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these wild vagaries of a disordered brain with too much seriousness. Let it suffice to explain in as clear and concise a manner as possible, the real doctrine of the Catholic Church on this point; and, if circumstances allow, we will, in concluding our explanation, take a cursory view of the most reasonable objections against this doctrine. I propose then to give you our real belief, relative to purgatory. And to show you that far from being a compound of folly, ignorance and delusion, it is substantiated not only by the Bible, by the universal and constant practice of all ages from the Jews, the chosen people of God, down to the days of Jesus Christ, the divine Founder of the new law, and from the days of our Blessed Redeemer down to the period usually termed the reformation, and by human reason; but that it is congenial to the finest feelings of the human soul,-nay more, that as there is a God, there must be a Purgatory.

Start not at the proposition-difficult as its elucidation may appear at present to you, I feel a consoling assurance that ere long you will as readily and as cheerfully admit the existence of a temporary state of punishment after death as I do. Permit me, my friend, before I enter upon my argument, to lay down the grounds upon which that argument is to be built; and here I will first request you to observe that in the Catholic Church there exists a grand distinction between matters of faith, and matters of opinion. Whatever the Church proposes to her numerous children as an article of faith, we all admit as positive and essential to salvation. There is then no room for idle speculation or questions of opinion-the Church has spoken; the matter is finished! The case is widely different with regard to matters of opinion. We are all at liberty to investigate, to compare, and if we deem proper, to admit whatever opinion seems to us the most probable; if not we can reject it. Through want of attention or through ignorance of this distinction, many zealous opposers of Catholicity have been betrayed into the most singular and oftentimes absurd mistakes. Thus, for example, to give you an idea of the want

of reflection on this point among some of our opponents, even some well instructed on other points,-not long since, in one of the public controversies in a neighboring city, it was argued that there must be, and that there is a schism in the Catholic communion, because of the variety of religious orders, peculiar rules, and habits or dresses of those orders, and their peculiar ceremonies! "See," said the champion of the opposition party, "their almost endless variety of monastic institutes. Some admitting one point, others rejecting it; one assuming one form and color of dress, others another; the Dominican claiming superior sanctity from the whiteness of his scapularium-the long-bearded Carthusian boasting of his gloomy cowl and hood; the Augustinians quarreling with the Dominicans, and the crafty, designing Jesuits with both!"

Alas! can it be that the individual who gave expression to the above sentiments, intended them for the semblance of argument? Can it be that he has toiled up the rugged hill of science, which must be ascended by every man before he can lay claim to the name of scholar; or that in the school of the mild and meek Jesus he has imbibed the spirit of his Divine Master, charity, which is the brightest ornament of a Christian minister? But to proceed. In our investigation we may occasionally discover a discrepancy of opinion relative to purgatory, even among the earliest as well as the latest writers. But, my dear friend, remark, and remember well, the subject on which they differ. Is it relative to the existence of a place called purgatory? No; never do we read in the unadulterated annals of ecclesiastical history, that one among the early writers of the Church denied the existence of purgatory; they all agreed on this one point; they all unanimously and invariably admitted this truth;-but they differed, at least some among them,-on what? In their opinion relative to the noture of the punishments endured in purgatory. This was the subject of their difference, as this is, and ever has been a matter of speculation and opinion. The Church has indeed decided that there is a purgatory or

a middle state of souls suffering for a while on account of their sins; but the Church has never decided, because heaven has never revealed, what is the nature of the punishment there endured. Is it the punishment of fire, which would seem the most probable from St. Paul: "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day of the Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work, of what sort it is. If any man's work abide, which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward; if any man's work burn, he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by fire?" (1 Cor. iii, 13, 14, 15.) Or is it, as maintained by some of the primitive fathers, that painful separation for a while from God, the author and the object of their souls' affection? Does the punishment there endured consist in darkness, as others admit, or are its victims doomed to endure the anguish of all these torments combined? Here you are left to your own opinion. The Church is silent-she has decided nothing; she leaves her children to follow the guidance of their own reason, and requires only the admission of the truth,-there is a purgatory! Though all may differ with regard to the punishment endured, all unanimously agree in the one point of faith-there is a purgatory! Again: the Church teaches that the souls detained in that middle state which we call purgatory, are benefited by the prayers and suffrages of the faithful on earth, and particularly by the most holy sacrifice of the mass. But how are they benefited? How is the fruit of the holy sacrifice, or of the prayers of surviving friends applied to the souls in purgatory? Is it by abridging the period of their banishment, or by lessening the intensity of their sufferings, or by procuring from heaven a greater degree of love and affection for that God, who punishes them like a tender father because he loves them ?-or is it by all these means combined, that the sufferings of the souls in purgatory are relieved by our prayers? Here again you are left to follow the dictates of your own piety.

The Church has decided nothing on this

VOL. II.-No. 11.

particular point; and again all may differ in opinion, while all agree in the point of faiththe souls in purgatory are helped by our pray

ers.

With this exposition of the grounds on which I shall in this friendly examination proceed, let us refer to the proofs.

And first in order, both from its sacred nature, and the antiquity of its authority, comes the sacred volume which contains the revealed word of God. Are there no proofs of the existence of purgatory to be found in the Bible? Open that sacred book-that best and most holy of all books; turn then to the second book of Machabees, twelfth chapter, and read from the thirtyseventh to the forty-sixth verse. Here we find that the gallant and pious Judas Machabeus, the general of his people, when going forth to battle against the enemies of his God, his religion and his country, began as we read in the thirty-seventh verse, in his own language, to sing in a loud voice, hymns of invocation, "and called upon the Lord to be their helper, and the leader of the battle." Fired with a holy indignation against the sacrilegious foes of his religion, he fought and led his faithful followers to victory; for God heard his prayers, and He, in whose hands are victory and defeat, smiled upon his arms and strengthened his spirit for the righteous cause. fought and conquered; but the victory was gained at the expense of the lives of many among his noble followers. After a few days, Judas came with his men to take away the bodies of the gallant soldiers who had fallen on the field, to bury them in the sepulchres of their fathers; he found among them several who had so far forgotten the precepts of God, and yielded to the fatal suggestions of a love of wealth, as to conceal under their coats various articles which had either been used or presented in the temple of the false deities of their enemies. Grieved at their blindness, and still more at the recollection of the sin they had committed against the God of armies, the pious Judas bowed with submission to the just decrees of heaven, and commanded his surviving followers to supplicate the God of mercy to forgive the sin which had been committed. Although exulting with vic

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tory, he forgot not those who were slumbering in the cold embrace of death; for them he wept, for them he poured forth the full tide of his heart's bitter sorrow. And that their departed spirits might be spared by an offended Deity, he collected twelve thousand drachms of silver, and sent them to the only true temple in Jerusalem, to have the then only true sacrifice offered for their repose. Thinking well and religiously of the resurrection," says the sacred text, "for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead." What the opinion of this pious general was, relative to the sin committed by those who had been slain, we read in the following verse, where we learn that he did not despair of their final salvation; for, says the sacred writer, "he considered those who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them. It is, therefore," concludes the sacred text, "a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." To resume then the argument; here we find the chosen people of God, the depositaries of divine revelation-long before the coming of the promised Messiah, offering in the temple of Jerusalem sacrifices for the souls of the dead. They prayed and offered sacrifice, the supreme act of religion, for those who had fallen fighting for their homes and their religion. But why did they pray for their departed brethren? Because it was and is, "a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." Therefore it necessarily follows, that the departed souls must have been in some place, or condition, not impenetrable to the gentle dews, the cheering effects of pardon. But where was this place? Not that dark and dismal abode of never-ending pain and despair, the hell of the reprobate; because you admit with me that reason tells us, "out of hell there is no redemption." Assuredly then the noble spirits who had struck for their home and their altar, could not have been chained down in the endless flames of hell; for if they had, never would the angel of mercy have been deputed to release them,

or throw open the adamantine gates of that horrid abode. Those souls could not have been detained in heaven, for "nothing defiled entereth heaven," and they were de filed with the guilt of disobedience at least; and the sacred text tells us that it was "for this cause they were slain." Moreover had Judas Machabeus, or the priests in Jerusalem been persuaded that they were in heaven, surely they would not have ordered sacrifices for them, as the thrice blessed souls in that home of the just have no sins from which they can be freed. The souls for which the sacrifices were offered, were no longer on this earth, for "they had passed the bourne from which no traveller returns." Where then were they? Not in heaven with the angels and with God,— not confined within the gloomy caverns of hell, not on this earth; where then were they? Wherever they were, they were in some state of probation from which they could be freed, through the tender mercies of God, by the prayers and sacrifices offered in their behalf. And wherever that was, there was purgatory. Call it as we may, adopt whatever title we may feel disposed, "to this complexion must it come at length." We contend not for names, but for principles. But to pursue this argument still further. The book of Machabees speaks of this, not as a new custom, till then unknown, but as of a matter well understood, and in practice. We read of no reclamation, either by the Jews or from the priests. It was evidently one of the Jewish customs, a custom which is religiously observed to this day among the Jews. Do we read in any part of the new Scripture that our Blessed Saviour warned us against this practice? On the contrary, what does he expressly command his followers in the twenty-third chapter and second and third verses of St. Matthew: "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat; all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that observe and do." Are we not here clearly commanded to obey the authority which sanctioned this practice? We are indeed there warned against the hypocritical ways and deceitful manners of these Scribes and Pharisees-but in no portion of the New Testament are we told to reject

this belief. Nay, far from this, as the custom evidently prevailed among the Jews, both before and during the time of the adorable Saviour, as it does yet, did not Jesus Christ, when he kept regularly the passover in the temple, join with the adoring multitude in supplicating his eternal Father in behalf of the departed? Did not the pious followers of our Saviour," who continued daily in the temple with one accord," nay, St. Peter and St. John, when they went up to the temple at the "hour of prayer," pour forth their supplications with the true worshippers of God, that the dead might be loosed from their sins? To me, my dear friend, this would appear a sufficient reason for speaking at least of this custom in a rather more respectful manner than is usual among many of our separated brethren, "lest," to use the words of an able writer, "their reproaches should fall on one whom they would least wish to offend."

But you have, no doubt, been often told: Catholics argue from the book of Machabees as from an inspired book; whereas it is not an inspired book, and is not found among the canonical books even of the Jews-therefore no argument deduced from this book, is of any avail. Let us briefly examine the point. And first, let us for a moment admit they are not canonical books. Are they not strong and unanswerable arguments in favor of the antiquity of the custom of praying for the dead, and consequently of the belief of a purgatory or middle state of souls? Do they not serve as historical records, on which is stamped in indelible characters the custom of the Jews, the then chosen people, and only true depositaries of the religion of God? Will it be said, these books are of recent origin? most assuredly not, for we read of them in the earliest ages of Christianity, as we shall presently see. But we deny in terms the most express and positive, that they are not inspired books. Do they not bear the same internal, and external marks of divine inspiration, which characterize any of the books admitted as inspired? We lose, indeed, the author in the gloom of antiquity, but long before the dawn of that event, which is so loudly extolled by the

opposers of Catholicity, the reformation, the divine inspiration of the book of Machabees was defined, and taught by the unerring Church of Christ.

St. Clement of Alexandria, who adorned the church, no less by the brilliancy and depth of his penetrating mind, than by the more important qualities of the saint and philanthropist, in one of his works, cites the second book of Machabees as one of divine inspiration. Who will prove to the satisfaction of an inquiring mind, that St. Paul himself alludes not in his Epistle to Hebrews, xi, 35, to the thrilling history of that venerable old man Eleazar and the seven brothers, as related in the second book of Machabees, vi, and vii. Do we not read, and here let me obsere that, even in the opinions of our most severe adversaries, the writings of the holy fathers are of every avail, because they prove what was the doctrine of the Church then existing in her golden ages of innocence and purity; do we not read in the works of Tertullian, who died in the year 245; of St. Cyprian, the noble minded and heroic bishop of Carthage, who sealed with his blood the faith he professed and taught, in the year 258; of St. Hilary, bishop of Poictiers, whose happy lot it was to be called by the great St. Jerome "a most eloquent man, and the trumpet of the Latins against the Arians," and who died in his episcopal see in 368; of Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, the metropolis of Sardinia, who threw indeed in the last year of his eventful life, a gloom and shade over the brightness of his early zeal by fostering and encouraging a fatal schism of Antioch, but who fearlessly, and even imprudently in the first years of his episcopacy defended the rights and privileges of the Church, against the daring inroads of the wicked emperor Constantius, and who died in the year 371; of St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan, who died in 397; of St. Augustine, the illustrious convert of the equally renowned St. Ambrose, who was raised up by the Almighty Dispenser of all things, in the fifth century, to adorn, defend and protect the Church of God, and who died as he lived, the learned admired bishop of Hippo

in Africa, in the year 430; of St. Isidore bishop of Seville, who is honored as the pride and ornament of Spain, and who died in the year 606; in a word, for were we to examine all the ancients who have quoted the book of Machabees, as a part of the sacred Scripture, it would lead us far beyond the prescribed limits of a letter, do we not find in the writings of these ancient pillars of the church, these heroes of Christianity, extracts, or mention made of the book of Machabees, as sacred Scripture, as the inspired word of God? It is true, that Origen, who flourished during the commencement of the third century, excluded them from among the canonical books of the Jews; but this same remarkable genius and eminent scholar, in other places of his voluminous works, cites the books of Machabees, as works divinely inspired. It is again true, that St. Jerome, and St. John Damascen, the first of whom died in the year 420, and the latter in 780, concurred not fully in the canonicity of these books; but of what avail is the doubt of a few individual writers, however otherwise great and exalted their character, when compared with the vast majority of those equally great and equally illustrious, who stand forth the defenders of this point? With a greater degree of propriety, may we urge this argument, when we reflect, that in those days no decree of a general council defined the canonicity and inspiration of the books in question. Will it be said that the council of Carthage, held in the year 397, and at which St. Augustine was present, decided upon their canonicity, and ranked them as we do, among the divinely inspired works? We reply, that highly as we revere the proceedings, and venerable antiquity of that body, as of the other regular local or provincial councils held there or elsewhere, still they are not held or considered as general councils, and consequently in holding points opposite to the decree of such councils, St. Jerome, or St. John Damascen, or any of the writers either contemporary or subsequent to that council, were not rejecting any decision which was binding as emanating from a general council. How widely different the case, after the de

cision of either or of both the councils, which are considered and admitted by the church as general councils, both of which by their decision on this point set the matter to eternal rest. I refer to the general council of Florence, in 1439, and to that of Trent, in 1563. Thus then, while the discrepancy of a few ancient writers proves nothing against the inspiration of these sacred books, it on the contrary shows forth more boldly the utter fallacy of the idea that others equally renowned for piety and erudition would have admitted them as divinely inspired, had not their minds been assured of the fact, by strong and forcible reasons, while the assent of all since the decrees of the Church, and the very decision of the Church from whom alone, and not from the doubtful traditions of the Jews, as St. Augustine says, we are to receive the assurance of the canonicity of the books of Scripture, prove beyond all doubt the necessity of admitting among the divinely inspired works of God, the books of Machabees. It is true, our separated brethren have rejected this portion of the Old Testament from the list of inspired works; but why have they, or their predecessors in a new religion done so? Why, do I ask? For the same or a similar reason that induced them to hurl with unhallowed hands, into the vast ocean of apochrypha the Epistle of St. James in the New Testament, where in chapter v, verses 14 and 15, we find a sanction, nay, an absolute command, to administer the sacrament of extreme unction, or to anoint with oil, the sick and dying. In the former case the proofs of the existence of purgatory, and of the consequent propriety of prayers for the dead, were too strongly, and too forcibly set forth, to admit of the possibility of a doubt; in the latter the proofs in favor of the sacrament, and salutary ordinance of extreme unction were equally strong and evident. Hence it was, that in the ardor of their zeal against the Catholic Church, the early reformers in an evil hour swept off both the one and the

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