cr to him: (g) "As for reciting the Names of "thofe who are deceased, and praying for them "in the Sacred Oblations, what can be betcc ter than this? What more commodious, what more admirable, than that fuch as are here cc at prefent, fhould believe that they who are departed, and abfent from the Body, do "live? This doth the Church neceffarily "perform, as having received it by Tradition from the Fathers. And who knows these Things beft? Either this poor feduced Fellow, who is but newly Sprung up, and now living "amongst us, or they who were Witneffes be"fore us, and who held the fame Traditions in "the Church which they had learned from their "Ancestors, as the Church to this Day obferves, even the true and fincere Faith, which it re"ceived with the Traditions from the Fathers? - Thus does the learned Father proceed in refuting this peftilent Heretick, who was an ill Man in the Judgment of all; for being proud and conceited, and miffing of a Bifhoprick, he quarrelled not only at diverse Practices in the Church, but at Epifcopacy it felf, and fo was defervedly chaftifed by the Pen of those famous Fathers, in whofe Time he liv'd. So that if Prayers for the Dead were never oppofed but once, and that by one only Perfon, for the space of Fifteen Hundred Years, and that Ferfon be ftigmatized for a Heretick by the general Voice of the Catholick Writers, it will become us to be very careful that we condemn not a Catholick Doctrine, or efpoufe a condemned Herefy, or (g) Hæref. 75. fchifma fchifmatically divide our felves in this Practice from the Catholick Church, which has fo confentiently maintained this in their Belief and PraEtice in every Age. ny My Business therefore is not to produce Teftimonies for the belief of Prayers for the Dead; all the Liturgies and Fathers, all Antiquity being fo full of it; but to put our Adverfaries on the Proof of its being unlawful. Can they fhew aTeftimony against it, from any but a Heretick? Is it contrary to any Command of Scripture? Is it not innocent and free from all Appearance of Evil? Is it not agreeable to the Rules of Charity, Reafon, and Religion, the Light of Nature and Revelation? Is it not the Practice of the Jews at this Day? Was it not their Practice in the Time of our Saviour, and never reprehended by HIM or any of his Apoftles? And to conclude, if Prayers for the Dead be Popery, and an Error, then the whole Catholick Church, from the Second Century downwards, has been Popith, has been misled, and in the Practice of an Error; and is not this to ferve Popery with a witness, to give them up all Ages of Chriftianity, and confequently to make our Separation more juftifiable? But if the moft Eminent amongst the Reformed Churches have claimed this Doctrine as PROTESTANT, and belonging to common Christianity, as Catholick and Orthodox, and confequently no part of Popery (as Popery is vulgarly taken to fignify a Corruption of the Faith) then it will appear our Duty to affert it, however neglected by fome, and reproached by others; and by all the Obligation can be laid on us by our Faith of a Catholick Church, and Com Communion of Saints, in Union with the one and the other, both which are Parts of the ONE Body of Chrift to declare and vindicate this our Belief from the calumnious Charges of our Adversaries, that they may no longer have it in their Power to delude the Simple or Ignorant with Words of a frightful Sound, and Spirit them up to the Oppofition of every thing that is Primitive and Catholick with the Cry of Popery, amongst which there is not any thing that in vulgar Efteem is reckoned Ranker Popery, than Prayers for the Dead. Not only the Ignorant, but fome of greater Note (blindly following the common Notions) have Prejudices against it, which calm Reflection and a little good Nature would foon remove; and therefore I fhall fubjoyn a few Teftimonies from fome moft famous Proteftants, both at Home and Abroad, declaring themselves very fully on this Head, The firft fhall be the famous Archbishop Ufher, a Perfon in great Efteem with the Reformed Abroad, as well as at Home, who in his Anfwer to Malone, of Prayers for the Dead, p. 194. hath thefe Words. "The Romanists indeed do com-. "monly take it for granted, that Purgatory and "Prayers for the Dead, are fo closely linked together, "that the one doth neceffarily follow the other. But "in fo doing they reckon without their Hoft, "and greatly mistake the Matter. For how"foever they may deal with their own. De"vices as they pleafe, and link their Prayers "with their Purgatory as clofely as they lift, yet fhall they never be able to fhew that the "Communion and Prayers for the Dead ufed by "the antient Church, had any relation to Pur"gatory." Whence we may fee how, in the Opinion pinion of this great Man, Prayers for the Dead is Catholick, and Purgatory only Popish; the first the Cuftom of the Antient Church, the other an Opinion of later Date. It is true the Bishop feems to make little Account of this antient Practice; however, the Conceffion is of weight in the Controverfy, and fuch as nothing but the Force of Truth could have drawn from him; for in the heat of Difpute, he is so very earnest against the One, and fo little concerned about the Other, that he dafhes them often together, and according to the Obfervation of a late ingenious Author, he fpends threescore and ten Pages on the general Matter, and not ten Lines to the purpose, which produced, befides the Conceffion above-mentioned, this full Teftimony from the great Bishop Andrews, who fpeaking of this Subject of Prayers for the Dead, and Bihop Uber's Performance, fays, There is little can be faid against what this great Man takes Such Pains to oppose. And this is a full Declaration of the Belief of Bishop Andrews in this Point, who by his Pra&tice, has born fome witness to it, in his excellent Devotions published in Greek and Latin; in which, p. 49. he prays, Viventium & mortuorum miferere, O Domine: O Lord, fhew thy Mercies to the Living and the Dead; the like he has p. 115. p. 147. Remember all our Fathers and Brethren who are Deceased. And p. 326. Give to the Living Mercy and Grace, and to the Souls Departed, Reft and Light eternal. The eminently learned and judicious Mr.Thorndike * speaks fully of a Middle State, and Prayers for the Dead, and fays, "That the Practice of *Juft Weights and Measures, P. 100, 101. "the "the Church in interceding for them at the Cele "bration of the Eucharift, is fo general, and fo "ancient, that it cannot be thought to have "come in upon Impofture, but that the fame "Afperfion will feem to take hold of commo "Christianity." He quotes Justin Martyr, who makes it a Part of the Gnoftick Herefy, to fay, That the Souls of the Faithful, without the Body, are in perfect Happinefs. And p. 107. "Though there be Hopes for thofe that are most "follicitous to live and die good Chriftians, that "they are in no fuch Sufpenfe, but within the "Bounds of the Heavenly Jerufalem ; yet because "their Condition is uncertain, and where there "is Hope of the better, there is Fear of the "worfe; therefore the Church hath always affifled "them with the Prayers of the Living, both "for their speedy Trial (which all bleffed Souls defire) and for their eafy Abfolution and Difcharge with Glory before God." And again, "There is the fame Ground to believe the Communion of Saints in the Prayers which "thofe that depart in the highest Favour with "God make for us, and in the Prayers which we "make for those which depart in the lowest Fa"your with God, that there is for the common "Chriftianity, namely, the Scriptures interpreted by the perpetual Practice of God's Church." And elfe"where," That all the Members of the Church Tri r p. 159. umphant in Heaven, according to the Degree of "their Favour with God, abound alfo with Love "to his Church Militant on Earth-offer conti"nual Prayers for thofe Neceffities they fuffer; "that their Prayers are of great Force and Effe& "with God, to the Affiftance of the Church Militant in her Warfare That this being true, "the |