C?AP. XII.] FUROA'FORY. 383 the fire at the last day." He plainly denied the eterni? ofl?uni.vkrnent , which opinion the fifth general council condemned. Of such a purga- tory as this, Bellamaine* confesses Origen speaks, and which he places after the resurrection, and saith that Peter and Paul must pass through it. Many places are produced out of Origen, by Sixtus Senensis and many others, for such a purgatory as this.? But this is a universal purgatory, for good and bad, after the resurrection, and for the body as well as the soul; and this is certainly different from the popish purga- tory. Very few, however, followed in full the opinion of Origen. St. Ambrose, Hiisry, Jerome, and others, maintained the doctrine of a uni- versal purgatory, through which all the pious must pass, the Virgin Mary herself not excepted. Jerome and Augustine speak of i?,however as a conjecture, not altogether improbable, but very uncertain. Jerome .?uppoaed wicked men, dying in the communion of the church, should at last be saved; but that d?//s, athe/sts, and wicked men not in the church, should be damned. His words are, "And as the torments of ,!evils, and all dentars and wicked men who say in their hearts, there is no God, will be eternal; so we judge that a moderate sentence of the Judge, mixed with clemency, against the sinners who are impious, and yet Christians, so that their works shall be proved and purged in vhe fire."?: Augustine says, "If betwixt death and judgraent the souls of the departed be said to suffer a fire of transitory tribulation, burning up worldly smaller faults, I reprove it not, because per/uz/? it is true."�o feeble Was the belief of a purgatory among the ancients for some hundred years. And aa it was only a probable opinion at best, so it was never looked upon as a separate state, but only as a purgation in their passage to glory; for it was a settled doctrine in the primitive church that there is no middle place; and that every man after death was either with the devil or Christ, hell or heaven; that there are but two places after this life, one for the elect, another for the repro- bate. So that the popish purgatory, which is a place of torment, in which they who have not perfected their obedience here, stay to make satisfaction for their sins, and then enter into heaven, was altogether unknown to the ancients. And indeed Polydore Virgil and Ruff'oasis acknowledge this. "Nobody," says the latter, "who is a true Catholic, but believes there is a purgatory, although there is little or no mention of it in antiquity; and the Greek Church believes it not to this day." In reality, purgatory is a novel invention, as it is now taught, a contri- vance for the advantage of the clergy, and never received as an article (ff faith till the Council of Florence, in 1448. 3. Indeed, as was before observed, we have the acknowledgmentof several Roman Catholics, that their doctrine of purgatory was not known in the primitive church, as Alphonsus a Castro, Ruffeusis, Polydoro, &c.; and of others, that it cannot be sufficiently proved from
- De Purg., I. ii, c. 1. t Bibliothec&, lib. v, Annat. 170, 171.
Et sicut dinboll et omni,,,,, negatorurn, a?ue impiorum qui ?lixerunt in corde auo, non eat Deu8, credimua mterna torment&; mc peccatorum atque impiorum, et tamen Christianorum, quorum oper& in itlne probanda aunt atque ptu?; modemtam &d)i- �Iratour, et mixtam clementbe sententiam judicie.--Commmtt. m 1?. 66 adjinom. ? ?ee Jemm, in Isa. lxvi, 18, c. ult., August. Enchirid., c. 67, 68, 69. De civit. Des, I. i?, c. 26. De Pec. Met. et Rein. c. ?8. Cypr. ad Dem. Tert. de Bapt.; and also Origen, Hem. 14, 1 Luc. Tart. de Aninm, �. ?. I C, or. iii, 15.
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