after in purgatory, before that the entrance to the heavenly kingdom can be opened, let him be accursed." And again, in their canon of the mass they resolve-"If any one shall say that the mass is not a propitiatory sacrifice, or that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead, for their sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities, let him be accursed."

In support of the doctrine of purgatory, which they adopted from the ancient pagan philosophers and poets, they bring several texts from the Book of Maccabees. And on Woolfrey's tombstone, the inscription is taken from that apocryphal book: "It was a holy and good thought to pray for the dead." But the apocryphal books are not canonical scripture, and never were received into the canon by the Jewish Church, not even by the Roman Church itself, till it became necessary to establish the doctrine of purgatory, when the Books of Macabees giving some countenance to prayers for the dead, it became necessary to make them canonical. In virtue of the pope's omnipotence and infallibility, he exercised his authority backward, and decided for the Jews that the Aprocrypha made part of their canon of Scripture, although the Jewish Church never admitted it, neither do the Jews admit it to this day as canonical. St. Jerome, in his prefaces to several of the books of holy Scripture, expressly excludes the books of the Apocrypha from the canon of holy Scripture; but says, as the Church of England says, that though the Church does read them, as good and holy books, and containing many excellent precepts of morality, yet that she does not receive them into the canon of holy Scripture, or think them sufficient to have any doctrine of faith proved by them. These prefaces are prefixed to the vulgar Latin Bible, and contain a flat contradiction to the pope's infallible decree. Jerome flourished in the fifth century, and before purgatory was dreamed of, and as the opinion of Judas Maccabees was not then required to prop up their heathen doctrines, his books were not at that time allowed to be canonical.

" 2

In her sixth article, the Church of England expressly rejects the Apocrypha, and cites the above words of Jerome. How is it likely that any Christian man, believing in the divinity of the Holy Ghost, could allow the Book of Maccabees, on which the doctrine of purgatory is chiefly built, to be written by His inspiration, when we find the author making the following apology for the weakness of his own performance:- "And here I will make an end. And if I have done well, and as is fitting the story, it is that which is desired; but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto." All Scripture was written by inspiration; but there can be no Divine inspiration where the author requires to apologise for the slenderness and meanness of his performance, and say, it was the best to which he was able to attain. It seems little short of blasphemy in the Council of Trent, to ascribe such an apology to the dictation of the Holy Spirit; yet to serve the purpose of a lucrative system, that council, which dared to curse the Catholic Church, has ascribed it to the inspiration of God. Christ gave his testimony

2 Maccabees, 'xii. 45.

Ibid, xv. 37, 38.

in confirmation of the Old Testament, and his apostles always appealed to the ancient Scriptures, as they were received and kept by the Jewish Church; but neither Christ nor his apostles ever cited or appealed to the Apocrypha, and it was never acknowledged by the primitive Church. The Council of Trent determined the Apocrypha to be canonical and inspired Scripture, and asserted the equality of their traditions with Scripture; " and perceiving that this truth and discipline are contained in written books and in unwritten tradition, which being received by the apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Holy Spirit, dictating to the apostles, has reached even to us, as though it were transmitted by hand; following the examples of the orthodox fathers, receives and venerates with the same affection and reverence all the books of the Old and New Testament, since our God is the author of both, and also of traditions themselves, relating both to faith and morals, which have been, as it were, orally declared, either by Christ or by the Holy Spirit, and preserved by continual succession by the (Roman) Catholic Church." The Canon then enumerates the canonical books, and adds some of those of the Apocrypha, particularly the Books of the Maccabees, concluding, as usual, with a curse. "But if any one shall not receive these same books entire, with all their parts, as they are wont to be read in the Catholic Church, and in the old Latin Vulgate edition, for sacred and canonical, and shall knowingly and intentionally despise the traditions aforesaid, let him be accursed."1

Purgatory is an ancient heathen delusion, which being found to work on the fears of the superstitious, has been turned to a most profitable account by the Romish Church, by which means the priesthood fleece the laity of immense sums of money for masses, which they pretend, when they are said with the intention of the priest to serve the deceased, will remove the tormented soul from purgatorial flames to the realms of bliss. By alarming the dying, the Romish priests extort vast sums of money from the rich, for the delivery of their souls from this imaginary place of penal suffering. The poor, who are unable to pay for the relief of their deceased friends, have been associated into purgatory societies, under priestly management, and the members pay a small annual contribution, which entitles them to a certain number of masses to be said for the delusion of delivering their souls from purgatory, and which are paid for by this society. A Romish priest will in no instance offer mass for the soul of any one, unless he is paid beforehand; and there are instances on record of their accepting the money, but neglecting the duty which it was designed to purchase; thus practically giving the lie to their own imposture. It is a wicked and dangerous delusion under which men die in their sins, in the vain and delusive hope of the efficacy of the prayers of their surviving relatives and the solitary masses of a treacherous priest, through whose offices they believe that they shall escape the punishment due to unrepented sins. But they err greatly, not knowing the Scriptures, for without holiness in this life no man can see the Lord.

There is no vindictive temporal punishment due to sin after its

1 Sess. IV. Percival's Roman Schism, 159.

any

eternal punishment has been forgiven; and therefore there is no necessity that the souls of men should pass through purgatorial fire for the payment of any part of such punishment. Those who die in Christ have been reconciled to God through his merits; and the time of further amendment is passed away, "for in death there is no remembrance of God; in the grave who shall give thee thanks ?" 1 This imaginary place of torment is utterly needless; yet the Papists persist in asserting the reality of its existence; indeed, having once asserted it, their other doctrine of infallibility requires that they should still maintain it. We utterly deny that the Scriptures anywhere inform us of any such place wherein those who have departed in the fear and faith of the Lord, are forced to undergo torments preparatory for their future happiness. On this subject, the doctrine of the Church of England is clear and express; which she unequivocally expresses in her sublime burial-service :-" Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity." If the souls of those who die in the Lord are in joy and felicity, and rest from their labours, as the Scriptures certainly affirm, then the existence of a purgatory must be a blasphemous fable, a vain deceit. Scripture compares our life to a race, a pilgrimage: and when we lay down this earthly tabernacle, we are said to have finished our course, to have fought a good fight, to cease from afflictions and combats, and to enter upon our rest. But the Popish doctrine of purgatory is a palpable contradiction of the Scripture; and like many other of their doctrines, it is based on lies and delusion. If purgatory be true, as the Romanists assert, then they flatly contradict-our Saviour's assertion, that immediately on his death angels carried the soul of Lazarus into Abraham's bosom,-and his gracious promise to the penitent thief, that he should be with him in paradise that very night. Now, in his case there was neither time nor opportunity for the penitent" to make satisfaction by worthy fruits of penance," he was baptized in his own blood, and purged from all his former sins by the blood of his Redeemer, and went directly into "joy and felicity."

The fable of purgatory dishonours our Saviour and Mediator, by implying that his mediation and satisfaction are imperfect; and is directly opposed to that article of the creed, which the Church is commanded to teach to the end of the world-the remission of sins. But there can be no remission of sins, if it were true that the just, immediately on their death, entered into torments of indefinite length, and from which there is no escape, but by the intention of a Romish priest and the money of their relatives. The Anglican Christian, who believes a purer faith, and takes the inspired writings of the Old and New Testament for his guide in matters of faith, knows, from that source and the teaching of the Church, that the dead in Christ have peace with God. In his last moments, when about to yield up his soul into the hands of his Creator, he has no vain fears of purgatorial fire, neither is he tormented with the apprehension that careless relatives, or faithless priests, can prevent his being with Christ.

1 Psalm vi. 5.

BISHOP JOLLY AND THE SUNDAY SERVICES.1

late venerable That task has

WE do not notice this excellent little work of the Bishop of Moray for the purpose of reviewing it. been rendered superfluous by the general acceptance the work has met with among Church-people, both in Scotland and England. We would merely say, that if there be any of our readers so unfortunate as to be still unacquainted with it, they will find in it a harmony of the Service de tempore for every Sunday in the year; viz., the Proper Lessons, Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, indicating the points of coincidence with each other and with the season; showing," why the Church did appoint them to be that day read," as was the practice of the divine Herbert to do in his sermons, and enforcing the combined lesson resulting from the whole in language most remarkably distinguished by its apostolic simplicity and its unction, while the book is throughout replete with the very spirit of the Catholic Church; a spirit as much higher than any that animates, or is fostered by the religionism of the age, as divine truth is higher than human systems, the "heavenly Jerusalem" than the fabric of man's building, the pure atmosphere of the saints than the foggy exhalations of sectarism.

This second edition, independently of the Memoir, is greatly improved in respect of typography and neatness of getting up, though we think the publishers have erred in making it too high-priced, which is likely to operate against its circulation among those classes to whom it would be specially useful. The frontispiece is disgraced by a paltry print, which, as a likeness, is a complete caricature of the good bishop. And then, how strangely he is described,-" One of the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Communion in Scotland"! Not so much as the "Protestant Episcopal Church;" communion merely, just as one may speak of the Presbyterian communion, the Methodist communion, the Independent communion, &c. Bishops of the Church we have heard of, but bishops of the communion is something new, we take it, in ecclesiastical language. The designation is, indeed, copied from the first edition; but here we have the Bishop of Edinburgh describing himself as James Walker, D. D., Bishop and Primus! Bishop of what? It used to be a principle in the Church, that no bishop should be consecrated without a relation to a particular diocese; and time was in the Scottish Church, when the most learned man in it maintained, that if there were no diocesan bishops the whole national Church was vacant,”—that bishops at large "could claim no manner of title to any particular

1 Observations upon the several Sunday Services prescribed by the Liturgy throughout the year, being an humble attempt to illustrate the Doctrinal as well as Devotional tendency of each, furnishing matter of devout reflection to the sincere Christian. By the Right Rev. Alexander Jolly, D. D., one of the Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Communion in Scotland. To which is prefixed a brief Memoir, by the Right Rev. James Walker, D. D., Bishop and Primus. London, Leslie. 1839.

church, diocese, or district within the kingdom, and having no title to any jurisdiction over any part, they could have none over the whole." What do the bishops in Scotland mean by sinking the title, which indicates their jurisdiction? Is it not from their possessing lawful jurisdiction, each in his own diocese, that makes it schism for priest or bishop to set up altar against them? Why not assume the designation which marks their right? Are they so fallen in spirit as to admit the legality of their deprivation by a lay and schismatical power, or so Erastian as to recognize in the state the source of ecclesiastical jurisdiction? Modesty, we believe, and an unwillingness to assume, even in appearance, the attributes of lordly prelacy, are the real causes which have led the Scottish bishops to this apparent relinquishment of their undoubted right. Modesty well becomes their primitive character and position; but it is a false modesty that shrinks from the imputation of assumption when a great principle is concerned. How very odd appears the ratification of the late Canons! We have five prelates subscribing themselves indefinitely "Bishop;" then follow the names of Heneage Horsley, Dean of Brechin; John Torry, Dean of Dunkeld; John Cumming, Dean of Aberdeen, &c.; each taking the title of his bishop's see, which the bishop himself, on the firmest ground of principle, has a right to assume in the face of all the world, and which he ought to assume as a testimony against lay deprivation and against schismatics, whether Protestant or Papist. We have dwelt more than enough, perhaps, upon what some will think an empty title; a thing on which we would set as little value as the humble prelates of the Scottish Church, were we not thoroughly convinced that dropping the name is a great step towards effacing the recollection of the thing.

We proceed now to abbreviate the brief, but interesting, Memoir which Bishop Walker has prefixed to the work of his venerable friend. Alexander Jolly was born at Stonehaven, in the county of Kincardine, on the 3d of April, 1755, where he was brought up under the care of pious parents, and the pastoral guidance of the Rev. Alexander Greig. At school and at college he applied himself with such indefatigable assiduity to his studies, as to be distinguished among his companions for his classical acquirements, while the heavenly seed implanted in his soul at baptism, was preserved and fostered by a persevering and progressive course of holiness. From the earliest dawn of reason, he seems to have devoted himself to the service of the Church. He was ordained deacon by Bishop Kilgour, at Peterhead, on the 1st July, 1776, and priest by the same prelate on the 19th March, 1777, and in the same year was inducted into the pastoral charge at Turriff, in the county of Aberdeen, where he remained till 1788, when he removed to Fraserburgh in the same county. His mode of life is thus described: "To his books he was devoted, rising both in winter and summer at four o'clock in the morning, and dividing his day till eleven at night, when he went to bed, in such a way, with various reading, as that the portion of one division might relieve the weariness of the former. The time between his moderate dinner and his favourite beverage, tea, was gene

1 See Essay on the Church, by Dr. Thomas Rattray. Edin. 1728, p. 59.

VOL. I.

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