fault with it. Apolog. Confess. | positively, "that the souls of the Augsburg.. righteous before Christ's ascension, were not in heaven strictly taken: not in that heaven which is now the receptacle of the righteous." Then, in relation to the texts which seem to restrain the state of departed souls either to hell or heaven, he says:- "This is to be understood of the final state of souls after the day of judgment, when there will be no more than two conditions of souls everlastingly, viz. heaven and hell; and in this both Churches agree." Dr. Thorndyke, Just Weights, &c. chap. xvi. says, "The practice in the Church in interceding for them (the faithful departed) at the celebration of the Eucharist is so general and so ancient, that it cannot be thought to have come in upon imposture, but that the same assertion will take hold of the common Christianity." The Protestant translators of Dupin, page 3, confess, "It is evident from some very ancient records of the Church (nothing can Bishop Andrews, in his Private be more so) that it was a custom Devotions, printed at Oxford, anno among Christians, ab antiquo, to 1675, says, "Give to the living pray for the souls of the faithful mercy and grace, and to the dead departed in the dreadful mysteries." rest, and light perpetual."--Page And a little after, they tell us that 326. "St. John Chrysostom, in his third Homily on Philippians, plainly asserts that it was decreed by the apostles." "And this we find practised," they say, "by many eminent fathers of the Church." Again, the Protestant Doctor Forbes says: "Let not the ancient practice of praying and making oblations for the dead, received throughout the universal Church of Christ, almost from the very time of the apostles, be any more rejected by Protestants as unlawful or vain. Let them reverence the judgment of the primitive Church, and admit a practice strengthened by the uninterrupted profession of so many ages." Discourse on Purgatory. 66 we Nay," says Dr. Jeremy Taylor, find by the history of the Maccabees, that the Jews did pray and make offerings for the dead. This practice was at first, and universal, it being plain in Tertullian, Cyprian, and others."-Liberty of Prophesying. Again, Bishop Montague, in his Appeal, chap. xviii., asserts a middle or third place, for he says Again, the famous, the really eloquent and learned Dr. Barrow, that bright ornament of English literature, and Dr. Thorndyke, a man likewise profoundly erudite, in the epitaphs they composed for themselves, request the prayers of the faithful; the one, that he may find mercy in the day of the Lord; the other, that he may have rest, and a happy resurrection. "Indeed," say the Protestant writers of the Encyclopædia, "the belief in Purgatory is now, by one of those strange revolutions to which the human mind is subject, becoming the general belief of Protestants." What were the opinions of the fathers on Purgatory, may be collected from the following remarkable confession of Mr. Fulke, in his Confutation of Popery, page 362; where he says that "Tertullian, Cyprian, Augustine, Jerome, and a great many more of the fathers, have erred in believing that sacrifice for the dead was an apostolic tradition." Again, listen to Bishop Cousin upon the prayer :-“ That` we, with all those that are departed in the true | solid argument-you will see here faith of God's holy name, may have that you have been deliberately deour perfect consummation and bliss," frauded by your instructors of one says, And whatsoever the effect of the great doctrines of ages, as and fruit of this prayer will be, well as of a substantial part of the though it be uncertain, yet hereby Bible. we show that charity which we owe to all those that are fellow-servants with us in Christ; and in this regard our prayers cannot be condemned, being neither impious, nor unfit for those who profess the Christian religion." In King Edward's Liturgy I read the following: "LET US PRAY. So that among them you have been defrauded of praying for the dead; and yet, if we listen to my boldly-asseverating antagonist, there is nothing mutable in the Protestant religion!!! My learned antagonist next makes some remarks upon the subject of genealogy. You will remember, I dare say, that he endeavoured to "O Lord, with whom do live the trace up our priesthood to the days spirits of them that are dead, and to of Cain, and I, therefore, took the whom the souls of them that be same liberty with him, though rather elected, after they be delivered from more successfully. But with regard the burthen of the flesh, be in joy to Tertullian, it is with a very ill and felicity Grant unto this ser- grace that he upbraids me with vant, that the sin which he hath referring to the pages of a man who committed in this world be not im- died a heretic, out of the bosom puted to him, but that he, escaping of the Church, according to St. the gates of hell, and pains of eternal Jerome. darkness, may ever dwell in the regions of light," &c. : He is as much considered and quoted by Protestants as a ProtesLastly, leading eminent Protestant theologian, as he is by us as a tant divines confess, that "all litur- Catholic theologian. I quote him gies published, from the Council of only in his orthodox works. My Ephesus to the sixteenth century, reverend friend has quoted TerCatholic, Nestorian, Eutychian, tullian against us, and I have quoted Malabar, Chaldean, Egyptian, Abys-him against him; but where he sinian, and Ethiopian; those of Con- differs from the orthodox faith, there stantinople, of the Greeks, Syrians, we leave him. My friend ther whether orthodox or Jacobite; those alluded to the sixth book of Virgil, of St. Basil, St. Chrysostom, St. as to Purgatory there. Why, the James; that, in fine, of the apostolic doctrine of Purgatory itself, as many constitutions, written before others of the divines of the Church of in the third century, all are uniform England can tell him, is not only a on the subject of praying for the tenet of the Church, but a feeling dead!" Here you have King Edward's account-a Protestant king-sanctioning this as an usage of Christianity in those days. And therefore, my Protestant brethren-you who come seriously in search of truth, you who can discriminate between vehement declamation and weighty, of human nature. Virgil was acquainted with the difference between virtue and vice, between a great crime and a little fault or peccadillo; and when, in his poetic and fanciful imagination, he wan dered through the regions below, he thought it in accordance with nature and common sense to assign to its inhabitants different degrees of beatitude or of torment. But I would ask my learned friend, since he wanders from Catholic and Protestant commentators to the classics --what is the use of squandering such a multiplicity of words, when Virgil himself, instead of overturning the case, rather substantiates the doctrine? Virgil may have read the Book of Maccabees. Will the learned gentleman contend that the Book of Maccabees, whether inspired or not, was not in existence in the days of Virgil? I have, myself, no doubt but that he alludes to the sacred books in one of his Georgics, where he says— "Primus Idumæas referam tibi Mantua palmas." I have no doubt but his famous eclogue called Pollio was taken, as to its substance, from sacred books, and clearly predictive of the birth of our Saviour. The learned gentleman then goes to Aquinas and Delahogue. I tell the learned gentleman that Aquinas and Delahogue are strictly orthodox on all the tenets and articles of faith. How often am I to tell him that we reject those figurative passages to which he alludes, and which we interpret as we like, and in which we have the greatest latitude; but the moment that the interpretation of the fathers and the College of Maynooth differ -the moment Delahogue wanders from the faith of ages, and the learned works of antiquity, as to substantials, that moment he becomes a heretic, and alien to our Church; he may enter any modern Church, but he does not belong to us. Till then I cannot throw the ever-venerable Delahogue over into his garden. Again, as to Dupin; I have told him before (and it is useless to occupy any more time on the subject), I mentioned from the beginning, and I now repeat, that I consider Dupin in his writings as a deadly enemy to the Catholic Church; because, when I admit he is heretical, it is really unfair and ungenerous to proceed in casting Dupin against us. But, my friends, when I come to these liturgies, there I am upon ground upon which I must dwell a little longer. Once more my friend endeavours, and I hope it is his last feeble attempt, to invalidate these noble and glorious liturgies. It is impossible for any man of learning to do it. No man in the present age, save and except himself, would dare to attempt it. As for the liturgies ascribed to St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. James, says Archbishop Wake-[Some talking on the plat form disturbed the learned gentleman]. Silence, if you please, gentlemen, I cannot go on. JOHN KENDAL, Esq. (Catholic chairman) rose to enforce the learned gentleman's request. Mr. FRENCH-In continuation.] Now, then, I ask, did I ever assert that these liturgies (as we now have them) were written by these men just as they are? No; I confessed that additions were made to them; I pointed out the additions. I know they were made to them; and that is what Archbishops Wake and Bull ever have contended. But listen. "As for the liturgies ascribed to St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. James," says Archbishop Wake, 'there is not, I suppose, any learned was who believes them written by those holy men, and set forth in the manner they are now published. They were, indeed, the ancient liturgies of the three, if not of the four patriarchal churches, viz. of the Roman (perhaps that of Antioch, too), the Alexandrian, and Jerusalem Churches, first founded, or at least governed, by St. Peter, St. Mark, and St. James. However, since it can liturgies. Again, listen to your own Protestant historian of the Church of Christ, the late Rev. Joseph Milner. These are his words (page 415): "I close this digression, if it be one, with remarking, that the continued use of these liturgies in the Churches of the West, demonstrates the concurrent testimony of antiquity in favour of evangelical doctrine." hardly be doubted, but that these of the body and language of the holy apostles and evangelists did give some directions for the administration of the blessed Eucharist in those Churches, it may reasonably be presumed that some of those orders are still remaining in those liturgies which have been brought down to us under their names; and that those prayers wherein they all agree, in sense, at least, if not in words, were first prescribed in the same or like terms by those apostles Now this is all I contended, for, and evangelists. Nor would it be and all I contend for now--that difficult to make a further proof of these liturgies all agree in sense at this conjecture from the writings of least, if not in words, and that they the ancient fathers, if it were need- were first prescribed by those holy ful in this place to insist upon it." apostles and evangelists-that is all -Apostolic Fathers, p. 102. "I that I contend for; and, therefore, add to what has been already ob- let not the learned gentleman spend served," says Bishop Bull, “the con- one more idle word, or he will have sent of all the Christian Churches in to give a serious account at that the world, however distant from each great day for a most wanton profuother, in the holy Eucharist, or sion of them, in attempting to inSacrament of the Lord's Supper: validate these liturgies. I have which consent is indeed wonderful. proved the position that in their All the ancient Liturgies agree in substantial parts they all do agree. this form of prayer, almost in the They give every sanction to the same words, but fully and exactly in Invocation of Saints and Angels; the same sense, order, and method; to the Sacrament of the Eucharist; which whoever attentively considers, to the Sacrifice of the Mass-those must be convinced that this order of noble monuments look down with prayer was delivered to the several contempt and scorn on any man Churches in the very first plantation who attempts to batter them with and settlement of them."-Sermons such illogical weapons as my friend on Common Prayer, vol. i. Serm. 13. has done this night. The learned This canon was not written till gentleman, among other things, has about the beginning of the fifth age, upbraided me with contempt of when the danger of exposing all Dean Milner and Mosheim. ́I do that was most sacred in the mysteries not contemn the historian Dean of religion to the derision and blas- Milner, the historian of the Church; phemy of infidels, was not so great on the contrary, I admire him very as it was in the first two or three much, with the exception of such of centuries but when the canon was his views as those of calling the pope generally committed to writing, it antichrist, and some others. I think was found to be the same, in sub-him a man whom I might follow in stance, in all Christian countries. many of his narrations; at least, I This showed the unity of its origin, think him generally in favour of the in the unity of that faith which Catholic Church. was everywhere taught by the With regard to these liturgies, apostles, and which was the spirit | you know, by the extract I have above cited, what he says in corro- not Onesiphorus, as he was wont to boration of their concurrent testimony. do; on the other hand, he prays for He Shall I be told after this that I him after praying for the family. must give up these litergies, because The reason is, Onesiphorus being of the feeble attempt and the storm dead, could not be saluted, or he and indignation that has been raised would have been saluted in the against them this evening? When Epistle by St. Paul. But the apostle you retire home, examine the ques-prayed for him. Had Onesiphorus tion by yourselves. It is worth ex- not been dead, he would have asked amining, for a great point hangs upon for him, as he had done for his it; and it is, whether you have been family, of the God of mercy. deceived by your instructors at the says "The Lord grant that he Reformation, or whether the Catho- may find mercy of the Lord in that lic Church is speaking the voice of day and in how many things he truth at the present moment, when ministered unto me at Ephesus thou it tells you that the doctrine of knowest very well." A term so apPurgatory is indubitable. Another propriate, that it was adopted in the argument which I refuted before, early Church for many centuries. and which scarcely requires another Again (Matt. v.): "Agree with word, was, as to the Mother of God thine adversary quickly, whiles thou being found in the liturgies. That, art in the way with him; lest at however, is not a point on which I any time the adversary deliver thee shall dwell. The passage was from to the judge, and the judge deliver St. James; and the fathers of the thee to the officer, and thou be cast Council of Ephesus declared that into prison. Verily, I say unto they had the words "Mother of thee, thou shalt by no means come God" transmitted to them. Dr. out thence till thou hast paid the Burton says, in his Tracts against uttermost farthing." Do not I Unitarians, that it was known before understand here that there is a place the Council of Nice. I am sorry, of punishment from which you shall gentlemen, that I am not able really not come out until the uttermost to come to more solid matter. I farthing be paid? What will the leave a number of these notes un- learned gentleman say it was ?-a answered for want of time. prison, a hell? No; it was a third place, and that is all I want to make out; and as to the fire, which the learned gentleman insisted on as a Catholic doctrine, it is not an article of our faith; we are not obliged to believe it. Again (2 Sam. xii. 13):"And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. And Nathan said unto David, The Lord also hath put away thy sin, thou shalt not surely die." Now, then, we see that though the sin was removed, yet there was a punishment to be inflicted on him. My learned friend will say, "Yes, in this life." But suppose a man to have committed a sin like David, and died Now, doubtless, my learned friend, in his wide and sweeping endeavours, will throw Dr. Jeremy Taylor over? However, I wish to give something solid for my friend to answer, instead of imitating those excursions he is so fond of making in his wandering logic. Lazarus was dead four days; so we find in the New Testament. I want to have a distinct answer as to where his soul was, or whither it went to, if there was no third place?-whether to hell or heaven? Again, Paul and Onesiphorus. One can scarcely doubt that he was dead when he wrote that epistle. He salutes the family, |