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and the coral and the pearls-and the rubies, wherewith to purchase forgiveness? Weeping prophet of the Land of Benjamin, wherefore those touching lamentations over Israel's apostacy? Was there no gold in Zion? No gold to buy the precious Balm of Gilead? No gold to procure the aid of the good Physician? No gold to attract a gracious rain upon God's inheritance? No gold to purchase the bright shining of the SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS to dispel those mists of darkness o'er Salem's Hill?

TENTH ENQUIRY.

Does Christ in His Word teach, that there is a purgatory?

No! for

The word is not to be found anywhere.

Do Romanists in their writings teach, that there is a purgatory?

Yes! for

They have written:

"We constantly hold that there is a purgatory, and that the souls therein detained are helped by the suffrages of the faithful: that is, by the prayers and alms offered for them, and principally by the holy sacrifice of the mass."

"Q. What do you mean by purgatory

"A. A middle state of souls which depart this life

in God's grace, yet not without some lesser stains or guilt of punishment, which retards them from entering heaven. But as to the particular place where these souls suffer, or the quality of the torments which they suffer, the Church has decided nothing.

"Q. What sort of Christians, then, go to purgatory?

"A. First, such as die guilty of lesser sins, which we commonly call venial; as many Christians do, who, either by sudden death or otherwise, are taken out of this life before they have repented for these ordinary failings. Second, such as, having been formerly guilty of greater sins, have not made full satisfaction for them to divine justice." (The Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, contained in the Profession of Faith, published by Pope Pius the Fourth, by way of question and answer.)

"There is a purgatory fire, in which the souls of the faithful, being tormented for a certain time, are expiated, that so a passage may be opened for them into the eternal country, into which no defiled thing can enter." (Catechismus ad Parochos.)

Do Tractarians in their writings teach, that there is a purgatory?

Yes! for

They have written :

"Neither is all doctrine concerning purgatory, par

dons, images, and saints, condemned by the Article, but only the Romish."

"And further, by the Romish doctrine,' is not meant the Tridentine doctrine, because this Article was drawn up before the decree of the Council of Trent. What is opposed is the received doctrine of the day, and unhappily of this day too, or the doctrine of the Roman schools; a conclusion which is still more clear, by considering that there are portions in the Tridentine doctrine on these subjects, which the Article, FAR from CONDEMNING, by anticipation, APPROVES, as far as they go. For instance, the decree of Trent enjoins concerning purgatory thus: 'Among the uneducated vulgar, let difficult and subtle questions, which make not for edification, and seldom contribute aught towards piety, be kept back from popular discourses. Neither let them suffer the public mention and treatment of uncertain points, or such as look like falsehood."-Session 25. (Tracts for the Times.)

"1. As to the doctrine of the Romanists concerning purgatory. Now here there was a primitive doctrine, whatever its merits, concerning the fire of judgment, which is a possible or a probable opinion, and is not condemned. That doctrine is this: that the conflagration of the world, or the flames which attend the Judge, will be an ordeal through which all men will pass; that great saints, such as St. Mary, will pass it

unharmed; that others will suffer loss; but none will fail under it who are built upon the right foundation, Here is one doctrine concerning purgatory' not Romish.'

“Another doctrine, purgatorian, but not Romish, is that said to be maintained by the Greeks at Florence, in which the cleansing, though a punishment, was but a pœna damni, not a pœna sensûs; not a positive, sensible infliction, much less the torment of fire, but the absence of God's presence. And another purgatory is that in which the cleansing is but a progressive sanctification, and has no pain at all. None of these doctrines does the Article condemn ; any of them may be held by the Anglo-Catholic as a matter of private belief; not that they are here advocated, one or other, but they are adduced as an illustration of what the Article does not mean, and to vindicate our Christian liberty in a matter where the Church has not confined it." (Tracts for the Times.)

"The simple wording and apparent innocence of the decree by which it is made an article of faith."—(Tract 79, p. 3.)

"Such is the Roman doctrine, and taken in the mere letter, there is little in it against which we shall be able to sustain formal objections."—(Tract 79, p. 5.) "The cleansing efficacy of suffering."-(Wards few more Words, p. 84.)

G

"That a person may believe that there is a purgatory..'-(Tract 90, p. 25.)

Remarks.-How dismal and dreary the valley of the shadow of death, if it invariably leads to the unquenchable fire of hell. St. Thomas Aquinas and Bellarmin, both agree that the fire of purgatory, is the same fire that torments the damned in hell. Strange preparation for heaven-the society of the devil and his angels ! I should have thought that none but Satan himself could have dreamt of such a plan. plan. "The flames of Etna and Vesuvius were thought to have been kindled on purpose to torment departed souls. Some were seen broiling upon gridirons, others roasting upon spits,—some burning upon a fire, others shivering in the water, or smoking in a chimney. The very ways to purgatory were now discovered; one in Sicily, another in Pazzueto, a third nearer home, in Ireland." (Archbishop Wake.) The Church of Rome teaches, "that they build in that fiery place apartments for kings, princes, grandees, noblemen, merchants, and tradesmen, for ladies of quality, for gentlemen and tradesmen's wives, and for poor common people. These are the eight apartments which answer to the eight degrees of intense fire; and they make the people believe that the poor people only endure the last degree; the second being greater, is only for gentlewomen and tradesmen's wives, and so on to the eighth

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