Whence, of course, it is EQUALLY SILENT, respecting the extraordinary alleged fact: that, _Souls_, _there detained_, _are assisted by the suffrages or prayers of the faithful and most especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar_. 2. But Holy Scripture is not merely SILENT on this subject: by anticipation, it even FLATLY CONTRADICTS the popish doctrine before us. _I heard a voice from heaven_, _saying unto me_: _Write_; _Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth_: _Yea_, _saith the Spirit_, THAT THEY MAY REST FROM THEIR LABOURS; _and their works do follow them_. {25} If, as the Romish Clergy teach, even those, who die in the Lord, pass into Purgatory, where they suffer pains equal to those of Hell in intensity and inferior to them only in duration: certainly, such souls can with no truth be said henceforth to rest from their labours. 3. In reality, the very notion of a Purgatory stands irreconcileably opposed to the whole scheme and analogy of Scripture. For the doctrine of a Purgatory holds out the speculation: that, _By penal suffering_, _we both may be purified from our sins_, _and likewise may make personal meritorious satisfaction to God for them_. Whereas Scripture teaches us: that _We are justified from our sins by the sole merits of the Son_, and that _We are sanctified from our pollutions by the exclusive ordinary operation of the Spirit_. On the present point, then, are we to believe the Bible, or the Council of Trent and the Latin Priesthood? 4. Finding it impossible to establish the existence of a Purgatory from the genuine written word of God, the Romish Clergy attempt to substantiate it from a text in the Apocrypha. _When Judas had made a gathering throughout the __company to the sum of two thousand drachms of silver_, _he sent it to Jerusalem_, _to offer a sin-offering_; _doing therein well and honestly_, _in that he was mindful of the resurrection_ (_for_, _if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again_, _it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead_), _and also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly_. _It was a holy and good thought_. _Whereupon_, _he made a reconciliation for the dead_, _that they might be delivered from sin_. {26a} Now this text, even if we could admit the canonical authority of a book which _praises self-murder_, and which _apologises for its own defects_, {26b} would stand the Latin Priesthood in small stead: for _it never once mentions any Purgatory_; and the persons, moreover, for whom Judas attempted to make reconciliation, were actually men who had died _in the mortal sin of idolatry unrepented of_, and consequently were men who (by the determination of the Council of Trent) had passed not into Purgatory but into Hell. {26c}