much time to quote authorities on this subject from St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Eusebius, St. Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, St. Jerom, St. Augustin, and several other ancient fathers and writers, who demonstrate, that the doctrine of the church was the same that it is now, not only within a thousand, but also within four hundred years from the time of Christ, with respect both to prayers for the deed, and an intermediate state, which we call purgatory. How express is the authority of the last named farther, in particular, where he says and repeats, "Through the prayers and sacrifices of the church and alms-deeds, God deals more mercifully with the departed than their sins deserve!"* How affecting is this saint's account of the death of his mother, St. Monica, when she entreated him to remember her soul at the altar, and when, after her decease, he performed this duty, in order, as he declares, “to obtain the pardon of her sins!" As to the doctrine of the oriential churches, which the bishop signifies is conformable to that of his own, I affirm, as a fact, which has been demonstrated.‡ that there is not one of them which agrees with it, nor one of them which does not agree with the Catholic church, in the only two points defined by her, namely, as to there being a middle state, which we call purgatory, and as to the souls, detained in it, being helped by the prayers of the living faithful. True it is, they do not generally believe, that these souls are punished by a material fire; but neither does our church require a belief of this opinion; and accordingly, she made a union with the Greeks in the council of Florence, on their barely confessing and subscribing the aforesaid two articles. III. I should do an injury, Rev. sir, to my cause, were I to pass over the concessions of eminent Protestant prelates and other writers on the matter in debate. On some occasions Luther admits of purgatory, as an article founded on Scripture.§ Melancthon confesses that the ancients prayed for the dead, and says that the Lutherans do not find fault with it.|| Calvin intimates, that the souls of all the just are detained in Abraham's bosom till the day of judgment. In the first liturgy of the church of England, which was drawn up by Cranmer and Ridley, and declared by act of parliament to have been framed by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, there is an express prayer for the * Serm. 172. Enchirid. cap. 109, 110. + Confess. 1. ix. c. 13. See the Confessions of the different Oriental churches in the Perpetuité, &c. § Assertiones, Art. 27. Disput. Leipsic. Apolog. Conf. Aug. T Instit. 1. iii. c. 5. departed, that "God would grant them mercy and everlasting peace." It can be shown that the following bishops of your church believed that the dead ought to be prayed for, Andrews, Usher, Montague, Taylor, Forbes, Sheldon, Barrow of St. Asaph's and Blandford. To these I may add the religious Dr. Johnson, whose published Meditations prove, that he constantly prayed for his deceased wife. But what need is there of more words on the subject, when it is clear that modern Protestants, in shutting up the Catholic purgatory for imperfect just souls, have opened another general one for them, and all the wicked of every sort whatsoever! It is well known that the disciples of Calvin, at Geneva, and, perhaps, every where else, instead of adhering to his doctrine, in condemning mortals to eternal torments, without any fault on their part, now hold that the most confirmed in guilt and the finally impenitent shall, in the end, be saved: thus establishing, as Fletcher of Madeley observes, "a general purgatory." A late celebrated theological, as well as philosophical writer of our own country, Dr. Priestly, being on his deathbed, called for Simpson's work On the Duration of Future Punishment, which he recommended in these terms: "It contains my sentiments: we shall all meet finally : we only require different degrees of discipline, suited to our different tempers, to prepare us for final happiness." Here again is a general Protestant purgatory: and why should Satan and his crew be denied the benefit of it? But to confine myself to eminent divines of the established church. One of its celebra ted preachers, who, of course, "never mentions hell to gars polite," expresses his wish, "to banish the subject of everlasting punishment from all pulpits, as containing a doctrine, at once improper and uncertain." which sentiment is applauded by another eminent divine, who reviews that sermon in the British Critic. ** Another modern divine censures "the threat of eternal perdition as a cause of infidelity." The renowned Dr. Paley, (but here we are getting into quite novel systems of theolo gy, which will force a smile from its old students, notwithstanding the awfulness of the subject) Dr. Paley, I say, so far softens * See the form in Collier's Ecc. Hist. vol ii. p. 257. + Collier's Hist.-N. B. The present bishop of Exeter, in a sermon just published, prays for the soul of our poor princess Charlotte, "as far as this is lawful and profitable." Encyclo. Art. Geneva. I See Edinb. Review, Oct. 1796. § Checks to Antinom, vol. 4. T Sermons by Rev. W. Gilpin, Preb. of Sarum. ** British Critic, Jan. 1802. ++ Rev. Mr. Polwhele's Let. to Dr. Hawker. the punishment of the infernal regions, as to suppose that, "There may be very little to choose between the condition of some who are in hell, and others who are in heaven !"* In the same liberal spirit the Cambridge professor of divinity teaches, that "God's wrath and damnation are more terrible in the sound than the senset and that being damned does not imply any fixed degree of evil." In another part of his Lectures, he expresses his hope, and quotes Dr. Hartley, as expressing the same, that "all men will be ultimately happy, when punishment had done its work in reforming principles and conduct." If this sentiment be not sufficiently explicit in favour of purgatory, take the following, from a passage in which he is directly lecturing on the subject. "With regard to the doctrine of purgatory, though it may not be founded either in reason or in Scripture, it is not unnatural. Who can bear the thought of dwelling in everlasting torments? Yet who can say that a God everlastingly just, will not inflict them? The mind of man seeks for some resource: it finds one only; in conceiving that some temporary punishment, after death, may purify the soul from its moral pollutions, and make it, at last, acceptable, even to a deity, infinitely pure."|| IV. Bishop Porteus intimates that the doctrine of a middle state of souls was borrowed from Pagan fable and philosophy. -In answer to this, I say, that, if Plato,¶ Virgil, and other heathens, ancient and modern, as likewise Mohomet and his disciples, together with the Protestant writers quoted above, have embraced this doctrine, it only shows how conformable it is to the dictates of natural religion. I have proved, by various arguments, that a temporary punishment generally remains due, to sin, after the guilt and eternal punishment due to it, have been remitted. Again, we know from Scripture, that even the just man falls seven times, Prov. xxiv. 17, and that men must give an account of every idle word that they speak, Mat. xii. 36. On the other hand, we are conscious that there is not an instant of our life, in which this may not suddenly terminate, without the possibility of our calling upon God for mercy. What then, I ask, will become of souls which are surprised in either of these predicaments? We are sure from Scripture and reason that nothing defiled shall enter heaven, Rev. xxi. 27: will then our just and merciful Judge make no distinction in *Moral and Polit. Philos. + Lect. vol. iii. p. 154. + Ibid. § Vol. ii. p. 390. It is to be observed that the doctrine of the final salvation of the wicked is expressly condemned in the 42d Article of the church of England, A. D. 1552. ¶ Plato in Gorgia, Virgil's Eneid, 1, 6, the Koran. Vol. iv. p. 112. guiltiness, as bishop Fowler and other rigid Protestants maintain? Will he condemn to the same eternal punishment the poor child who has died under the guilt of a lie of excuse, and the abandoned wretch who has died in the act of murdering his father? To say that he will, is so monstrous a doctrine in itself, and so contrary to Scripture, which declares that God will render to every man according to his deeds, Rom. ii. 6, that it seems to be universally exploded. The evident consequence of this is, that there are some venial or pardonable sins, for the expiation of which, as well as of the temporary punishment due to other sins, a place of temporary punishment is provided in the next life, where, however, the souls detained may be relieved, by the prayers, alms, and sacrifices of the faithful here on earth. O! how consoling is the belief and practice of Catholics in this matter, compared with those of Protestants! The latter show. their regard for their departed friends in costly pomp and feathered pageantry; while their burial service is a cold, disconsolate ceremony; and as to any further communication with the deceased, when the grave closes on their remains, they do not so much as imagine any. On the other hand, we Catholics know, that death itself cannot dissolve the communion of saints, which subsists in our church, nor prevent an intercouse of kind and often beneficial offices between us and our departed friends. Oftentimes we can help them more effectually, in the other world, by our prayers, our sacrifices, and our alms-deeds, than we could in this by any temporary benefits we could bestow upon them. Hence we are instructed to celebrate the obsequies of the dead by all such good works; and, accordingly, our funeral service consists of psalms and prayers, offered up for their repose and eternal felicity. These acts of devotion, pious Catholics perform for the deceased, who were near and dear to them, and indeed for the dead in general, every day, but particularly on the respective anniversaries of the deceased. Such benefits, we are assured, will be paid with rich interest, by those souls to whose bliss we have contributed, when they attain to it; and if they should not be in a condition to help us, the God of mercy at least will abundantly reward our charity. On the other hand, what a comfort and support must it be to our minds, when our turn comes to descend into the grave, to reflect that we shall continue to live in the constant thoughts and daily devotions of our Catholic relatives and friends! * Calvin, 1. iii. c. 12. Fowler in Watson's Tracts, vol. vi. p. 382. ↑ See Dr. Hey, vol. iii. pp. 384, 451, 453. REV. SIR, LETTER XLIV. To the Rev. ROBERT CLAYTON, M. A. EXTREME UNCTION. THE Council of Trent terms the sacrament of extreme unction, the Consummation of Penance, and therefore, as bishop Porteus makes this the subject of a charge against our church, here is the proper place for me to answer it. His lordship writes a long chapter upon it, because his business is to gloss over the clear testimony which the apostle St. James bears to the reality of this sacrament: in return, I shall write a short letter in refutation of his chapter, because I have little more to do than to cite that testimony, as it stands in the New Testament: it is this: Is any man sick among you, let him bring in the priests of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil, in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick man; and the Lord shall raise him up, and if he be in sins, they shall be forgiven him, James v. 14, 15. Here we see all that is requsite, according to the English Protestant Catechism, to constitute a sacrament,* for there is an outward visible sign," namely, the anointing with oil: there "is an inward spiritual grace, given unto us," namely, the saving of the sick and the forgiveness of his sins. Lastly, there is the Ordination of Christ, as the means by which the same is received;" unless the bishop chooses to allege, that the holy apostle fabricated a Sacrament, or means of grace, without any authority for this purpose from his heavenly Master. What then does his lordship say, in opposition to this divine warrant for our Sacrament ? He says, that the anointing of the sick by elders or old men, was the appointed method of miraculously curing them in primitive times, which would imply, that no Christian died in those times, except when either oil or old men were not to be met with? He adds, that the forgiveness of the sick_man's sins, means the cures of his corporal diseases !t. And after all this, he boasts of building his religion on mere Scripture, in its plain, ungłossed meaning! In reading all this, I own I cannot help revolving in my mind the above quoted profane parody of Luther, on the first words of Scripture, in which he ridicules the distortion of it by many Protestants of his time. With the In the Book of Common Prayer. + P. 59. § "In principio Deus creavit cœlum et terram:" In the cuckoo devoured the sparrow and its feathers. # P. 69. beginning the |