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.
Another place is that of 1 Cor. 3, where it is said, that they which build stubble, hay, etc. , 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,