wherein there is the word "anger," or "fire," or "burning," or "purging," or "cleansing," in case any of the fathers have but in a sermon rhetorically applied it to the doctrine of purgatory, already believed. The first verse of Psalm xxxvii: "O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, nor chasten me in thy hot displeasure;" what were this to purgatory, if Augustine had not applied the "wrath" to the fire of hell, and the "displeasure" to that of purgatory? And what is it to purgatory, that of Psalm lxvi. 12, "We went through fire and water, and thou broughtest us to a moist place ;" and other the like texts, with which the doctors of those times intended to adorn or extend their sermons, or commentaries, haled to their purposes by force of wit?

But he allegeth other places of the New Testament, that are not so easy to be answered. And first that of Matt. xii. 32: "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come : "where he will have purgatory to be the world to come, wherein some sins may be forgiven, which in this world were not forgiven: notwithstanding that it is manifest, there are but three worlds; one from the creation to the flood, which was destroyed by water, and is called in Scripture "the old world;" another from the flood to the day of judgment, which is "the present world," and shall be destroyed by fire and the third, which shall be from the day of judgment forward, everlasting, which is called "the world to come; and in which it is agreed by all, there shall be no purgatory, and therefore the world to come and purgatory are inconsistent. But what then can be the meaning of those our Saviour's words? I confess they are very hardly to be reconciled with all the doctrines now unanimously received: nor is it any shame to confess the profoundness of the Scripture to be too great to be sounded by the shortness of human understanding. Nevertheless, I may propound such things to the consideration of more learned divines, as the text itself suggesteth. And first, seeing to speak against the Holy Ghost, as being the third person of the Trinity, is to speak against the Church, in which the Holy Ghost resideth; it seemeth the comparison is made between the easiness of our Saviour, in bearing with offences done to Him while He himself taught the world, that is, when He was on earth, and the severity of the pastors after Him, against those which should deny their authority, which was from the Holy Ghost. As if He should say, you that deny my power; nay, you that shall crucify me, shall be pardoned by me, as often as you turn unto me by repentance: but if you deny the power of them that teach you hereafter, by virtue of the Holy Ghost, they shall be inexorable, and shall not forgive you, but persecute you in this world, and leave you without absolution (though you turn to me, unless you turn also to them), to the punishments, as much as lies in them, of the world to come. And so the words may be taken as a prophecy, or prediction concerning the times, as they have long been in the Christian Church. Or if this be not the meaning (for I am not peremptory in such difficult places), perhaps there may be places left after the resurrection for the repentance of some sinners. And there is also another place that seemeth to agree therewith. For considering the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 29), "What shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why also are they baptized for the dead?" a man may probably infer, as some have done, that in St. Paul's time there was a custom, by receiving baptism for the dead (as men that now believe, are sureties and undertakers for the faith of infants, that are not capable of believing), to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends, that they should be ready to obey, and receive our Saviour for their king, at His coming again; and then the forgiveness

of sins in the world to come, has no need of a purgatory. But in both these interpretations there is so much of paradox, that I trust not to them; but propound them to those that are thoroughly versed in the Scripture, to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them. Only of thus much, I see evident Scripture to persuade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of purgatory, neither in this, nor any other text; nor anything that can prove a necessity of a place for the soul without the body; neither for the soul of Lazarus during the four days he was dead; nor for the souls of them which the Ronan Church pretend to be tormented now in purgatory. For God, that could give a life to a piece of clay, hath the same power to give life again to a dead man, and renew his inanimate and rotten carcass into a glorious, spiritual, and immortal body.

Another place is that of 1 Cor. iii., where it is said, that they which build stubble, hay, &c., on the true foundation, their work shall perish; but "they themselves shall be saved, but as through fire: " this fire, he will have to be the fire of purgatory. The words, as I have said before, are an allusion to those of Zech. xiii. 9, where he saith, "I will bring the third part through the fire, and refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried:" which is spoken of the coming of the Messiah in power and glory; that is, at the day of judgment, and conflagration of the present world, wherein the elect shall not be consumed, but be refined; that is, depose their erroneous doctrines and traditions, and have them as it were singed off; and shall afterwards call upon the name of the true God. In like manner, the apostle saith of them, that holding this foundation, "Jesus is the Christ," shall build thereon some other doctrines that be erroneous, that they shall not be consumed in that fire which reneweth the world, but shall pass through it to salvation; but so as to see and relinquish their former errors. The builders, are the "pastors; the foundation, that "Jesus is the Christ; the stubble and hay, "false consequences drawn from it through ignorance, or frailty;" the gold, silver, and precious stones, are their "true doctrines;" and their refining or purging, the "relinquishing of their errors." In all which there is no colour at all for the burning of incorporeal, that is to say, impatible souls.

A third place is that of 1 Cor. xv. 29, before mentioned, concerning baptism for the dead: out of which he concludeth, first, that prayers for the dead are not unprofitable; and out of that, that there is a fire of purgatory: but neither of them rightly. For of many interpretations of the word baptism, he approveth this in the first place, that by baptism is meant, metaphorically, a baptism of penance; and that men are in this sense baptized, when they fast, and pray, and give alms and so, baptism for the dead, and prayer for the dead, is the same thing. But this is a metaphor, of which there is no example, neither in the Scripture nor in any other use of language; and which is also discordant to the harmony and scope of the Scripture. The word baptism is used (Mark x. 38, and Luke xii. 50), for being dipped in one's own blood, as Christ was upon the cross, and as most of the apostles were, for giving testimony of Him. But it is hard to say that prayer, fasting, and alms have any similitude with dipping. The same is used also Matt. iii. II (which seemeth to make somewhat for purgatory) for a purging with fire. But it is evident the fire and purging here mentioned is the same whereof the prophet Zechariah speaketh (chapter xiii. 9), "I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them," &c. And St. Peter after him (1 Epistle i. 7), "That the trial of your faith, which is much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise, and honour, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ;" and St. Paul (1 Cor. iii. 13), "The fire shall try every man's

work of what sort it is." But St. Peter and St. Paul speak of the fire that shall be at the second appearing of Christ; and the prophet Zechariah of the day of judgment. And therefore this place of St. Matthew may be interpreted of the same; and then there will be no necessity of the fire of purgatory.

Another interpretation of baptism for the dead is that which I have before mentioned, which he preferreth to the second place of probability: and thence also he inferreth the utility of prayer for the dead. For if after the resurrection, such as have not heard of Christ, or not believed in Him, may be received into Christ's kingdom, it is not in vain, after their death, that their friends should pray for them, till they should be risen. But granting that God, at the prayers of the faithful, may convert unto Him some of those that have not heard Christ preached, and consequently cannot have rejected Christ, and that the charity of men in that, point cannot be blamed; yet this concludeth nothing for purgatory; because to rise from death to life is one thing; to rise from purgatory to life is another; as being a rising from life to life, from a life in torments to a life in joy.

A fourth place is that of Matt. v. 25, 26: "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with him, lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison: verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." In which allegory, the offender is the "sinner;" both the adversary and the judge is "God;" the way is this "life;" the prison is the "grave;" the officer, 66 death;" " from which the sinner shall not rise again to life eternal, but to a second death, till he have paid the utmost farthing, or Christ pay it for him by His passion, which is a full ransom for all manner of sins, as well lesser sins as greater crimes; both being made by the passion of Christ equally venial.

The fifth place is that of Matt. v. 22: "Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be guilty in judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be guilty in the council: but whosoever shall say, thou fool, shall be guilty to hell fire." From which words he inferreth three sorts of sins and three sorts of punishments; and that none of those sins but the last shall be punished with hell fire; and consequently, that after this life there is punishment of lesser sins in purgatory. Of which inference there is no colour in any interpretation that hath yet been given of them. Shall there be a distinction after this life of courts of justice, as there was amongst the Jews in our Saviour's time, to hear and determine divers sorts of crimes, as the judges and the council? Shall not all judicature appertain to Christ and His apostles? To understand therefore this text, we are not to consider it solitarily, but jointly with the words precedent and subsequent. Our Saviour in this chapter interpreteth the law of Moses; which the Jews thought was then fulfilled when they had not transgressed the grammatical sense thereof, howsoever they had transgressed against the sentence or meaning of the legislator. Therefore whereas they thought the sixth commandment was not broken but by killing a man: nor the seventh but when a man lay with a woman not his wife; our Saviour tells them the inward anger of a man against his brother, if it be without just cause, is homicide. You have heard, saith He, the law of Moses, "Thou shalt not kill," and that "Whosoever shall kill, shall be condemned before the judges," or before the session of the Seventy: but I say unto you to be angry with one's brother without cause, or to say unto him "Raca" or Fool," is homicide, and shall be punished at the day of judgment and session of Christ and His apostles with hell fire. So that those words were not used to distinguish between divers crimes, and divers courts of

justice, and divers punishments; but to tax the distinction between sin and sin, which the Jews drew not from the difference of the will in obeying God, but from the difference of their temporal courts of justice; and to show them that he that had the will to hurt his brother, though the effect appear but in reviling, or not at all, shall be cast into hell fire, by the judges and by the session, which shall be the same, not different, courts at the day of judgment. This considered, what can be drawn from this text to maintain purgatory I cannot imagine.

The sixth place is Luke xvi. 9: "Make ye friends of the unrighteous Mammon; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting tabernacles." This he alleges to prove invocation of saints departed. But the sense is plain, that we should make friends with our riches of the poor; and thereby obtain their prayers whilst they live. "He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord."

The seventh is Luke xxiii. 42: "Lord, remember me, when thou comest into thy kingdom." Therefore, saith he, there is remission of sins after this life. But the consequence is not good. Our Saviour then forgave him ; and at His coming again in glory will remember to raise him again to life eternal.

The eighth is Acts ii. 24, where St. Peter saith of Christ," that God had raised Him up, and loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible He should be holden of it :" which he interprets to be a descent of Christ into purgatory, to loose some souls there from their torments: whereas it is manifest that it was Christ that was loosed; it was He that could not be holden of death or the grave; and not the souls in purgatory. But if that which Beza says, in his notes on this place, be well observed, there is none that will not see, that instead of "pains" it should be "bands ;" and then there is no further cause to seek for purgatory in this text.

CHAPTER XLV.

Of Demonology, and other Relics of the Religion of the Gentiles.

THE impression made on the organs of sight by lucid bodies, either in one direct line or in many lines, reflected from opaque, or refracted in the passage through diaphanous bodies, produceth in living creatures, in whom God hath placed such organs, an imagination of the object, from whence the impression proceedeth; which imagination is called "sight;" and seemeth not to be a mere imagination, but the body itself without us; in the same manner, as when a man violently presseth his eye, there appears to him a light without and before him, which no man perceiveth but himself; because there is indeed no such thing without him, but only a motion in the interior organs, pressing by resistance outward, that makes him think so. And the motion made by this pressure, continuing after the object which caused it is removed, is that we call "imagination" and 'memory;" and, in sleep, and sometimes in great distemper of the organs by sickness or violence, a "dream;" of which things I have already spoken briefly in the second and third chapters.

This nature of sight having never been discovered by the ancient pretenders to natural knowledge; much less by those that consider not things so remote, as that knowledge is, from their present use; it was hard for men to conceive of those images in the fancy and in the sense, otherwise than of things really without us: which some, because they vanish away.

they know not whither nor how, will have to be absolutely incorporeal, that is to say, immaterial, or forms without matter; colour and figure, without any coloured or figured body; and that they can put on airy bodies as a garment, to make them visible when they will to our bodily eyes; and others say, are bodies and living creatures, but made of air, or other more subtle and ethereal matter, which is, then, when they will be seen, condensed. But both of them agree on one general appellation of them, "demons." As if the dead of whom they dreamed were not inhabitants of their own brain, but of the air, or of heaven, or hell; not phantasms, but ghosts; with just as much reason as if one should say, he saw his own ghost in a looking-glass, or the ghosts of the stars in a river; or call the ordinary apparition of the sun, of the quantity of about a foot, the "demon," or ghost of that great sun that enlighteneth the whole visible world: and by that means have feared them, as things of an unknown, that is, of an unlimited power to do them good or harm; and consequently, given occasion to the governors of the heathen commonwealths to regulate this their fear, by establishing that "demonology" (in which the poets, as principal priests of the heathen religion, were especially employed or reverenced), to the public peace, and to the obedience of subjects necessary thereunto, and to make some of them good "demons," and others evil; the one as a spur to the observance, the other as reins to withhold them from the vioiation of the laws.

What kind of things they were, to whom they attributed the name of "demons," appeareth partly in the genealogy of their gods, written by Hesiod, one of the most ancient poets of the Grecians; and partly in other histories; of which I have observed some few before, in the twelfth chapter of this discourse.

The Grecians, by their colonies and conquests, communicated their language and writings into Asia, Egypt, and Italy; and therein, by necessary consequence their "demonology," or, as St. Paul calls it (1 Tim. iv. 1), "their doctrines of devils." And by that means the contagion was derived also to the Jews, both of Judea and Alexandria, and other parts, whereinto they were dispersed. But the name of "demon" they did not, as the Grecians, attribute to spirits both good and evil; but to the evil only and to the good "demons" they gave the name of the spirit of God; and esteemed those into whose bodies they entered to be prophets. In sum, all singularity, if good, they attributed to the spirit of God; and if evil, to some "demon," but a какоdáμwν, an evil "demon," that is a "devil." And therefore, they called "demoniacs," that is "possessed by the devil," such as we call madmen or lunatics; or such as had the falling sickness, or that spoke anything which they, for want of understanding, thought absurd. As also of an unclean person in a notorious degree, they used to say he had an unclean spirit; of a dumb man, that he had a dumb devil; and of John the Baptist (Matt. xi. 18), for the singularity of his fasting, that he had a devil; and of our Saviour, because He said, he that keepeth His sayings should not see death in æternum (John viii. 52), “Now we know thou hast a devil; Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead: " and again, because He said (John vii. 20), " They went about to kill Him," the people answered, "Thou hast a devil; who goeth about to kill thee?" Whereby it is manifest that the Jews had the same opinions concerning phantasms, namely, that they were not phantasms, that is, idols of the brain, but things real and independent on the fancy.

Which doctrine, if it be not true, why, may some say, did not our Saviour contradict it, and teach the contrary? Nay, why does He use on divers occasions such forms of speech as seem to confirm it? To this I answer, that first, where Christ saith (Luke xxiv. 39), "A spirit hath not flesh and