matter; upon which he gets this soul-rending rebuke, Thou wicked servant, did I not, when you besought me, forgive you the full balance of all my accompts against you, should you not therefore take compassion on your fellow-servant, as I have done on you. By this parable it appears, that we should cheerfully forgive all the injuries of our offending brethren, whereas God, through the merits of our Saviour, grants us a full remission. How then can a partial forgiveness be, by any means, applicable to God, especially, as he requires, in favour of the offender, a full release of all trespasses? How is the clemency of God represented to us in the person of this powerful man, if God, through Christ, does not forgive us all our trespasses against him? When this great man forgave his servant in full, he not only forgave him the debt, but also (otherwise the servant might retort) all the obligations annexed to it for the debt. For the debt here spoken of, is not the sin itself, nor the pu nishment of the sin, but rather an obligation to satisfy God's justice for the sin committed.

The soul, after its separation from the body, must be incontestably allowed to be no longer an active agent, and if in Purgatory, consequently incapable of any sort of merit, This presupposed, let us, if compatible with the nature of ideas, form an idea of a soul taking a trip to Purgatory with a sack full of venial sins, (it could not have committed fewer, if it arrived to a tolerable age) must this soul, in a state of inactivity, and incapable of relieving itself, remain in Purgatory until it draws a bill upon its friends, who perhaps forget it, and yet, ten thousand to one, but it will be protested by the Romish sacrificants, if the money is not told down. Thus disappointed, must it be constrain. ed to make its appearance in this world to frighten its late friends into a compliance. Let us even sup

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pose this bugbear; yet, though a considerable sum is told down for its release from the expiatory flames, the Romish sacrificants take particular care not to enlarge it at once, it being too good a perquisite to part with upon such easy terms; they only give it some little ease, by rendering the fire which purges it less vehement; they order those who attend the Purgatorial forge to blow the coals more or less, in proportion to the sum of money they receive. Must the poor soul, I say, in a state of inactivity, and incapable of redressing itself (as supposed) remain in the most cruel torments of an hell until the avarice of Romish sacrificants is satiated, which will never be until the system of Popery is extirpated root and branch? In a word, must a soul be committed to a place to glut the lucrative interests of more designing people than the Priests of the Delphic Oracle, never known to the Jews, Christ, or the Apostles, if you are not credulous enough to believe Romish oral traditions? I would willingly be informed, how the system of Indulgences can be reconciled with Purgatory. To say nothing of the Pope's infinite power, there is not a Romanist that has a spark of devotion but can acquire, by the least computation, an hundred thousand years of pardon, every day of his life: what a cargo, then, of remittances must he not have at the hour of his death? This presupposed, as undeniable, there is not one of them, if they choose, but may depart this life with Romish merit in abundance, and, consequently, without the least stain or pollution of sin. But when there are no sins or temporal penalties to be atoned for, of what service, of what avail can a Purgatory be? To do them justice, they say, that Indulgences operate no further, than as they are obtained by those who are in a state of grace and sincerely penitent for their sins. Behold the absur

dity of this; If a man be in the state of grace, and in perfect favour with God, how can it be, by any means imagined, that he stands in need of Indulgences? But of these in the next place.

OF ROMISH INDULGENCES,

INDULGENCES, such as are exposed to sale at many markets in Rome, were utterly unknown until the system of Purgatorial expiation was imposed upon a silly, deluded, and frightened world: until sprights, the screechings in Purgatory, and the consequent terrors of the great vulgar and the small planned a foundation for the crafty men of those times to build npon; abusing, in the mean, nay, totally destroying the primitive canons and ordinances of the Church,*

It was the practice of the Church, before it was contaminated by Popery, to expel from its society notorious and abandoned sinners; until the sorrow of their crimes and amendment of their lives procured them re-admittance. They were directed to fast, to pray, to curb, and mortify their flesh; in a word, to

• Cardinal Fischer, a favourite author of the Church of Rome, has the following words in pages 496 and 497 of his writings against Martin Luther, printed at Wirtzbourg, A. D. 1597, in folio.

"There are many things of which there was no enquiry in the primitive Church, which yet upon doubts arising, are now become perspicuous, by the diligence of after times."

"No orthodox man now doubts, whether there be a Purgatory of which, yet among the ancients there is no mention, or exceeding rarely; it is not believed by the Greeks to this day,-neither did the Latins conceive the truth at once, but by little and little."

Who can

And for an Epiphonema he closes it thus:-" Considering that Purga tory was a good while unknown, after partly by Revelations, partly by Scripture, came little by little to be believed by some, and so at last the belief of it was generally received by the Catholic Churches." wonder concerning Indulgences, that in the primitive Church there was no use of them? Indulgences therefore began after men had trembled a while at the torments of Purgatory.

exercise themselves in such spiritual works and aus terities, as might improve their lives, and declare their inward compunction and sorrow. Some were obliged to these austerities a year, some two, some seven, some ten, some twenty, &c. and some according to the heinousness and enormity of the transgression, all the days of their lives. This was the most prudent course that could be taken by the Rectors of the respective Churches; by this they had a moral certainty, that the acquiescing and complying sinner was pardoned by God, and, consequently, may be re-admitted into the communion and bosom of the Church *.

Sometimes there happened such cases, as not only permitted but even influenced them to be less rigorous in their punishments. As when the sinner gave signal and undoubted proofs of extraordinary and unfeigned sorrow; when, with fortitude, he publicly and openly professed and supported the Christian Religion: when a Christian, under censure, was to be comforted to undergo martyrdom; when undaunted confessors, deemed equal to martyrs, interceded for some of their penitent friends. These and other rational and pious motives induced the pious Rectors of the Primitive

The retainers to the discipline of the primitive Church were either Mourners, Catechumens, or Learners, Hearers, Demoniacs, Prostrators, and Costanders.

The Mourners were such, as having been guilty of very gross crimes, were not admitted to Penance, but stood without the Church doors begging of Clergy and people as they went in to intercede for them.

The Catechumens stood within the Church door, but were not baptised until they were instructed in the Principles of Christianity.

The Hearers were a less perfect sort of Catechumens, such as did not yet desire, or intend to be baptised, but were, as it were Seekers or Sceptics in religion.

Behind those stood the Demoniacs.

Prostrators, though they were dismissed with the Catechumens, yet not before they had prostrated themselves before the Bishop, Clergy, and Communicants, who also all fell down in devotion together with them; and then the Bishop rising up did also erect those penitents, and used a proper prayer on that occasion.

The Costanders had their places amongst the Communicants, with this difference, that they were not admitted to the Holy Communion until the time of their Penance was completed.

Church to ease their contrite penitents from part, and sometimes from the entire burthen and penance they lay under; and thus, before the time prescribed, they were re-admitted into the Church.

When they finished the time for undergoing these severities, if their repentance, upon examination, was found to be real, they were re admitted into the Church by the imposition of the hands of the Clergy, (the penitent to be absolved kneeling before the Bishop), or in his absence, before a Presbyter delegated by him; who, laying his hand upon his head, solemnly blessed and absolved him; upon which, he was received with universal joy, and restored to a participation of the Holy Sacrament, and to all other acts of Church communion. Such was the discipline of the Church, in the first ages of Christianity, with regard to refragant and public sinners. Romish Bulls, Indulgences, Dispensations, &c. were then unknown. There was no readmission, but through a sincere sorrow and unfeigned amendment. The merits of Christ, or the feigned meritorious surplusages of the saints were not, then, under the Pope's lock and key. Scapulars, Rosaries, Pilgrimages, &c. &c.* were not the means whereby a

The Bull of Pope John XXII. for the confirmation and approbation of the Holy Scapular. Gonanus Chron. A. 1321.

John, Bishop and servant of the servants of Jesus Christ, to all and every faithful, &c. While I was praying upon my knees, the Virgin of Mount Carmel appears to me, and addresses me in those words, 0, John, O, John, the Vicar of my dear Son, as I will deliver thee out of the hand of thine adversary (the Emperor Lewis IV. whom he had excommunicated) and make thee Pope, so I will, that thou should grant to my holy and devout Order of Mount Carmel, founded by Elias and Elisha, the grace of a full confirmation; namely, that whosoever, being profest, will observe the rule given by my servant Albert, the Patriarch, and approved by my well beloved son Innocent, the true vicar of my Son, giving his consent upon earth to what my Son has decreed in heaven. (Divisum Imperium cum Deo Pupa habet) viz. that whosoever shall persevere in that holy obedience, (to the Pope) poverty and chastity, and shall enter into this order shall be saved. And that any other men, or women entering into this holy religion and wearing the sign of the holy habit, viz. the Scapulur, calling themselves by the name of brothers and sisters of the said order and confraternity, shall be delivered and absolved from the third part of their sins, from the day of their admittance, promising, in the mean time, chas