time, as well as language, had been maintained in different nations." He could not, and did not, object to the disuse of a "language not understanded by the people." (Art. xxiv.) Accordingly he added, "the identity of time had been abandoned, and the identity of language could not be preserved." This last sentence would have embarrassed the fiction, and so you have omitted it.

These instances may illustrate the almost certain risk of sacrifice of truth, entailed by such a fiction as that upon which you have ventured. I need not adduce more; for I have no thought of refuting your statements: this we will do, if ever you take upon yourself seriously to maintain them; at present I would only show you the danger of such trifling in holy things. Before, however, you venture upon serious controversy, as the champion of ultra-Protestantism, I would recommend you to review your armour;-weapons which you have not proved, however they may make a show in this counterfeit and mockery, will not hold in real earnest. You belong, Sir, to a school which would substitute individual speculation for solid learning and the knowledge of antiquity, and which, consequently, has the reputation of at times reproducing as new, and so giving undue and injurious prominence to, what all divines were before well acquainted with; and at times, also, has fallen into strange unhistorical errors. Now, whether a certain doctrine be Papistical or no, is matter of history, not of speculation; and one not versed in history will be liable, perpetually, to confound the earlier truth, or unobjectionable custom, with the later corruption; especially if he has no very clear idea of Christian theology. Thus you attack—as implying transubstantiation-expressions which convey only the doctrine of the Eucharist, as held in the early Church and our own.

The same want of acquaintance with antiquity, probably, led you to confound the early practice of commemorating God's departed servants at the holy communion, and praying for their increased bliss and fuller admission to the beatific vision, with

the modern abuse of masses for the dead, and the doctrine of purgatory. You found it stated in the account of the ancient liturgies (Tract lxiii.), that "prayers for the dead" occurred in the several ancient liturgies, founded upon those of St. Peter, St. James, St. Mark, and St. John.

Our departed friend, namely, put together an interesting paper, showing "the antiquity of the existing Liturgies." From the tract itself, it would appear that his main object was to direct persons' attention to the view taken in those Liturgies of the consecration and oblation of the Eucharist (p. 16), since the consecration of the Eucharist is now so often regarded as a mere preliminary, instead of being in itself an essential part of the service; and this falls in with a part of the self-exalting rationalism of the day. In giving an account, however, of the points wherein "all the ancient Liturgies now existing, or which can be proved ever to have existed, resemble one another" (p. 7.), he was necessitated to mention "prayers for the dead" (p. 8, 9.), or, as he explains it, " for the rest and peace of all those who have departed this life in God's faith and fear;" and having mentioned that they "all contain (4.) a prayer, answering in substance to ours for the whole state of Christ's Church militant," he added (5.), "and likewise another prayer (which has been excluded from the English Ritual) for the rest and peace," &c.

He carefully guarded, then, against perplexing men's minds; he did not put the question prominently forward; he did not blame the Reformers under Edward VI. for having yielded to the judgment of foreign ultra-reformers, against their own previous judgment; he stated the simple fact, that this prayer had been excluded, i.e. whereas it had been retained on the first putting together of our Liturgy in "Edward VI.'s 1st book," it was excluded from the 2nd, at the instigation of Bucer and Calvin; and Bucer's alteration was adopted. The original unbiassed judgment, then, of our Reformers was to retain the prayer; and it argues no tendency to Popery, if any one wish that our Reformers had, in this and other points,

for which they had the authority of the early Church, adhered to their first judgment. These same Reformers had at that time a clause in the Litany, which has since been excluded, praying against "the tyrannye of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities;" so that you could hardly accuse them of Papistry 1.

The following is the part of the

omitted:prayer

"We commend unto Thy mercy, O Lord, all other Thy servants, which are departed hence from us with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of peace: grant unto them, we beseech Thee, Thy mercy and everlasting peace; and that, at the day of the general resurrection, we, and all they which be of the mystical body of Thy Son, may altogether be set at His right hand, and hear that His most joyful voice, Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of My Father, and possess the kingdom which is prepared for you from the beginning of the world.' Grant this, O Father, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Mediator and Advocate."

Now to this prayer neither Calvin nor Bucer objected that it was Papistical. On the contrary, Calvin says, in his letter to the Protector (Epp. p. 39. fol.),

“I hear that in the celebration of the Supper there is repeated a prayer for the departed, and I well know that this cannot be construed into an approbation of the Papistical Purgatory. Nor am I ignorant that there can be brought forward an ancient rite of making mention of the departed, that so the communion of all the faithful, being united into one body, might be set forth but there is this irrefragable argument against it, viz. that the Lord's Supper is a thing so holy, that it must not be defiled with any human addition."

Calvin argues further against the practice, 1st, as "not being founded on Scripture;" 2nd, as "not answering the true and lawful use of prayer."

Bucer, again, says, (Censura in Ordinat. Eccl. Opp. Angl. p. 467.)

"I know that this custom of praying for departed saints is very old, although there is no mention of it in the description of the Lord's Supper in Justin Martyr."

1 Cranmer had seen and written against the error of Purgatory even under Henry the VIIIth. "The necessary doctrine and erudition of a Christian man," A.D. 1543, is, in this respect, a decided advance beyond "The institution of a Christian man," A.D. 1537. (Comp. Formularies of Faith in the reign of Henry VIII., p. 210 and 375-7.)

And having gone over the testimonies from St. Cyprian, Tertullian, St. Ambrose, and Dionysius, he subjoins,

"But however old this Dionysius may be, and however great his authority, or that of the other holy fathers, yet we must prefer Divine authority to human, by how much God is greater than man.-Now Holy Scripture teaches neither by word nor example to pray for the dead. And it is forbidden to add or take away from it. Deut. iv. and xii."

Of Scriptural grounds Bucer adduces John v. 24, only, as opposed to this custom, arguing,

"That the common people would think that the departed yet lacked that peace, (and so the full mercy of God, whereby He forgives His servants their sins,) and that our prayers were needed to obtain that mercy. No occasion is to be given to this error, especially when we know with what a sea of more than heathen superstition, and with what plagues Satan has by this false persuasion overwhelmed religion."

It may have been on this ground, as Mr. Palmer conjectured, (English Ritual, tom. ii. p. 94-97.) that these prayers were omitted, as being so connected in the minds of the common people with the idea of purgatory, that their continuance would have involved the risk of propagating that cruel and pernicious error. If so, the Revisers of the Prayer Book, in abandoning their former ground, did wisely and charitably, and as the necessity of the times demanded; and although neither Calvin nor Bucer thought the practice legitimately connected therewith, yet the common people may then well have fallen into the mistake, since yourself, who are said to be a theologian, have now done so: for on this ground alone could you have selected this incidental mention of prayers for God's departed servants, as Papistical.

It may not be amiss to subjoin a few of the remarks of the learned Bp. Collier' on this our first reformed liturgy.

"This recommending the dead to the mercy of God is no innovation of the Church of Rome; but a constant usage of the primitive Church. To justify this reformed liturgy in this point I shall produce unexceptionable authority."

1 Eccles. Hist. of Great Britain, P. ii. Book iv. p. 257.

And having quoted Tertullian, St. Cyprian, the Apostolical Constitutions, St. Ambrose, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, and referred to the ancient liturgies, he subjoins:—

"This custom neither supposes the modern purgatory, nor gives any encouragement to libertinism and vice: not to the latter, for St. Austin, with the apostolical constitutions, affirms, that unless a man dies qualified, he cannot receive any assistance from the prayers of the living. That the ancient Church believed the recommending the dead a serviceable office, we need not question; otherwise, to what purpose was it so generally practised? The custom seems to have gone on this principle, that supreme happiness is not to be expected till the resurrection; and that the interval between death and the end of the world is a state of imperfect bliss. The Church might, therefore, believe her prayers for good people departed might improve their condition, and raise the satisfactions of this period." And, again, having considered Bucer's objections:

"There is another text urged in favour of Bucer's opinions, 'Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord from henceforth: yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them.' But this place amounts to no censure, either of the primitive practice, or the reformed common prayer-book before us; for 'tis supposed by the ancients and the office last-mentioned, that the dead are discharged from the fatigues of this life, and their works follow them, and that they are happy on the main; however, it does not follow from hence, but that their condition may be improved, and that they may be served in some measure by the assistance of the living.-—I have already observed, prayer for the dead does not imply purgatory; whence it follows, that though the Church of England condemns the Romish doctrine of purgatory, (Art. 22) we cannot thence infer her dislike of prayer for the dead."

With regard to your insinuation that those who approve of the primitive practice of praying for the dead, "will feel a new proof that the Church, which has retained this office, is alone worthy of their regard," Collier furnishes the answer, 1. That the Church of England no where restrains her children from praying for their departed friends, if this approves itself to their consciences. 2. That the terms of joining with the Church of Rome are so hard, her corruptions so manifold, that

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supposing the Church of England was chargeable with the omission of a primitive usage, which is more than I affirm: 'tis more eligible to ahhere to her, than part with her communion upon so remarkable an exchange."

Since Rome has blended the cruel invention of purgatory' with the primitive custom of prayer for the dead, (not to speak