* In the creed of Pope Pius the following affirmation is made :—

*Faith of Catholics, Prop. xi. xii., p. 351, 352.

"I constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls detained therein are assisted by the suffrages of the faithful, but especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the mass. It was further enjoined upon all bishops to endeavour that this wholesome doctrine of Purgatory, delivered by venerable fathers, and holy councils, should be believed and held by Christ's faithful, and everywhere taught and preached." From this definition of purgatory, we learn that it is a place or state of suffering and purification between death and the day of judgment, wherein the souls of the righteous, whose sins are not wholly expiated, are detained and tormented till they become perfectly meet to enter the abodes of purity and bliss. So that this dreadful process forms no part of the punishment of the ungodly, those who die in mortal sin being regarded by the Church of Rome as lost for ever, and without remedy; but it is supposed to be inflicted on those who die in the Lord, whom the tender and compassionate Father of mercies loves with an eternal, infinite, unchangable love, and of whom he hath said, "They shall be mine in the day when I make up my jewels, and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.' Almost all strange and erroneous sentiments are based upon the misconstruction and tortuous application of one or two isolated passages of Scripture. There are comparatively but few texts, the meaning of which may not be

ascertained without great difficulty, and none directly relating to the way of salvation; but it is remarkable that there is scarcely a single text of the Bible at all difficult of interpretation, that has not been seized upon and made the basis of some strange and erroneous system. This is remarkably the case with the doctrine under consideration : though we by no means intend to admit that each of the few passages cited by Romanists in support of this revolting dogma presents such difficulty. One of the first passages advanced by Romanists is, Matt. xii. 32, "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." They contend that the latter phrase in this verse, implies that some sins are forgiven in the world to come; and therefore it necessarily follows that there is some intermediate state in which they may be expiated. Now whatever difference of opinion may exist as to the precise meaning of this, and similar expressions, in other places, here its meaning is plainly fixed. It means simply that God will not forgive a sin so direct, and presumptuous. In the parallel passage in Mark, we read, "He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost "hath never forgiveness," and in Luke, "it shall not be forgiven," Mark iii. 29; Luke xii. 14. Even if this