there was a custome by receiving Baptisme for the dead, (as men that now beleeve, are Sureties and Undertakers for the Faith of Infants, that are not capable of beleeving,) to undertake for the persons of their deceased friends, that they should be ready to obey, and receive our Saviour for their King, at his coming again; and then the forgivenesse of sins in the world to come, has no need of a Purgatory.  But in both these interpretations, there is so much of paradox, that I trust not to them; but propound them to those that are throughly versed in the Scripture, to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them.  Onely of thus much, I see evident Scripture, to perswade men, that there is neither the word, nor the thing of Purgatory, neither in this, nor any other text; nor any thing that can prove a necessity of a place for the Soule without the Body; neither for the Soule of Lazarus during the four days he was dead; nor for the Soules of them which the Romane Church pretend to be tormented now in Purgatory.  For God, that could give a life to a peece of clay, hath the same power to give life again to a dead man, and renew his inanimate, and rotten Carkasse, into a glorious, spirituall, and immortall Body.

Another place is that of 1 Cor. 3. where it is said that they which built Stubble, Hay, &c. on the true Foundation, their work shall perish; but “they themselves shall be saved; but as through Fire:”  This Fire, he will have to be the Fire of Purgatory.  The words, as I have said before, are an allusion to those of Zach. 13. 9. where he saith, “I will bring the third part through the Fire, and refine them as Silver is refined, and will try them as Gold is tryed;” Which is spoken of the comming of the Messiah in Power and Glory; that is, at the day of Judgment, and Conflagration of the present world; wherein the Elect shall not be consumed, but be refined; that is, depose their erroneous Doctrines, and Traditions, and have them as it were sindged off; and shall afterwards call upon the name of the true God.  In like manner, the Apostle saith of them, that holding this Foundation Jesus Is The Christ, shall build thereon some other Doctrines that be erroneous, that they shall not be consumed in that fire which reneweth the world, but shall passe through it to Salvation; but so, as to see, and relinquish their former Errours.  The Builders, are the Pastors; the Foundation, that Jesus Is The Christ; the Stubble and Hay, False Consequences Drawn From It Through Ignorance, Or Frailty; the Gold, Silver, and pretious Stones, are their True Doctrines; and their Refining or Purging, the Relinquishing Of Their Errors.  In all which there is no colour at all for the burning of Incorporeall, that is to say, Impatible Souls.