of warning to others inapplicable.

The Catholics are far more afraid of, and incomparably more influenced in
their conduct by, the doctrine of purgatory, than Protestants by that of
hell! That the Catholics practise more superstitions than morals, is the
effect of other doctrines. Supererogation; invocation of saints; power of
relics, &c. &c. and not of Purgatory, which can only act as a general
motive, to what must depend on other causes.

Fifth, and lastly.--It is a perilous state in which a christian stands,
if he has gotten no further, than to avoid evil from the fear of hell!
This is no part of the Christian religion, but a preparatory awakening of
the soul: a means of dispersing those gross films which render the eye of
the spirit incapable of any religion, much less of such a faith as that
of the love of Christ.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but perfect love
shutteth out fear. It is sufficient for the utmost fervour of gratitude
that we are saved from punishments, too great to be conceived; but our
salvation is surely not complete, till by the illumination from above, we
are made to know 'the exceeding sinfulness of sin,' and that horribleness
in its nature, which, while it involves all these frightful consequences,
is yet, of itself more affrightful to a regenerated soul than those
consequences. To him who but for a moment felt the influence of God's
presence, the thought of eternal exclusion from the sense of that
presence, would be the worst hell his imagination could conceive.

N.B. I admit of no right, no claim of a creature on its Creator. I speak
only of hopes and of faith deduced from inevitable reason, the gift of
the Creator; from his acknowledged attributes. Above all, immortality is