sins which He has already pardoned-and by imposing the tortures of the reprobate and of devils on those who are "just" and "holy," and "washed from all defilement," and whose souls are "refulgent with divine beauty!"

Can it be a matter of surprise even to yourself, that we reject such doctrine, as most highly injurious to God? I cannot understand how it is possible, that with such facts as these before the world, you can venture to appeal to our sense of the "justice" of God in connection with the doctrine of Purgatory. You are " at a loss to conceive what can be considered in it repugnant to the justice of God." We are equally at a loss to imagine, how the justice of God can be believed by those who embrace the doctrine of Purgatory, as generally taught and held in the Church of Rome.

But further according to your doctrine, the punishment of Purgatory is required by the unsatisfied JUSTICE of God. The infinite atonement offered by our Lord Jesus Christ is, it seems, insufficient to satisfy the demands of Divine Justice. No : after that atonement has been applied to the soul, and has produced its full justification and sanctification, Divine Justice still remains unsatisfied! What then, we would ask, is the benefit of Christ's atonement for sin, if it does not satisfy the JUSTICE of God? If that justice be not satisfied by the merits of Christ applied in justification, we may say with the Apostle, "Your faith is vain, ye are yet in your

sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." (1 Cor. xv. 18, 19.) The doctrine of Purgatory, therefore, subverts our hope of salvation. It leaves the justified without any shield against the demands of infinite and awful justice. Let it not be alleged, in reply, that the justice of God is partially appeased by the merits of Christ applied in justification, but that it has further demands on us; for this still subverts our belief in the infinite value of Christ's atonement: it assumes most unwarrantably, that the demands of infinite justice are capable of division: it leaves us in total uncertainty as to the amount of the demands which Divine justice may have upon us: in fine, in admitting that it has any demands on us at all, it shakes our confidence in the atonement of our Lord it teaches us to look away from that atonement, and to place our confidence in other things which still remain, to save us from the tremendous inflictions of a justice and a wrath which not even the death of the incarnate Deity could appease ! Oh, how frail, how fearful is this hope! How would the repentant and justified sinner shudder to find himself on the brink of this precipice, with the tortures of HELL before him, and with nothing to satisfy the demands of Divine justice—nothing to appease the terrors of Divine wrath, except some of his own works and observances in the few years of sin and infirmity which he spends in this life! What can be the value of those breathings and

actings of a worm? Can they satisfy that justice which God Himself, "manifest in the flesh," has failed to satisfy? Can they afford any ground of hope, when the very sacrifice of Christ, from which they derive whatever worth they may claim, is itself pronounced insufficient to meet the demands of divine justice?

But this, Sir, is not the whole of your received doctrine on the point. I have already shewn that you, and all Romish theologians teach, as a matter of course, that temporal punishments inflicted on the justified, whether in this world or in Purgatory, are necessary to appease the "wrath," the " anger," and the "vengeance" of an offended God. You believe, therefore, that God is full of wrath and revenge towards the souls in Purgatory; and yet you believe, as I have shewn in this letter, that those very souls are just, holy, full of faith, hope, and charity; well-pleasing to God, and refulgent with divine beauty! Is not this something like blasphemy? I am sure that Romanists have no intention whatever to teach any doctrines which can be in any degree injurious to God. I am equally certain that they rarely think of comparing the doctrine of Purgatory with that of Justification. But the result of their doctrine is simply this: that the Saints are pursued by the Divine hatred and revenge! I would now ask you, whether you can much wonder at the repugnance with which your

a Letter II. p. 39-41.

doctrine of Purgatory is viewed; and I would still more solemnly and earnestly enquire, whether it is possible that such a doctrine can be true?

b

Your writers endeavour to obviate the prejudice which must be excited against the doctrine of Purgatory when understood, by representing that the punishment thus inflicted, is, after all, somewhat milder than that of hell; for as Dens says, "It is much alleviated by the friendship of God, and the certainty of obtaining glory, and by resignation to the most just will of God "." But let me ask, how can those souls feel consolation from the "friendship" of God, when, according to your doctrine, they are still subjects of His "justice," His "wrath,” His "anger," and His " vengeance?" And what reason is there to maintain that souls in Purgatory are "certain of obtaining glory," when the "justice" of God, which demands eternal punishment, still remains unsatisfied? It is imagined that their future happiness is made known to them by revelation in their particular judgment after death, and before the general judgment; and that such souls know that they have continued in a state of grace and will therefore be finally saved. But Sir, according to your received doctrine, they know equally well, that they are subject to the demands of God's justice and wrath; and they have just as much reason therefore to think, that they shall be saved for a time, and finally punished; as to think that they

shall be punished for a time and finally saved. In short, Sir, "resignation" is the only consolation remaining to such souls; and easy as it may be to be resigned to the inflictions of a loving Father—a reconciled God; it is not so easy to feel resignation under the punishments of an angry and wrathful God. If it were so, we might suppose that the punishments of the damned and of devils may be alleviated by resignation. No: resignation was never intended to be exercised in diminishing the demands of justice and of vengeance. It is in vain, therefore, that any attempt is made to draw distinctions between the punishments of Hell and of Purgatory; and this attempt is at once entirely and utterly subverted, by the direct assertions of Benedict XIV., Bellarmine, Cajetan, Dens, and others, that the punishment of Purgatory "IS THE VERY SAME AS THAT OF HELL, its eternity only being removed."

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The answer of Romanists to all this may be readily anticipated. They will exclaim: "This is not our belief: it has never been defined by the Church: it is no where to be found written in express terms in the Council of Trent: we are therefore not required to believe it." In this manner they would gladly relieve themselves from the imputation of such errors, and from the legitimate prejudices which they are calculated to excite.

But they cannot escape under these pretexts; for I admit indeed that the whole mass of doctrine on