and all that the most credulous superstition can ?swailow, may be, really is taught and practised in the Church of Rome respecting pu.t?a- tory: all of which we shall presently make appear by proofs whick no man can successfully deny or overturn. 1. The Council of Trent affirms, that It is taught by Scripture sad tradition, as well as by councils, and that through the teaching of Holy Spirit. That it is not taught by the Scriptures will fully by an examination of those passages of Scripture which are brought support it. Of this several doctors of the Church of Rome were so well convinced, that they did not hesitate to declare it in their writings. So Otto Frising, in the year 1146, an old historian and a Roman Ca- ' tholic bishop, and contemporary with St. Bernard, tells us in his Chr0- nicon: "The doctrine of purgatory was first built upon the credit of those fabulous dialogues attributed to Gregory I., about the year 600/" Bishop Fisher also saith: "Many are tempted now-a-days not to rely much on indulgences, for this consideration, that the use of appears to be new and very lately known among Christians. To which I answer, It was not very certain who was the first author of them; the doctrine of purgatory was a long time unknown; was rarely, if at all, heard of among the ancients, and to this day the Greeks believe it not. Nor was the belief of either purgatory or indulgences so sary in the primitive church as it is now; so long as men were untoa- ccrued about purgatory, nobody inquired after indulgences." But several texts of Scripture have been brought to support the doctrine of purgatory, we will now proceed to examine them. For however desti- tute of Scripture proof this doctrine is, the Romanism do not fail here, as in their other unscriptural tenets, to quote Scripture with appareat confidence. The following texts are the most prominent of their qu0- tations on this doctrine. 2. They sometimes allege Isaiah ,x. ii, 14, "Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die." From this they infer, that after death it should be forgiven them. But an impartial interpreter would certainly interpret this passage to mean, that their sin would never be forgiven; or, what is still more proper, that they, as a l?ople, would be visited for that particular sin during the existence of that generation; rather than to press it into the service of proving a pur- gatory. Roman Catholics quote, in order to prove purgatory, the book of Maccabees, in which we are told, "that money was sent to Jerusalem, that sacrifices might be offered for the slain; and it is recommended as a holy cogitation, to pray for the dead,'* 2 Mac. xii, 43. In a former chapter it was shown that this book is a pan of the Apocrypha, and consequently uninspired and of no authority in this discussion. It is unnecessary here to repeat the proofs. We have ouly to observe, that as Roman Catholics consider this passage the strength of their cause, it must be very slenderly maintained when it is supported only by testimony of an uninspired book. 3. The following passage is quoted in fayour of purgatory' "Agree with thine adversary quickly, whilst thou art in the way with'him; lest
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