argument, for it cannot be proved that he was then dead; and fince the Fathers reckon this of praying for the dead only as one of their customs, for which they vouch no other warrant but practice; fince, also, this has been grofsly abused, and has been applied to fupport a doctrine totally different from theirs, we think that we have as good a plea for not following them in this, as we have for not giving infants the facrament, and therefore we think it no imputation on our Church, that we do not in this follow a groundless and a much abused precedent, though set us in ages which we highly reverence. The greateft corruption of this whole matter comes in the laft place to be confidered; which is, the methods proposed for redeeming fouls out of Purgatory. If this doctrine had rested in a fpeculation, we must still have confidered it as derogatory to the death of Chrift, and the truth of the Gospel: but it raises our zeal a little more, when we confider the use that was made of it; and that fears and terrors being by this means infused into men's minds, new methods were proposed to free them from these. The chief of which was the faying of maffes for departed fouls. It was pretended, that this being the higheft act of the communion of Chriftians, and the most fublime piece of worship, therefore God was fo well pleased with the frequent repetition of it, with the prayers that accompanied it, and with those that made provifions for men, who should be constantly employed in it, that this was a moft acceptable facrifice to God. Upon this followed all thofe vaft endowments, for faying males for departed fouls. Though in the institution of that facrament, and in all that is spoken of it in the Scripture, there is not an hint given of this. Sacraments are pofitive precepts, which are to be meafured only by the inftitution, in which there is not room left for us to carry them further. We are to take, eat and drink, and thereby fhew forth the Lord's death till bis fecond coming all which has no relation to the applying this to others who are gone off the stage; therefore if we can have any juft notions either of fuperftition, or of will-worship, they are applicable here. Men will fancy that there is a virtue in an action, which we are sure it has not of itself, and we cannot find that God has put in it; and yet they, without any authority from God, do fet up a new piece of worship, and imagine that God will be pleafed with them in every thing they do or afk, only because they are perverting this piece of worthip, clearly contrary to the inftitution, to be a folitary mafs. In the Primitive Church, where all the fervice of the whole affembly ended in a communion, there was a roll read, in which the names of the more eminent faints of the Catholick Church, and of the holy bishops, martyrs, or confeflors of every particular Church, were registered. This was an honourable remem brance ART. XXII ART. XXII. Cypr. pleb. Fur nit. Mark xi. 17. brance that was kept up of fuch as had died in the Lord. When the foundness of any perfon's faith was brought in fufpicion, his name was not read till that point was cleared, and then either his name continued to be read, or it was quite dashed out. This was thought an honour due to the memory of those who had died in the faith: and in St. Cyprian's time, in the infancy of this practice, we fee he counted the leaving a man's name out as a thing that only left a blot upon him, but not as a thing of any confequence to his foul; for when a priest had died, who had by his laft will named another priest the tutor (or guardian) of his children, this feemed to him a thing of fuch ill example, to put thofe fecular cares upon the minds of the clergy, that he appointed that his name fhould be no more read in the daily facrifice; which plainly fhews, unless we will tax St. Cyprian with a very unreasonable cruelty, that he confidered that only as a fmall cenfure laid on his memory, but not as a prejudice to his foul. This gives us a very plain view of the fenfe that he had of this matter. After this roll was read, then the general prayer followed, as was formerly acknowledged, for all their fouls; and fo they went on in the Communion Service. This has no relation to a mass faid by a single priest to deliver a foul out of Purgatory. Here, without going far in tragical expreffions, we cannot hold faying what our Saviour faid upon another occafion, My houfe is a houfe of prayer, but ye have made it a den of thieves. A trade was fet up on this foundation. The world was made believe, that by the virtue of fo many maffes, which were to be purchased by great endowments, fouls were redeemed out of Purgatory; and fcenes of vifions and apparitions, fometimes of the tormented, and sometimes of the delivered fouls, were publifhed in all places; which had fo wonderful an effect, that in two or three centuries endowments increased to so vaft a degree, that if the scandals of the clergy on the one hand, and the ftatutes of mortmain on the other, had not restrained the profufeness that the world was wrought up to upon this account, it is not easy to imagine how far this might have gone; perhaps to an entire subjecting of the temporalty to the fpiritualty. The practices by which this was managed, and the effects that followed on it, we can call by no other name than downright impoftures; worse than the making or vending false coin; when the world was drawn in by fuch arts to plain bargains to redeem their own fouls, and the fouls of their anceftors and pofterity, fo many maffes were to be faid, and forfeitures were to follow upon their not being faid: thus the mafies were really the price of the lands. An endowment to a religious ufe, though mixed with error or fuperftition in the rules of it, ought to be held facred, according to the decifion Numb. xvi. 38. given concerning the cenfures of thofe that were in the rebellion ART. of Corah: fo that we do not excuse the violation of such from XXII. facrilege; yet we cannot think fo of endowments, where the only confideration was a falfe opinion firft of Purgatory, and then of redemption out of it by maffes; this being expreffed in the very deeds themfelves. By the fame reafons, by which private perfons are obliged to restore what they have drawn from others by bafe practices, by falfe deeds, or counterfeit coin; bodies are alfo bound to restore what they have got into their hands by fuch fraudulent practices; fo that the states and princes of Chriftendom were at full liberty, upon the difcovery of these impoftures, to void all the endowments that had followed upon them; and either to apply them to better uses, or to restore them to the families from which they had been drawn, if that had been practicable, or to convert them to any other use. This was a crying abufe, which those who have obferved the progrefs that this matter made from the eighth century to the twelfth, cannot reflect on without both amazement and indignation. We are fenfible enough that there are many political reafons and arguments for keeping up the doctrine of Purgatory. But we have not fo learned Chrift. We ought not to lye even for God, much less for ourselves, or for any other pretended ends of keeping the world in awe and order; therefore all the advantages that are faid to arife out of this, and all the mischief that may be thought to follow on the rejecting of it, ought not to make us prefume to carry on the ends of religion by unlawful methods. This were to call in the affiftance of the Devil to do the work of God: if the juft apprehenfions of the wrath of God, and the guilt of fin, together with the fear of everlasting burnings, will not reform the world, nor restrain finners, we must leave this matter to the wife and unsearchable judgments of God. The next particular in this Article is, the condemning the Romish doctrine concerning Pardons: that is founded on the diftinction between the temporal and eternal punishment of fin; and the Pardon is of the temporal punishment, which is believed to be done by a power lodged fingly in the Pope, derived from those words, Feed my sheep, and To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This may be by him derived as they teach, not only to Bifhops and Priefts, but to the inferior orders, to be difpenfed by them; and it excufes from penance, unless he who purchases it thinks fit to use his pe- · nance in a medicinal way as a prefervative against fin. So the virtue of indulgences, is the applying the treasure of the Church upon fuch terms as Popes fhall think fit to prefcribe, in order to the redeeming fouls from Purgatory, and from all other temporal punishments, and that for fuch a number of years as fhall be specified in the bulls; fome of which have gone to thou fands XXII. ART. fands of years; one I have feen to ten hundred thousand: and as thefe indulgences are fometimes granted by special tickets, like tallies ftruck on that treasure; fo fometimes they are affixed to particular churches and altars, to particular times, or days, chiefly to the year of jubilee; they are alfo affixed to fuch things as may be carried about, to Agnus Dei's, to medals, to rofaries and fcapularies; they are also affixed to fome prayers, the devout faying of them being a mean to procure great indulgences. The granting thefe is left to the Pope's difcretion, who ought to diftribute them as he thinks may tend moft to the honour of God, and the good of the Church, and he ought not to be too profufe, much less to be too fcanty in dispenfing them. This has been the received doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome fince the twelfth century; and the Council of Trent in a hurry, in its laft feffion, did in very general words approve of the practice of the Church in this matter, and decreed that indulgences fhould be continued; only they restrained fome abuses, in particular that of felling them; yet even thofe reftraints were wholly referred to the Popes themselves: fo that this crying abufe, the scandal of which had occafioned the first beginnings and progrefs of the Reformation, was upon the matter eftablifhed; and the correcting the excefles in it, was truffed to those who had been the authors of them, and the chief gainers by them. This point of their doctrine is more fully opened than might perhaps feem neceffary, if it were not that a great part of the confutation of fome doctrines, is the expofing of them. For though in ages and places of ignorance these things have been, and still are practifed, with great afsurance, and to very extravagant exceffes; yet in countries and ages of more light, when they come to be queftioned, they are difowned with an allurance equal to that with which they are practifed elsewhere. Among us fome will perhaps fay, that these are only exemptions from penance; which cannot be denied to be within the power of the Church; and they argue, that though it is very fit to make fevere laws, yet the execution of these must be softened in practice. This is all that they pretend to justify, and they give up any further indulgences as an abuse of corrupt times. Whereas at the fame time a very different doctrine is taught among them, where there is no danger, but much profit, in owning it. All this is only a pretence; for the epifcopal power, in the inflicting, abating, or commuting of penance, is itated among them as a thing wholly different from the power of indulgences. They are derived from different originals; and defigned for ends totally different from one another. The one is for the outward difcipline of the Church, and the other is for the inward quiet of confciences; and in order to their future ftate. The one is in every Bishop, and the the other is afferted to be peculiar to the Pope. Nor will they efcape by laying this matter upon the ignorance and abufes of former times. It was published in bulls, and received by the whole Church: fo that if either the Pope, or the diffufive body of the Church are infallible, there must be fuch a power in the Pope; and the decree of the Council of Trent, confirming and approving the practice of the Church in that point, must bind them all. For if this doctrine is falfe, then their infallibility muft go with it; for in every hypothefis in which infallibility is faid to be lodged, whether in the Pope or in the Councils, this doctrine has that feal to it. As for the doctrine itself, all that has already been faid against the distinction of temporal and eternal punishment, and againft Purgatory, overthrows it; fince the one is the foundation on which it is built, and the other is that which it pretends to fecure men from; and therefore this falls with those. All that was said upon the head of the Sufficiency of the Scriptures comes alfo in here: for if the Scriptures ought to be our rule in any thing, it must be chiefly in thofe matters which relate to the pardon of fin, to the quiet of our confciences, and to a future ftate. Therefore a doctrine and practice that have not fo much as colours from Scripture in a matter of fuch confequence, ought to be rejected by us upon this fingle account. If from the Scripture we go to the practice and tradition of the Church, we are fure that this was not thought on for above ten centuries; all the indulgences that were then known, being only the abatements of the feverity of the penitentiary canons: but in the ages in which aspiring and infolent Popes imposed on ignorant and fuperftitious multitudes, a jumble was made of indulgences formerly granted, of Purgatory, and of the papal authority, that was then very implicitly fubmitted to; and so out of all that mixture this arofe; which was as ill managed as it was ill grounded. The natural tendency of it is not only to relax all publick difcipline, but alfo all fecret penance, when fhorter methods to peace and pardon may be more eafily purchafed. The vaft application to the executing the many trifling performances to which indulgences are granted, has brought in among them fuch a prostitution of holy things, that either it muft be faid that thofe are publick cheats, and that they were fo from the beginning, or that their virtue is now exhaufted, though the bulls that grant them are perpetual or elfe a man may on very easy terms preferve himself and redeem his friends out of Purgatory. If the saying a prayer before a privileged altar, or the vifiting fome churches in the time of jubilee, with those flight devotions that are then enjoined, have fuch efficacy in them, it is fcarce poffible for any man to be in danger of Purgatory. The A R t. XXII. |