For forging the pope’s hand 1 7 0 Besides absolutions for crimes too shocking to be mentioned, from 9s. to £2 10s. The preceding statement requires no comment. To enlarge upon its tendency would be to blacken the chimney. Its design, on the part of the monkish brotherhood who invented and maintain it, is to make a penny, by means at which a modest devil would blush; and proves, by demonstration strong as holy writ, that the abettors of such crimes are the true descendants 220of that scoundrel hierarchy, at whose decline and fall the truly great and good will rejoice and be exceeding glad. Before now, instances have been known in which the fraternity were foiled with their own weapons. A certain nobleman once told Tetzelius, a mighty preacher of indulgences, that he had a mind to commit a very heinous sin, and desired an indulgence or present pardon for it. This was granted for a considerable sum; and when the money was paid, the bull was given. Some time after, this nobleman took occasion to meet Tetzelius in a certain wood, and breaking open his chest, robbed him of his entire stock of indulgences. When Tetzelius threatened him with all manner of curses, the nobleman showed him the bull he had paid so dear for; and laughing at him, observed that this was the very sin he had a longing to commit, when he was so fully absolved. Equally absurd, though not so malignant in its immediate result, is the doctrine of purgatory, of which the Scriptures know nothing. The hypothesis on which this notion is founded seems to be an opinion that some are not quite good enough to go to heaven, and yet too good to be sent to hell; an idea evidently borrowed from the fabled invisible domains of heathen writers. In errors of this sort, and indeed of any description, our resort must be ‘to the law and to the testimony;’ and if the truths therein contained are contradicted by an angel of light, we are not to believe him. The holy Scriptures leave no ground for the doctrine of purgatory. ‘There are twelve hours in the day, wherein men ought to work: work while ye have the day; for the night cometh, when no man can work,’ When death arrives, probation ceases; the die is cast, the destiny is fixed, and cannot be revoked or amended. St. Paul asserts that, ‘if the earthly house of our tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens,’ He also affirms, that 221when ‘we are absent from the body, we are present with the Lord;’ which is impossible, unless we are to conclude that our Lord is in purgatory. We are told, moreover, in the Gospel, that ‘the beggar died, and was carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom;’ not into purgatory, or the popish limbo, but into paradise, whither the thief upon the cross also went. We find also that Moses and Elias appeared on the mount, in glory, with our Lord and His apostles. So that they could not have been confined in