ledge the validity of our ordination; | every one out of that Church must but, on the other hand, if I were be damned; and yet you rail against the Catholic because, immutable in his tenets, he sheds his tears and prayers for the dead, and offers up his orisons to the blessed. a priest, as I told you before, and were to turn Protestant, I could mount the pulpit and preach their doctrines immediately; whilst, if the Archbishop of Canterbury or Gentlemen, as I have but a few York were to turn Catholics to- moments left, I am desirous of callmorrow, we should tell them, "You ing your attention to this passage are not ordained in our Church, from Isaiah xxxv. 8: "And an highwhich alone can prove its descent way shall be there, and a way, and from the apostles." But so it is in it shall be called the way of holiness; this land; I might almost call it the unclean shall not pass over it; this land of infidelity. You are but it shall be for those, the waydefrauded not only of the Bible, faring men, though fools shall not. but there is no valid priesthood in err therein." This "way" has been the land, recognised by all sects, opened to you clearly and directly except the Roman Catholic; and to during the course of my discussion. that priesthood I recommend my It is this "way" into which I pray friend with as much earnest solici- you may all enter. The Church tude as he endeavours to wean has been visible from age to age; Catholics from the rock of ages. the rock of ages stands where it did To that priesthood I would advise in the days of Irenæus, who tells us my Protestant brethren to have that, "on account of its superior recourse. There you will have a headship in cases of difficulty, all rule of faith expounded to you other churches must have resort." which will surpass every other in" Ad hanc ecclesiam propter potiorem purity and in excellence; there principalitatem necesse est omnem you will float into a harbour of tran-convenire ecclesiam."-Irenæ. Advers. quillity, and find that calm and Hares. lib. iii. cap. iii. 175.-Here refreshing rest which a mutable the learned gentleman was obliged doctrine to the soul of man can to close abruptly, the usual hour never possibly administer. It is no later than a few years ago that you used to offer a prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. You have that prayer still in your own prayer-books-a fact which must condemn Protestants on the ground of mutability of doctrine. There has not been one shadow of mutability amongst us; but we see an eternal vacillation, a perpetual tendency to change, in yours. Take the Creed of St. Athanasius, in the Thirty-nine Articles, which creed de clares that "out of the true Church no man can be saved," declaring that "absque dubio in æternum peribit." If you believe that yours is the true Church, then you must believe that having expired.] JOHN KENDAL, Esq., the Chairman on behalf of the Catholics, then rose and announced a fresh subject for discussion on the Tuesday following, viz.-PURGATORY; upon which subject Mr. French would deliver the leading address. The assembly, which was much crowded, then separated in its usually characteristic orderly manner, at about half-past ten o'clock. We certify that this Report is faith- Barrister-at-Law, 312 SEVENTH EVENING, TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 1839. SUBJECT: where souls departing this life, with remission of their sins, as to the guilt or eternal pain, but yet liable to some temporal punishment, still remaining due; or, not perfectly freed from the blemish of some defects which we call venial sins, are purged before their admittance into heaven, where nothing that is defiled can enter." Mr. FRENCH.-If ever there was an occasion when I rose to address this assembly, and felt myself little inclined to be lavish of words, or to indulge myself in any preliminary remarks, it is the present. And the reason of it is, gentlemen, because I wish to embody, in my part of the disputation, such a mass of evidence, as will be totally incompatible with anything like an indulgence in me- "We also believe, that such souls taphorical flourish and display, and so detained in Purgatory, being the all the fine gauderies of rhetoric. I living members of Christ Jesus, are wish, gentlemen, to adhere solely relieved by the prayers and suffrages and exclusively to argument, and of their fellow-members here on not to put it in the power of my an- earth. But where this place may tagonist to reproach me with any-be-of what nature or quality the thing like a deviation from it. In pains may be how long souls may arguing upon this great subject (on be there detained-in what manner which we may be erroneous in our the suffrages made on their behalf view, and on which, if we be so, I may be applied-whether by way of agree with my learned friend that satisfaction or intercession, &c., are we are so most fatally; and if he, questions superfluous and impertion the other hand-if the doctrines nent as to faith." of his Church be founded on error, Now, my friends, my learned on this subject, as well as on others antagonist comes to fight his battles which we have discussed, he will this day against the Catholic Church, certainly be proved to have wan- just as he came upon the last occa dered egregiously from the line sion, when the discussion was the of apostolical tradition) I shall en-Invocation of Saints and Angelsdeavour to pay my usual reverence to the laws of reasoning. Before, however, I enter upon the argument, I would wish to read you what is the plain exposition of our doctrine upon Purgatory. I wish to call your particular attention to the exposition of the doctrine of Purgatory, as it has been laid down from age to age in the Catholic Church, ever since the times of the apostles. "Catholics hold that there is a Purgatory, that is to say, a place or state, that is, under the protective shield of a man who in former times was denounced as a heretic by the Church. I allude to Erius, in the fourth century. He was the first person, as our ecclesiastical historians record it, who raised his voice against the apostolic doctrine of praying for the dead. If you would condescend, my friends, to turn over the leaves of ecclesiastical history, you would find that from the days of the apostles, from the Mr. French. PURGATORY. very dawn of Christianity, every age | protection of the FATHERS of the has been signalized by the springing Church, and I envy not my friend up of some heresy in the Church of the heretical banners under which God; and it has generally happened he has come to fight this day. Yes, that when heretics have raised their my friends, I shall prove to you, as I voice against the Church of God, have done from the beginning in all they have been most virulent in my positions, that the fathers of the calumniating and defaming it. Thus Church are ever on our side. Those it was with Vigilantius, who rose in columns of orthodoxy, those models the fourth century against the doc-of true sanctity and apostolicity, trine of the Invocation of Saints and were looked upon as such by all Angels. Thus it was in the very Protestants and all Catholic authors days of the Apostles and Evangelists, until the dismal, gloomy century in that a sect arose denying the divinity which we are now living, where of Christ, which called forth the men are perpetually endeavouring production of that splendid Gospel to impugn their sanctity and their which we now enjoy, called the orthodoxy. My learned friend has Gospel of St. John, to confute the frequently, throughout his argumonstrous errors of Cerinthus. ments, and in the course which he Then there came a host of divers has adopted, endeavoured to weaken heresies in succession, all marked the authority of the fathers of the down by the Catholic Church-for Church, by stating that they are they ever had their writers with "perpetually knocking their heads pens in their hands to note down against one another;" in answer to the springing up of heresies. Then which statement I shall reply this there arose a sect who denied that day by showing you its utter groundChrist, when on earth, had a real lessness. There are particular pasbody; maintaining that he was sages in Scripture which they cermerely an aerial substance, imma-tainly interpret diversely; but, as I terial and unencumbered with flesh; told him before, and I must repeat it called the Gnostics or Doceti. Then again and again constantly throughthere was another sect, who paid out the course of this discussion, divine adoration to angels-not begging you to bear it in mind, in Catholics, good and virtuous, but order that you may know at the end wicked men, brought up, indeed, of it whether he or I adhere to originally in the true Church; and truth strictly-I, in saying that the who began to offer sacrifices unto fathers of the Church are all unaniangels, which is alluded to so forci-mous on the grand, vital, fundably in the Epistle of Paul concern- mental articles of our faith; or he, ing the worship of angels. These in declaring most positively and men were anathematized by the most dogmatically that they are all Church, and they formed a distinct at war with one another. This, body and heretical communion. gentlemen, is the grand point for After this, in the fourth century, me to impose upon your memories sprang up the Erians. Now, it is under the auspices of their champion Arius, that my learned antagonist intends to establish his position this day. I come as usual, my friends, under the auspices of the firm, indissoluble, infrangible phalanx and this day; for if I be borne out in the assertion, that in all the articles of our faith, they are ever combatting for us (as I said before) in one indissoluble and infrangible phalanx, then the assertion of my friend completely falls to the ground, that they 344 PURGATORY. are always knocking their heads | which we have had a late example, when no oblation was made, nor against one another. The first father of the Church prayer, in his name, offered in the that I shall quote is one whose word Church." Ep. lxvi. p. 114.-— Ja is only to be taken on points wherein other letters he speaks of the he agrees with all the other fathers same offerings. Ep. xxviii. p. 32, of the Church; for it is well known and Ep. xxxvii. p. 50.—“It is one that Tertullian, who was born 150 thing to be a petitioner for pardon, years after Christ-it is well known and another to arrive at glory; one that he fell into a heresy, but at the to be cast into prison and not go same time Protestants and Catholics out from thence till the last farthing both quote him on certain funda- be paid, and another to receive at mental points. These are the words once the reward of faith and virtue ; one, in punishment of sin, to be of Tertullian : purified by long suffering and purged by long fire, and another to have expiated all sins by (previous) suffering; one, in fine, at the day of judgment to wait the sentence of the Lord, another to receive an immediate crown from him."-Ep. I shall then go to Eusebius of Cæsarea, the ecclesiastical historian. Describing the funeral of the Emperor Constantine, he thus writes: TERTULLIAN, L. C.-Among the apostolical traditions, received from their fathers, and not enforced by the positive words of Scripture, he reckons "oblations for the dead on the anniversary day." De Cor. Milit. p. 289.-In his treatise on single marriages, he advises the widow lii. p. 72. "to pray for the soul of her departed husband, entreating repose to him, and participation in the first resurrection, and making oblation for him on the anniversary days of his death; which if she neglect, it may truly be said of her, that, as far as in her lies, she has repudiated her husband." De Monogamia, c. x. p. 955.-"Reflect," he says to "for whose soul widowers, you pray, for whom you make annual oblations."-Exhort. ad Castit. c. xi. p. 942. "In this manner did Constantius perform the last duties in honour of his father. But when he had departed with his guards, the ministers of God, surrounded by the multitude of the faithful, advanced into the middle space, and with prayers performed the ceremonies of divine worship. The blessed prince, reposing in his coffin, was extolled with many praises: when the people, in concert with the priests, not without sighs and tears, offered prayers to heaven for his soul; in this manifesting the most acceptable service to a religious prince. God, besides, thus continued to show his kindness to his servant. He had ST. CYPRIAN, L.C.-" Our pre- bestowed the succession of the emdecessors prudently advised, that no pire on his sons; and now, in combrother, departing this life, should pliance with his ardent wishes, he nominate any churchman his ex-gives him a place near the bodies of ecutor; and should he do it, that no the holy apostles, in order that he oblation should be made for him, nor may enjoy their blessed fellowship, sacrifice offered for his repose; of and in their temple be associated I need not call your attention to the fact which stares you so palpably in the face, my Protestant brethren, that, if ours be a superstitious and an erroneous doctrine, it is at least extremely old. Cyprian, who flourished 250 years after Christ, says: 31. French.] PURGATORY. with the people of God. He would | why was he blessed? Again, if thus also be admitted to a participa- they be insensible, hear what the tion in the religious rites, the mystic apostle says: If the dead rise not sacrifice, and holy suffrages of the again at all, why are they then bapfaithful."-De Vita Constant. 1. iv. tized for them? (1 Cor. xv. 29.) If also the sons of Mathathias c. lxx., lxxi., p. 667. Again, I quote from Arnobius, (2 Maccab. xii.) who celebrated their feasts in figure only, could cleanse who flourished some time after :ARNOBIUS, L. C.-"Why were those from guilt by their offerings the oratories (of the Christians) des- who fell in battle, how much more tiled to savage destruction, wherein shall the priests of Christ aid the prayers are offered up to the sove-dead by their oblations and prayers!" reign God; peace and pardon are implored for all men, magistrates, soldiers, kings, friends, and enemies, for those who are alive, and for those who have quitted their bodies."-L. iv. adv. Gentes, p. 152. Edit. Lugduni Batavorum, 1651. I cannot but call your attention here, my friends, for a single moment, en passant, to the circumstances of funeral pomp which attended the burial of the late George the Fourth. At his grave, my friends, you have the most incontestable evidence of prayers being offered up for the repose of his soul. But to return: St. Ephrem of Edessa, a pious and learned deacon, thus speaks: gone. me. -- ST. EPHREM OF EDESSA, G. C.- -In Testament. t. ii. p. 234, p. 271. And remember, my friends, I Again, I quote St. Cyril of Jeru salem. He says, that in the liturgies of the church-alluding to these liturgies which I shall be obliged to cite to you to-night, however reluctant my friend may be to listen to them, especially as he has not brought one tittle of evidence to shake their authenticity; (and for that purpose he went to Dupin, who is one of those dead weeds which I throw over into his garden very ST. CYRIL OF JERUSALEM, G. C. completely;) St. Cyril says "Then (in the liturgy of the Church) we pray for the holy fathers and the bishops that are dead; and, in short, for all those who are departed this life in our communion; believing that the souls of those for |