sufferings of those men, who have no repentance of those sins for which they suffer. And if the papists will suppose the souls in purgatory to suffer the most grievous pains of it, without a deep repentance for the sins that brought them thither, they must make them very graceless wretches indeed, as like the damned in their wickedness, as they fancy them to be in their torments.

But to go on. Let us hear Justin Martyr again in that place which we have before in part cited out of his Dialogue with Trypho, p. 223. [p. 107.] where he brings in an old man, appearing to him in his philosophic retirement and solitude, (which some think to have been the address of a real man, others, an angelical apparition, others, only a fiction of a person usual in dialogues,) and teaching him the Christian doctrine, as of other things, so especially of man's soul, in opposition to the vain philosophy of Plato, on which he then doted. And of the soul he is thus said to have spoken: "I do not affirm that "all souls die; for this indeed would be advantageous to the wicked. What then? I say that "the souls of the godly remain in a certain better region, but unrighteous and wicked souls in an " evil one, there waiting for the time of judgment '.' Where the grave instructor manifestly undertakes to speak of all souls; and distributes the universality of souls only into two ranks, godly and wicked souls; and he allots but two places to these two sorts, a better region to the godly souls, and an evil one to the wicked; and lastly, he confines both sorts of souls to their respective places till the day of judg

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1 Τὸν τῆς κρίσεως ἐκδεχομένας χρόνον τότε.

ment.

He must be very dextrous at reconciling contradictions, that shall undertake to bring this doctrine to any accord with that of the Romanists concerning their purgatory. The same excellent author again in his second Apology (as it is reckoned in our vulgar editions) delivers this as the received doctrine of the catholic Christians of his time, p. 66. "that the souls of the wicked subsisting even after death, feel punishment; but the souls of good men "live happily free from punishments "." No good man therefore need fear a purgatory after death, if this scholar of the apostles, as he somewhere calls himself, were rightly taught.

I might lead you after the same manner through the writings of the following doctors of the first three hundred years, and by clear testimonies out of them make it evident, that although some of them had otherwise some odd conceits concerning the future state of men; yet not one of them ever acknowledged that purgatory, which the church of Rome hath imposed on the belief of Christians at this day. But the time bids me hasten to a conclusion.

The

I shall therefore only add one testimony more out of an author, that most probably lived after the third century, to shew, that even then the article of purgatory was a stranger to the church of God. author of the Questions and Answers to the Orthodox, in his answer to the seventy-fifth question, having said, that in this life there is no difference as to worldly concerns between the righteous and the wicked, he immediately adds: "But after death,

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Κολάζεσθαι ἐν αἰσθήσει καὶ μετὰ θάνατον οὖσας τὰς τῶν ἀδίκων ψυχάς. τὰς δὲ τῶν σπουδαίων ἀπηλλαγμένας τῶν τιμωριῶν εὖ διάγειν. [Apol. I. 20. p. 55.]

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"Evbùs, presently the righteous are separated from "the unrighteous; for they are carried by angels "into their meet places. And the souls of the right"eous are conveyed into paradise, where they enjoy "the conversation and sight of angels and arch

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angels, and of our Saviour Christ also by way of "vision: according to what is said, when we are "absent from the body, we are present with the "Lord. But the souls of the unrighteous are car"ried to the infernal regions, &c. And they" (that is, both sorts of souls)" are kept in their meet places "till the day of the resurrection and recompense." I will not dishonour any of your understandings so far, as to think any explanation necessary, to shew you, how this testimony makes directly against the fable of purgatory.

In a word, the true rise and growth of the doctrine of purgatory is plainly this. About the middle of the third century, Origen, among other Platonic conceits of his, vented this, that all the faithful (the apostles themselves not excepted) shall at the day of judgment pass through a purgatory fire, the fire of the great conflagration, which they shall endure for a longer or shorter time, according as their imperfections require a greater or lesser purgation. And in this conceit, directly contrary to many express texts of Scripture, he was followed for the greatness of his name by some other great men in the church of God. But how different this purgatory is from

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[Some of Origen's opinions concerning the state of the soul after death may be seen in the following places: de Princip. II. p. 106. de Oratione, c. 11. p. 215. c. Celsum, VIII. 44. p. 774. in Levit. Hom. VII. 2. p. 222. in Reg. Hom. II. ad fin. p. 498. in Psalm. IX. 18. p. 587. in Psalm. Hom. III. 1. p. 663, 664.]

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the Roman, every man of sense will presently discern. Afterwards, about the end of the fourth, or the beginning of the fifth century, St. Austin began to doubt, whether this imagined purgation were not to be made in the interval between death and the resurrection, at least as to the souls of the more imperfect Christians. And it is strange to observe, how he is off and on in this question. And yet it is not strange neither, considering how easily he may, nay how necessarily he must be at a loss, that leaves the plain and beaten path of the holy Scriptures and primitive tradition, to hunt after his own conceits and imaginations. Towards the end of the fifth century, pope Gregory, a man known to be superstitious enough, undertook dogmatically to assert the problem, and with might and main set himself to prove it, chiefly from the idle stories of apparitions of souls coming out of purgatory. Four hundred years after, pope John the Eighteenth, or, as some say, the Nineteenth, instituted a holyday, wherein he severely required all men to pray for the souls in purgatory as if the catholic church before him had been deficient in their charity, and forgotten the miserable souls in that place of torment. At length the cabal at Florence, in the year 1439, turned the dream into an article of faith, so that now they are damned to hell, that will not believe a purgatory: and the pope's vassals still tenaciously hold and fiercely maintain the doctrine, not so much for the godliness as for the gain of it.

I have now said all that I can think necessary concerning the state of separate souls, good and bad, keeping myself from all needless curiosities, within

the bounds of the holy Scriptures, and the received doctrine of the primitive catholic church.

The sum of all is this. All good men without exception are in the whole interval between their death and resurrection, as to their souls, in a very happy condition; but after the resurrection they shall be yet more happy, receiving then their full reward, their perfect consummation of bliss, both in soul and body, the most perfect bliss they are capable of, according to the divers degrees of virtue through the grace of God on their endeavours, attained by them in this life. On the other side, all the wicked as soon as they die are very miserable as to their souls; and shall be yet far more miserable, both in soul and body, after the day of judgment, proportionably to the measure of sins committed by them here on earth. This is the plain doctrine of the holy Scriptures, and of the church of Christ in its first and best ages, and this we may trust to. Other inquiries there are of more uncertainty than use, and we ought not to trouble or perplex ourselves about them.

But least of all are we fiercely to dispute about the places of separate souls where determinately they are stated. We should rather imitate here the modesty of the apostolic doctors, who (as you have heard) were content to say of the souls of men, both good and bad, after death, that they are gone to their own proper places, to their due places, to their meet places, to places appointed by God for them.

I shall now conclude with a brief and serious application.

First, This discourse is matter of abundant consolation to all good men, when death approacheth them.