unite and worship together, if they were properly disposed and directed, but that they would more easily come over to us than we to them."1

When again the same author2 would support picture-worship by the practice of the ancients, the authority of Nilus, Archbishop of Thessalonica, A.D. 440, is quoted; and these are his words: "Let the sacred temple be filled with pictures, well executed by the most celebrated artists, and representing the most remarkable events of the Old and New Testaments." But, unfortunately, the sentence is curtailed of its fair proportions. Unquestionably the sacred temple was to be filled with pictures: but why?" That the unlettered, and those who were incapable of reading the divine Scriptures, might "—not fall down and worship, but-" be reminded, by the sight of the painting, of the virtuous deeds of those who have served the true God, and be excited thereby to the imitation of their laudable actions." 993

There is also a tract put forth by Episcopal authority, and entitled "An Abridgment of Christian Doctrine," in' which the honoring [worship] of angels is supported by the authority of St. John:*

1

"Travels of an Irish Gentleman," by Thomas Moore, vol. ii. pp. 308, 309. Dr. Hey's Lectures, book iv. art. 1, ch. 15, tom. i. pp. 517, 518. See also p. 590. Camb. 1841.

2 Travels of an Irish Gentleman, vol. i. p. 63.

3 See Note NN, p. 78.

Rev. xix. 10; xxii. 8. See "An Abridgment of the Christian Doctrine," p. 49. Permissu Superiorum. Dublin, 1838.

F

"And I fell down to adore before the feet of the angel, who shewed me these things." Thus ends the quotation. SINE permissu superiorum, we will take leave to proceed with it: And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God." 1

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Thus also it is in the text before us. It is only necessary to complete the verse, in order to ascertain the amount of testimony which it bears to the doctrine of Purgatory :-" And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's Book of Life." Hence it appears that they who are impure, who work abomination, or who make a lie, shall be excluded from the heavenly Jerusalem; and that those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, shall be admitted into the number of its glorified citizens. The ground of admission is, "the registration of their names in the Lamb's Book of Life," not the endurance of purgatorial fire.

We have now passed in review the leading passages of Scripture which the modern advocates of Purgatory have adduced in support of their dogma :

1 See a learned note in Dr. Fulke on the Rhemish Testament, Rev. xix. 10, in which he ably exposes the subterfuges to which Papists resort for removing the serious difficulty presented to them by this text.

-passages which have been cruelly tortured to uphold what Romish writers are pleased to call an article of faith, in which implicit belief is demanded under the penalty of a papal anathema. In former times the alleged authorities were far more numerous; but, for obvious reasons, the more cautious writers of the present day confine themselves to those which we have now examined. "So illustriously manifest is her cause in the Scriptures, that its highest advantages are the deepest obscurities, and its clearest light is treasured up in the profoundest darkness!" Wise had she been in yielding to the sober views of her more reflecting children, who have had the candor to confess that Purgatory cannot be maintained from Scripture; and that since Christ has not thought fit to communicate any revelation on the subject, it is only upon conjectures, more or less probable, that the doctrine can be maintained.2

1 See Note OO, p. 78.

2 See Note PP, p. 82.

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NOTES TO CHAPTER II.

Note A, p. 32.

MACCABEORUM libros legit quidem Ecclesia, sed eos inter canonicas Scripturas non recipit. Hierom. in Prol. Proverb. "The Church reads the books of the Maccabees, but does not receive them among the canonical Scriptures." Nor indeed is it likely that a mere abridger of Jason's five books should be an inspired writer. (ch. ii. 19.) See Bp. Cosin's Scholastic History of the Canon of Scripture, nn. lxx. lxxi. &c. London, 1657.

"We have in this century (A.D. 451) the General Council of CHALCEDON, under Martianus the Emperor, and in the time of Pope Leo I., consisting of one hundred and thirty bishops, which received the Code of the Church universally in use before them, and by their first canon confirmed it. In that Code, often mentioned in this Council, were contained among others the canons of Laodicea, wherein we had the catalogue of the Canonical Books of Scripture; but the canons of the Council of CARTHAGE had yet no place in it. Therefore we may safely conclude that neither Pope Leo, whose Legates subscribed the Council of Chalcedon for him, all but the 27th Canon, nor any of the Bishops there gathered together, acknowledged any other Books of Canonical Scripture than those which the Council of Laodicea,-(which left out all the Apocryphal, or the Ecclesiastical Books of the Old Testament,)— had declared to be received and read for such in the Church before their time." Bp. Cosin's Scholast. Hist. of the Canon, n. lxxxv. London, 1657.

Note B, p. 32.

Ab hoc tempore, apud Judæos restituto templo, usque ad Aristobulum, supputatio temporum non in Scripturis sanctis, quæ Canonicæ appellantur, sed in aliis invenitur, in quibus sunt et Maccabæorum libri, quos Ecclesia pro Canonicis habet, propter quorundam Martyrum passiones vehementes atque mirabiles, qui, antequam Christus venisset in carnem, usque ad mortem pro Dei lege certaverunt, et mala gravissima atque horribilia pertulerunt.

August. de Civit. Dei, lib. xviii. c. 36, tom. vii. col. 519. Paris, 1685. See also De Doctr. Christ. lib. ii. c. 8, sec. 13, tom. iii. col. 23. Paris, 1689.

"Of the things which took place from the time of the rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem to that of Aristobulus, we have no account in the holy Scriptures, which are called canonical, but in others, amongst which are the Books of the Maccabees, which the Church receives as canonical, on account of the severe and wonderful sufferings of certain martyrs, who, before the coming of Christ in the flesh, contended even unto death for the law of God, and endured the most extreme and horrible torments."

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"The reason why the Church called these books canonical," says Bishop Cosin, was, not because the authors of them were prophets, or men inspired by God to write and give us the rules of our faith, but in regard of the many pious directions and examples of zeal and constancy in religion that are there to be found: for which cause the Church received them into the lower canon of ecclesiastical books, but not into the supreme canon of absolute and divine Scriptures. According to which distinction also, the Hellenist Jews held them to be as canonical as any Christian Church did; for from the Hellenistic Jews only the Christians received them, and not from the Hebrews." A Scholastical Hist. of the Canon of Holy Scripture, by Bp. Cosin, n. lxxxi. p. 111. London, 1657.

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Although the Book of Wisdom was held in veneration by the Church," says the same writer, Numb. lxxxi. p. 106, "yet, together with others of that class, it was given to the readers, or the inferior officers of the Church, to be read there by them in a lower place than those of the higher class, which the priests and bishops read themselves in a more eminent or conspicuous manner." August. de Prædest. lib. i. c. 14, tom. vii. 1249, B. Basil, 1569. Contra secundam Epistolam Gaudentii, lib. ii. cap. 23, tom. vii. col. 353. Also Bp. Cosin's Schol. Hist. of the Can. of Scripture, n. lxxxi. pp. 108, 109.

See

Notwithstanding this weight of evidence, in addition to what is given at page 31, against the canonicity of Apocryphal writings, including the Second Book of the Maccabees, the veracious and enlightened Turlat has the confidence to write,-Nihil quod enim