a place in which the just, who depart out of this life, are supposed to expiate certain offences which do not merit eternal damnation. Brougham has endeavoured to prove, that this notion has been held by Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans, as well as by Christians; and that in the days of the Maccabees the Jews believed that sin might be expiated by sacrifice after the death of the sinner, cannot be questioned.
Much abuse has been poured upon the church of Popish Rome for her doctrine of purgatory, and many false representations have been made of the doctrine itself. The following view of it is taken from a work which is considered as a standard by the British Catholics.
1. Every sin, how slight soever, though no more than an idle word, as it is an offence to God, deserves punishment from him, and will be punished by him hereafter, if not cancelled by repentance here.
2. Such small sins do not deserve eternal punishment.
3. Few depart this life so pure as to be totally exempt from spots of this nature, and from every kind of debt due to God's justice.
4. Therefore few will escape without suffering something from his justice for such debts as they have carried with them out of this world; according to that rule of divine justice, by which he treats every soul hereafter according to its works, and according to the state in which he finds it in death. From these propositions, which the Papist considers as so many self-evident truths, he infers that there must be some third place of punishment; for, since the infinite goodness of God can admit nothing into heaven which is not clean and pure from all sin both great and small; and his infinite justice can permit none to receive the reward of bliss, Purgatory, who as yet are not out of debt, but have something in justice to suffer; there must of necessity be some place or state, where souls, departing this life, pardoned as to the eternal guilt or pain, yet obnoxious to some temporal penalty, or with the guilt of some venial faults, are purged and purified before their admittance into heaven. And this is what he is taught concerning purgatory. Which, though he knows not where it is, of what nature the pains are, or how long each soul is detained there; yet he believes, that those that are in this place, being the living members of Jesus Christ, are relieved by the prayers of their fellow members here on earth, as also by alms and masses offered up to God for their souls. And as for such as have no relations or friends to pray for them, or give alms, or procure masses for their relief; they are not neglected by the church, which makes a general commemoration of all the faithful departed in every mass, and in every one of the canonical hours of the divine office.
Such is the Popish doctrine of purgatory, which is built chiefly upon 2 Macc. xii. 43, 44, 45; St Matth. xii. 31, 32; and 1 Cor. iii. 15. By Protestants the books of Maccabees are not acknowledged to be inspired scripture; but if they were, the texts referred to would rather prove that there is no such place as purgatory, since Judas did not expect the souls departed to reap any benefit from his sin-offering till the resurrection. Our Saviour, in St Luke, speaks of remission in this world, and in the world to come; but surely neither of these is purgatory. The world to come is the state after the resurrection, and the remission spoken of is the sentence of absolution to be pronounced on the penitent from the seat of general judgment. In the obscure verse referred to in the epistle to the Corinthians, the apostle is, by the best interpreters, thought to speak of the difficulty with which Christians should be saved from the destruction of Jerusalem. Of the state of souls departed he cannot well be supposed to speak, as upon disembodied spirits fire could make no impression. We cannot help, therefore, thinking with the church of England, that "the Romish doctrine of purgatory is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded on no warrant of scripture;" but we must confess at the same time, that it appears to us to be a very harmless error, neither hostile to virtue nor dangerous to society. See Resurrection.