We consider that the doctrines upon which it (Purgatory) is pretended reasonable, are all dubious, and disputable at the very best. Such are ... that the taking away the guilt of sins does not suppose the taking away the obligation to punishment; that is, that when a man's sin is pardoned, he may be punished without the guilt of that sin as justly as with it.
The taking away the guilt does not, however, imply of necessity the natural removal of the consequences of sin. And in this sense, I suppose, the subtler Romanists would defend this accursed doctrine. A man may have bitterly repented and thoroughly reformed the sin of drunkenness, and by this genuine
metanoia
and faith in Christ crucified have obtained forgiveness of the guilt, and yet continue to suffer a heavy punishment in a schirrous liver or incurable dyspepsy. But who authorized the Popes to extend this to the soul?
Ib.
p. 153.
St. Ambrose saith that 'death is a haven of rest.'
Consider the strange and oftentimes awful dreams accompanying the presence of irritating matter in the lower abdomen, and the seeming appropriation of particular sorts of dream images and incidents to affections of particular organs and
viscera.
Do the material causes act positively, so that with the removal of the body by death the total cause is removed, and of course the effects? Or only negatively and indirectly, by lessening and suspending that continuous texture of organic sensation, which, by drawing outward the attention of the soul, sheaths her from her own state and its corresponding activities? — A fearful question, which I too often agitate, and which agitates me even in my dreams, when most commonly I am in one of Swedenborg's hells, doubtful whether I am once more to be awaked, and thinking our dreams to be the true state of the soul disembodied when not united with Christ. On awaking from such dreams, I never fail to find some local pain,