Satisfactory to the Church as evidences of repentance, and satis- factory to God's justice, are two very different things, which Romanists have confounded. Besides, how does it follow, be- cause the visible Church has control of the discipline of its mem- bers, in this life, that it has control of the souls of men in the life to come ? Yet Romanists reason from the one to the other.
3. Another decisive argument against the doctrine of purgatory is drawn from the abuses to which it has led, and which are its inevitable, being its natural consequences. It is d priori evident that a power committed to weak and sinful men which is safe in no other hands but those of God Himself, must lead to the most dreadful abuses. The doctrine, as we have seen, is, (1.) That the priest has power to remit or retain, the penalty of eternal death denounced against all sin. (2.) That he (or the appro- priate organ of the Church) has power to alleviate, to shorten, or to terminate, the sufferings of souls in purgatory. That this power should fail to be abused, in the hands of the best of men, is impossible. Vested in the hands of ordinary men, as must be generally the case, or in the hands of mercenary and wicked men, imagination can set no limit to its abuse ; and imagination can hardly exceed the historical facts in the case. This is not a matter of dispute. Romanists themselves admit the fact. Cardinal Wise- man acknowledges that " flagrant and too frequent abuses, doubt- less, occurred through the avarice, and rapacity, and impiety of men ; especially when indulgence was granted to the contrib- utors towards charitable or religious foundations, in the erection of which private motives too often mingle." 1 The reader must be referred to the pages of history for details on this subject. The evils which have in fact flowed from this doctrine of purga- tory and of the priestly power of retaining or remitting sin, are such as to render it certain that no such doctrine can be of God.
4. Romanists, however, confidently appeal, in support of their doctrine, to the express declaration of Christ, " Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them ; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained." (John xx. 23.) To the same effect it is said, in Matthew xvi. 19, " I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." The first remark to be made on these passages is, that whatever power is granted in them to the Apostles, is granted in Matthew xviii. 18 to all Chris-
1 Lectures, ut supra, xii. ; vol. ii. p. 75.
762 PART IV. Ch. L — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
tians, or, at least, to every association of Christians which consti- tutes a Church. " If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone : if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church : but if he neg- lect to hear the Church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Verily, I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven : and whatsoever ye shall loose- on earth shall be loosed in heaven." This power, therefore, of binding and loosing, whatever it was, was not vested exclusively in the Apostles and their successors, but in the Church. But the true Church to which the promises and prerogatives of the Church belong, consists of true believers. This is not only the doctrine of the Bible and of all Protestants at the time of the Reforma- tion, but would seem to be a matter of course. Promises made to the Apostles were made to true apostles, not to those who pretended to the office, and were false apostles. So the promises made to Christians are made not to nominal, pretended, or false Christians, but to those who truly are what they profess to be. If this be clear, then it is no less clear that the power of binding and loosing, of remitting or retaining sin, was never granted by Christ to unregenerated, wicked men, no matter by what name they may be called. This is a great point gained. The children of God in this world are not under the power of the children of the devil, to be forgiven or condemned, saved or lost, at their discretion. Therefore, when Luther was anathematized by the body calling itself the Church, as Athanasius had been before him, it did not hurt a hair of his head.
Secondly, the power granted by Christ to his Church of bind- ing and loosing, of forgiving or retaining sin, is not absolute, but conditional. The passages above quoted are analogous to many others contained in the Scriptures, and are all to be explained in the same way. For example, our Lord said to his disciples ; They who hear you, hear me. That is, the people were as much bound to believe the gospel when preached by the disciples, as though they heard it from the lips of Christ Himself. Or, if these words are to be understood as addressed exclusively to the Apostles, and to include a promise of infallibility in teaching, the meaning is substantially the same. Men were as much bound to receive the doctrines of the Apostles, as the teachings of Christ,