support of some of the propositions they maintain, either that the soul sleeps insensibly between death and the resurrection, or else enters into the highest heavens or the hell of punishment before the judgment, or invent a trial and decision on each soul at death; which last, by the way, the Roman Catholic disputant would readily agree to, and refer to the belief of his church and her traditions for its truth.

It is not sufficient to prove that there is no state of purification for souls-no flames, spiritual or material, figurative or real, to fit sinners for heaven on their leaving the earth; we must prevent the Middle State, which Scripture confirms, from being held synonymous with the other, on which that Book is silent; and prove that the latter cannot be true, from its nature being at utter variance with the state of which we read.

The Protestant and the Romanist, in their respective churches, while arguing any disputed tenet of their absent opponent's creed, generally consider no arguments but those in their own favour, or only those of the other party which they can readily overthrow-the one leaving out of view any intermediate state entirely, and the other studiously bringing it forward at first without entering on its nature. In order to arrive at the truth, we ought to consider all that can be said on both sides, and give the arguments of those who differ from us their proper weight. Are we afraid to grant a middle state, as so many of our fellow protestant brethren have done? No.-Let us acknowledge it at once, and show that it can never be changed by tradition or any thing else into what the Church of Rome has attempted to do, for reasons which shall soon be made evident.

In 1687, the Rev. Dr. Sherlock wrote A summary of the principal Controversies between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, being a Vindication of several Protestant Doctrines, &c. wherein he fully, clearly, and plainly proves the Middle State as contradistinguished from purgatory.

"There are several of the Protestant Divines," says Dr. Burnet, "who will allow of no middle state of souls, through an apprehension of purgatory. Thus, when we would avoid

one bad extreme, such is the folly of mankind, we often run into another as vicious, and more blameable. It is sufficiently known, that the Papistical purgatory is a human invention, adapted to the capacity of the people, and the advantage of priests; nor will we, through apprehension of this phantom, desert the doctrine of the ancients concerning the imperfect and unfinished happiness or misery of human souls before the day of judgment."*

In Nelson's Life of Bishop Bull, while alluding to the sermons left by this great divine to be published after his death, the author observes :-"There are some points handled in this collection, which at first sight, and from a superficial view, may be thought to border too much upon curiosity, but if the reader brings that attention and seriousness which such subjects require from us, he will find that they are primitive truths, which have their proper use and advantage in the conduct of the Christian life.

"As for instance, he hath not only asserted, but plainly proved from the holy Scriptures, and the concurrent testimony of the Catholic Church in the purest ages-That the souls of men subsist after death, in certain places of abode provided for them till the resurrection of their bodies, and that the said intermediate state allotted to them by God, is either happy or miserable, as they have been good or bad in their past lives.' Now, as this is matter of great terror to all wicked men, who shall immediately after death be consigned to a place and state of misery, in a dreadful expectation of greater punishments at the judgment of the great day; so it affordeth abundance of consolation to those who die in the Lord, and are entered upon their rest; not a stupid insensible rest, but a rest attended with a lively perception of far greater joy and delight than this world is acquainted with; in a comfortable hope of a large increase of happiness, at the second coming of the Lord of glory. But, if there was no other use to be made of this doctrine than to guard us from the corruptions of Popery, I should

* De Statu Mortuorum. (Translated in the text.)

think it established to very good purpose. And certainly it appeareth very manifest, that it was a part of the primitive faith to believe, that the souls of the best of men subsisted after death in separate places of rest and refreshment, and did not enjoy the beatific vision till after the resurrection of their bodies; I say, it is evident from this principle, that the foundation for the invocation of saints is overthrown; for they are represented to us by our adversaries of the Roman Communion, as seeing all things in Speculo Trinitatis; and we are encouraged by them from that motive to offer up our prayers, and to make our addresses to the saints; so that if they are not admitted as yet to read in the glass of the Trinity, they have according to this principle no way of knowing those prayers which are made to them.

"Again, if it be true that the souls of the righteous do after death subsist in certain mansions of happiness till the resurrection, then what foundation can there be for any such fire of purgatory as is pretended for the purgation of the spirits of the faithful by the Church of Rome? Or what grounds can there be for that furnace, which she hath heated as necessary to purify almost all that go out of this life, though with the sign of faith; even for a purgatory, the pains whereof are by many of her divines represented to us as equal to those of hell, their duration only excepted? Or for such prayers for departed souls as tend to supplicate their deliverance from a place of grievous torment? Those of the ancient church being only for such as were at peace, and who rest in Christ, but those who are exposed to the pains of purgatory cannot certainly be said to enjoy those advantages."

The Romanists rest their doctrine of Purgatory partly on Scripture; partly on tradition; and, as they also add, partly on reason. From which of these it is principally derived, we cannot tell, but neither of the latter can be any authority whatever, if directly contradicted by the first. Their traditions are often so vague and differently represented, even among themselves, that we cannot be supposed to know

well what faith they place in them, especially when we find such various versions of them in books generally accredited by the Popish Church. We hear of no ancient and distinct record of them, and the modern ones differing so much from each other, (one party denying some doctrine or tenets to be authorised by their Church, another expressly admitting them as so,) that all attempts to ascertain correctly what such traditions really do say, is in vain; and when we ask where we may actually find those they depend on, we can only hear

"An echo answer, where?"

Their verbal opinions regarding these are still more perplexing. I shall not, however, overlook the traditions which they commonly refer to, or refuse to enter into their arguments from reason for the existence of Purgatory; but, although, like thin ice, they may glitter and seem sufficient when first glanced at, to bear weighty matter, yet they will be found to give way under us, if their strength be tried by the test of impartial inquiry.

As the Church of Rome pretends to have received by oral tradition, doctrines derived from the Apostles, the Jewish doctors had the same plea, and referred their traditions up to Moses. The Jews had the writings of Moses and the Prophets, and the Romanists have the Old and New Testaments; but neither the Jews nor the Papists allow their Scriptures to be a complete rule, both having recourse to tradition, to supply what they suppose wanting in these sacred books. The latter people ought to consider how our Saviour treated this pretence of the Jewish Church. He speaks of them as human inventions; as doctrines of their own; "Laying aside the commandment of God," says he, "ye hold the tradition of men,' "* and again-"Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition." And in the following verses, he manifestly considered the written law of Moses as the com

Matt. vii. 8.

+ Ibid. Verse 9.

The proper authority for Doctrines in Religion.

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mandment of God, and the traditions of the elders as the law of men, and of their own making. To the Scriptures our Lord constantly appealed; he bade his hearers search them, and said that they erred from not knowing these writings; having allowed their traditions to supersede them. He plainly told them that the Law and the Prophets contained the whole of their religion before his time, and that they had no other rule to go by. The Scribes and Pharisees asked him—" Why do thy disciples transgress the traditions of the elders?"* The very question this which is daily put to us by the Church of Rome. But hear our Saviour's answer

"Why do you also transgress the commandments of God by your tradition?" A reply which the Roman priesthood should consider well, for they are much concerned in it. Do we want better authority than that of Christ to reject the traditions of men, and to hold fast the doctrines of the Gospel?

In The Douay Catechism, it is asked—“ Why may not the letter of the Scripture be a decisive judge of controversies?

"Ans. Because it has never yet been able, from the first writing of it, to decide any one, as the whole world doth experience all heretics pretending equally to it, for the defence of their novelties and heresies, and no one of them ever yet yielded to another.

"Quest. How then can we be assured of the truth in points controverted?

"Ans. By the infallible authority, definition, and proposition of the Catholic Church."

Such language has been loudly reprehended, but the last answer assumes little more power or infallibility than what every Christian Church does in some degree claim, with regard, at least, to its own members. All of them affirm that their peculiar as well as general doctrines are strictly founded on the Scriptures, and the Romanists merely claim additional evidence to this great Record of some of theirs, and sources

Matt. xv. 2.

T