by those who disbelieve and disapprove it,
to the Catholic doctrine of purgatory; a likeness which Catholics and
Unitarians are perhaps equally unwilling to admit, though the latter
have little doubt that the belief in purgatory is a corruption of the
genuine doctrine as they hold it now.

It was the opinion of many of the Fathers in very early times, that the
world would be destroyed by fire; that the good would be purified by the
process, and the wicked consumed. It is clear that they derived a part
of this belief from some other source than the Scriptures; but it is
equally clear that they had no notion of an eternity of torment. Origen,
Clemens Alexandrinus, his master, with Gregory Nazianzen, and others of
the Fathers, held that the wicked would survive this punishment, and
come out purified and fit for a blissful state. The Catholic doctrine of
purgatory probably arose out of some of these opinions, though it
embraces much which does not appear to have entered into the
imaginations of the Fathers. Its substance, as declared in the councils
of Florence and Trent, is that every man is liable both to temporal and
eternal punishment for his sins; that the eternal punishment may be
escaped by faith in the atonement of Christ; but that the temporal must
be borne by the individual in this world or at his entrance on the next;
that the sufferings of those who undergo purgation may be relieved by
the prayers and suffrages of their earthly brethren, though in what
manner this relief is wrought, whether by a process of satisfaction, or
of intercession, or of any other method, it is not essential to true
faith to be certified. Neither is it necessary to know where the place
of purgation is; of what nature its pains are, and how long sufferers
may be detained there. The belief in purgatory was, for some ages, held
by all Christians, except the ancient Waldenses, who left the Church of
Rome before the doctrine was established there, and who never admitted
it. Soon after the Reformation, it was abandoned by all who left the
Church of Rome; so that it has since been peculiar to that church.

Our reasons for rejecting it are, that we find no trace of it in
Scripture, and that, as we declared before, we do not admit
ecclesiastical traditions as matters of faith. We also reject the notion
that any part of the punishment of sin can be escaped through the
sacrifices, or mediation, or intercession of any being whomsoever. We
have bee