the pain produced by fire. We will add that, according to Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas, whose opinion is generally adopted (dont le sentiment est assez suivi), the pains of purgatory sur- pass those of this life : " Poena purgatorii," says the angelic Doc- tor,1 " quantum ad pcenam damni et sensus,. excedit omnem pcenam istius vitse."
Cardinal Wiseman,2 in his lecture on this subject, speaks in the mildest terms. He says nothing of the pains of purgatory except that they are pains. The satisfaction for sin demanded by the Church of Rome, to be rendered in this world, consists of prayers, fastings, almsgiving, and the like ; and we are told that if this satisfaction be not made before death, it must be made after it. This is all that the Cardinal ventures to say. He has not courage to lift the veil from the burning lake in which the souls in purga- tory are represented as suffering, according to the common faith of Romanists. Although it is true that the Church of Rome has wisely abstained from any authoritative decision as to the nature and intensity of purgatorial sufferings, it does not thereby escape responsibility on the subject. It allows free circulation with ec- clesiastical sanction, expressed or implied, of books containing the most frightful exhibitions of the sufferings of purgatory which the imagination of man can conceive. This doctrine, therefore, how- ever mildly it may be presented in works designed for Protestant readers, is nevertheless a tremendous engine of priestly power. The feet of the tiger with the claws withdrawn are as soft as vel- vet ; when those claws are extended, they are fearful instruments of laceration and death.
Arguments used in favour of the Doctrine, 1. Romanists make comparatively little use of Scripture in de- fence of their peculiar doctrines.3 Their main support is tradition
1 See Aquinas, Summa, in. xlvi. 6, 3.
2 Lectures on the Principal Doctrines and Practices of the Catholic Church. By Cardi- nal Wiseman. Two volumes in one. Sixth American from the last London edition. Re- vised and Corrected. Baltimore, 1870. Lecture XL On Satisfaction and Purgatory.
8 Cardinal Wiseman says: " I have more than once commented on the incorrectness of that method of arguing which demands that we prove every one of our doctrines individ- ually from the Scriptures. I occupied myself, during my first course of lectures, in dem- onstrating the Catholic principle of faith that the Church of Christ was constituted by Him the depositary of his truths, and that, although many were recorded in his holy word, still many were committed to traditional keeping, and that Christ Himself has faithfully prom- ised to teach in his Church, and has thus secured her from error." Lectures, ut supra, xi. vol. ii. p. 45. This resolves all controversies with Romanists into two questions. First, what is the prerogative of the Church as a teacher; and secondly, is the Church of Rome, or any other external organized body, the body of Christ to which the prerogatives and oromises of the Church belong ?
752 PART IV. Ch. L — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
and the authority of the Church. Cardinal Wiseman cites but two passages from the New Testament in favour of the doctrine of purgatory. The first is our Lord's saying that the sin against the Holy Ghost shall never be forgiven either in this world or in the world to come. This is said to imply that there are sins which are not forgiven in this life which may be forgiven hereafter ; and therefore that the dead, or at least a part of their number, are not past forgiveness when they die. This is a slender thread on which to hang so great a weight. The words of Christ contain no such implication. To say that a thing can never happen either here or hereafter, in this world or in the world to come, is a fa- miliar way of saying that it can never happen under any circum- stances. Our Lord simply said that blasphemy of the Holy Ghost can never be forgiven. The other passage is from Revelation xxi. 27, where it said that nothing that defileth shall enter heaven. But as very few, if any of the human family, are perfectly pure when they die, it follows that, if there be no place or. process of purification after death, few if any of the sons of men could be saved ; or, as Cardinal Wiseman puts the argument, " Suppose that a Christian dies who had committed some slight transgression ; he cannot enter heaven in this state, and yet we cannot suppose that he is to be condemned forever. What alternative, then, are we to admit ? Why, that there is some place in which the soul will be purged of the sin, and qualified to enter into the glory of God." * But does not the blood of Christ cleanse from all sin ? Were not the sins of Paul all forgiven the moment he believed ? Did the penitent thief enter purgatory instead of paradise ? To minds trained under the influence of evangelical doctrine, such ar- guments as the above cannot have the slightest weight.
2. Great stress is laid upon the fact that the custom of praying for the dead prevailed early and long in the Church. Such prayers take for granted that the dead need our prayers ; and this supposes that they are not in heaven. But if not in heaven where can they be except in a preparatory or purgatorial state ? To this it may be answered, (1.) That praying for the dead is a superstitious practice, having no support from the Bible. It was one of the corruptions early introduced into the Church. It will not do to argue from one corruption in support of another. (2.) Those who vindicate the propriety of praying for the dead are often strenuous opposers of the doctrine of purgatory. Dr. Pusey, for example, says : " Since Rome has blended the cruel in
1 Lectures, ut supra, vol. ii. p. 49.