SAMUEL, an English divine, famous for compiling a valuable collection of voyages, was born in 1677 at Thaxted in Essex. After studying at Cambridge, he obtained the vicarage of Eastwood in his native county; but leaving that cure to his brother, he settled in London, in order to carry on the great work on which he was engaged. He published the first volume in folio in 1613, and the last four twelve years afterwards, under the title of Purchas, his Pilgrimage, or Relations of the World, and the Religious observed in all Ages and Places. Meanwhile he was collated to the rectory of St Martin's, Ludgate, in London, and made chaplain to Dr Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury. His Pilgrimages, and the learned Hakluyt's Voyager, led the way to all the other collections of the same kind, which have been so justly valued and esteemed. (See HAKLUYT, Richard.) But unhappily, by publishing, he involved himself in debt, and died in embarrassed circumstances about the year 1628. He likewise wrote Microcosmus, or the History of Man, Svo, 1619; The King's Tower and Triumphant Arch of London, Svo, 1623; and a Funeral Sermon on Psalm xxxix. 5, Svo, 1619. A foreign writer describes him as "an Englishman admirably skilled in languages and human and divine arts; a very great philosopher, historian, and theologian; a faithful priest of his own church; very widely known for his many excellent writings, and especially for his large volumes pertaining to the East and West Indies."

PURGATORY, a place in which the just, who depart out of this life, are supposed to expiate certain offences which do not merit eternal condemnation. Broughton has endeavoured to prove that this notion was held by Pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans, as well as by Christians; and it cannot be questioned that, in the days of the Maccabees, the Jews believed that sin might be expiated by sacrifice after the death of the sinner. The following view of it is taken from a work which is considered as a standard by Roman Catholics:—First, 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. Secondly, such small sins do not deserve eternal punishment. Thirdly, 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. Fourthly, few will therefore 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 Roman Catholic 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 sins, both great and small, and as his infinite justice can permit none to receive the reward of bliss who as yet are not out of debt, but have something in justice to suffer, so 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 admission into heaven. This is what the Roman Catholic is taught concerning purgatory; and 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 who 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. The Protestant Church considers this doctrine to be "grounded on no warranty of Scripture."

PURITANS. See Nonconformists.