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practice of the early Church, and no reasonable Christian will blame Dr. Johnson for the cautious manner in which he mentions his mother in his prayers; but in the hands of the Church of Rome this feeling was soon directed to the uuscriptural object of delivering the souls of departed friends from purgatory, and the practice converted into a source of profit to the priesthood.—There is no necessary connection between praying for the dead, and the belief in purgatory. The Greek church, for instance, prays for the dead, without admitting any idea of purgatory. Prayers and oblations for the dead were probably established in England from the first, and a short form of prayer to that effect is inserted in the Canons of Cloveshoo; with regard to the latter doctrine, the Saxon homilists generally refer to the awards of a final judgment, though traditional notices exist, in which there appears to be at first an indistinct, but afterwards more clear reference to purgatory.—Later writers, and among the rest Alfred, adopted the popular notions of purgatory, which were still very different from the opinions on that subject established as articles of Faith by the councils of Florence and Trent."
Take again the following full statement of another writer, who seems, certainly, over-anxious to vindicate the purity of the foreign ultra- Protestants, against Romish assailants, and so is obviously free from bias. It is from the vindication of the learned Dr. Field[1], against a Romish controversialist, who it seems had set you an example which you have faithfully followed, "drawing me," Dr. F. says, "into the defence of that he knoweth I impugn."
- ↑ Of the Church, App. p. 1, § 4, p. 760, sqq., where is much more on this subject.