Paul’s time there was a custom, by receiving baptism for the dead (as men that now believe, are sureties and undertakers for the faith of infants, that are not capable of believing), 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 forgiveness 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 thoroughly versed in the Scripture, to inquire if there be no clearer place that contradicts them. Only of thus much, I see evident Scripture to persuade me that there is neither the word nor the thing of purgatory, neither in this, nor any other text; nor anything that can prove a necessity of a place for the soul without the body; neither for the soul of Lazarus during the four days he was dead; nor for the souls of them which the Roman Church pretend to be tormented now in purgatory. For God, that could give a life to a piece of clay, hath the same power to give life again to a dead man, and renew his inanimate and rotten carcass into a glorious, spiritual, and immortal body.