with Trouble, and to numberlefs Temptations liable, that other of much greater Moment being entirely neglected and efteem'd as nothing."

You fee here that the Doctor intimates very plainly, that if there be any fuch Thing as an intermediate State, between Death and Judgment, capable of Action, it ought not, he thinks, to pafs as of no Account; nor is it eafy to fee a Reafon why it should do fo. For if there may be Wisdom, Knowledge, and Device, and that too as fome think of a more perfect Kind, when the Soul by Death has gain'd its Release from Body, and is by that Means qualify'd to know more than ever, it must be very difficult to affign a Reafon why a Soul at fuch a Time may not turn Penitent, and freed from every bodily Temptation, and the Veil of the Flesh removed from before its Eyes, make a fwift and speedy Advance towards God and Heaven. There is nothing i Nature that I can conceive to obftruct this: And the Cafe of our Death Bed Penitents feems to prove it. It must be own'd indeed, that it is but too often feen, that Sick Bed Penitents, as Health returns, are but too toc apt to return to their former Vices: but then it is to be confidered in this Cafe, that as Health returns, they are apt to be

met

met with again by the fame Temptations, and to be feduced again by the fame vain Delufions that had so often beguil'd them before. But with regard to the Dead, their Cafe is widely different; they are neither fuppos'd to be liable to fuch Temptations,, nor to be deluded by fuch like Deceptions; the Eyes of their Faith muft in that State be clear and strong, or if you had rather have it so, they walk by Sight, and muft of Courfe be difpofed to rectify all thofe Errors, that either Ignorance or want of Thought had led them into. And therefore if they are not to be judged, as there is no Reason to think they will be, nor fo much as a Shadow of Proof for it to be brought from Scripture, till the fecond Coming of the Lord to Judgment, how hard must it be to keep them from flattering Hopes, that what either by their own, or the Prayers of others for them, by one or other, or by both united, tho' not immediately fit to ftand in Judgment, they may yet acquire that Fitness before Judgment comes. This does not only pafs with many for folid Reasoning, but is made by many a Part of their Faith; and tho' we as Proteftants profefs the contrary, yet did we know the private Thoughts of many Proteftants, we should not find them perhaps fuch great Strangers to fome fecret Ex

K 2

Expectations of this Kind, as we are gene-. rally apt to believe. They arife fo naturally from the common Faith, or the common receiv'd Opinion of Immortality, that it is not eafy for a thinking Mind to be always free from them. St. Auguftin freely owns that this was his Faith, that fome in the separate State might gain their Pardon, and Sins be pardon'd there which are not here. As for temporal Pain, fome endure it here, fays he, and fome hereafter, and some both here and there, yet all is over before the laft Judgment. But all shall not come into these eternal Pains. (which notwithstanding shall be eternal after the last Judgment, unto them that endure them temporally after Death,) for fome shall be pardon'd in the next World that are not pardon'd in this, and acquitted there and not here from entering into Pains eternal". [City of God. Lib. 21. Cap. 13.]

You must eafily fee, that fuch are not affected by this, as are for fending Souls to Heaven or Hell directly, and for an irreverfible Sentence immediately pafs'd upon every one, as foon as ever it has left the Body. But as this is a Notion exploded by moft thinking Men, and fuch as has not the leaft Foundation in Scripture whereon to build it, the Belief of a feparate State, as held at -prefent, is but too much liable to produce

fuch

e;

fuch Inferences, and has in Fact been productive of Inferences highly injurious to the present Cause and Interest of Virtue fo far is it from favouring Virtue more than our's, as I fhall fhew more at large in my next; till when, with the greatest Sincerity, Yours, THEOPHILUS.

I reft

I

Now

LETTER III.

THEOPHILUS to CRITO.

go on, according to my Promife, to fhew more largely the pernicious Use that has been made of the common Doctrine of Immortality. To Heathens ignorant of a Resurrection, the Belief of this no doubt was good and useful, and the Design of fpreading it pious and laudable; but as to us who believe that the Dead fhall one Day rise, and rifing bodily be brought to Judgment, it is not only a Doctrine of no Neceffity, but fuch as both may and has been abus'd to wicked Purposes, and to the hurting the Intereft of that very Virtue it was intended at firft to promote. You cannot but know, that this is the grand Foundation upon which the Papists have erected fome of their greatest Errors. The Invocation of Saints, and Maffes for Souls in Purgatory,

K 3

gatory, with a whole Cargo of idle, falfe, and fenfelefs Stories, have all arifen from this one falfe Tenet. Remove but this, and their Religion totters, the Virgin Mother lofes all her Worship, and a thousand pious Frauds lofe all their Credit. I have juft been reading in a nameless Author, a Story of this Kind, which is worth reciting, and fhould chance to be dull may poffibly entertain you. It is taken from Caufin, a French Roman Catholick Writer, and which with our Author's Remarks on it I fhall here tranfcribe.

you

One Peter of Clugny, furnamed (fays he) the venerable tells us, that in a Village of Spain nam'd the Starr, there was a Man of Quality call'd Peter of Engelbert, much efteem'd in the World for his excellent Parts, and Abundance of Riches. This Peter of Engelbert (to make fhort of the Story) enters into the Order of Clugny, then an holy Order of Monks and Friars erected in France, and often told the holy Friars of a Vision he had feen in this Manner, the General of that Order requiring him punctually to relate the Particulars to himself and fome others.

At the Time that Alphonfus the Younger, King of Spain, (which I take to be An. Dom. 1156, or there-abouts,) Heir of Alphonfus

the