filled it with the Holy Spirit, and gave it to us, His disciples.' Dr. Neale* has insisted on these words as decisive of 'the is-Apostolic origin' of this part, at least, of that liturgy. Bunsen 'regarded it as the insertion of the interpolator of the "Apostolic Constitutions," i.e., of the anonymous writer who attributed the several portions of the liturgy of those Constitutions to the Apostles.' 'It seems clear now,' says Dr. Swainson, that the word uiv (to us) is only found in the copy used by Morel, and not in any MSS. whatever; and,' he severely adds, 'a grave question might be raised, whether it may not have been inserted by Palæocappa to give Apostolic authority to the liturgy he was engaged to copy.' The word, at least, is entirely wanting, and disappears altogether in the newly-discovered MSS., used in his edition by Dr. Swainson (p. 273),—the 'Rotulus Messanensis,' 'Codex Rossanensis,' and the two Paris MSS. The hymns to the Virgin in Morel's copy seem, also, an interpolation of this most unscrupulous copyist, Palæocappa, and were probably taken from the Italian versions of the 'Liturgy of St. Chrysostom.'

Canon Swainson further adds his opinion-and a very damaging one it is to the reputation of the Divine 'Liturgy of St. James' in its 'is-Apostolic' claims-that that liturgy is 'largely indebted to the other liturgies,' especially to that of St. Chrysostom, and that the evident alteration in the liturgies both of St. James and St. Mark for doctrinal purposes of the 'Remember, O Lord,' was either in order that so the cultus of the Virgin might seem supported by its testimony, or else may be accounted for by the fact that the copies which have come down to us were in ecclesiastical use as Church-copies, and so reflected the growing Mariolatry of the period of their transcription ;-being, almost certainly, an effect in the one of these two so-called Apostolic * Primitive Liturgies,' p. 49, n.

liturgies of the alteration in the other 'at dates below 1000 A.D.' 'It follows,' he adds, 'that we may be wrong in considering that everything else, which is common to the two, must have been introduced at an early date.' Altogether this critical edition is most prejudicial to the authority, as ancient, of either of these Apostolic liturgies, alike in their manuscript form, as that is extant in these MSS., and vastly more in the received text of Morel. Who can tell what other surprises may be reserved for the discovery of more ancient MSS. ? They may, by collation with the text hitherto commonly received, have as clear and shameful a tale to tell of fraud and falsehood.

It need scarcely be argued, for the fact is at once evident and incontestable to everyone acquainted with Reformationwritings, that in them prayers and litanies for the dead were universally condemned as idle and superstitious, being, therefore, wholly abandoned by those who recovered for us the old and true faith, so long lost and buried under the huge and vast accretions of patristic and medieval traditions. It is a thousand pities that Canon Luckock (who quotes Cosin, Hickes, and Ken) should, as he has done in his predilection and preference for the less pure and primitive ages of the early Church, so in this particular repeat himself, and slight and avoid the primitive testimony, as we may call it, of the reformed Church of England for the reactionary and more worldly times of the two next centuries. Out of the great army of confessors and saints of the Reformation let us hear Hooper, that glorious bishop and martyr, worthy of primi

* Another doctrinal alteration, only completed in two steps, is noticed by the same learned liturgist as having evidently been made in two of the existing copies of St. James. It may serve as proof of the gradual alterations made in these Liturgies in the interests of the growing sacerdotalism. It relates to some words in a prayer originally in the Barberini copy of St. Basil, and may be found in Dr. Swainson, Introd., p. xli.

tive times for his pastoral zeal and diligence :-' Beware, therefore, of the doctrine of Purgatory as of a most pestilent ill; and seeing all our salvation resteth in this, that we die in the Lord, whilst we be in health, let us learn this doctrine well, and exercise the same. The adversaries of this truth doth use to object against this doctrine of God, that they that so die are blessed, but it is in hope to come, and not with present joy and felicity: for they must suffer the pains of Purgatory, and so enter the place appointed. To the which objection St. John in this place answereth, and denieth any deferring of time betwixt the death of a Christian and his acceptation into the fruition of God. And here St. John saith "they rest from their labours." If the Christian souls go into Purgatory, they be not quit from their labours, but put into more labours: from a hot fever into a hot fire; from pains tolerable to the pains that be, as their doctrine saith, as grievous as the pains of hell. Ye have neither any commandment to pray for the dead, nor yet promise that God will hear your prayer when ye so pray."

It may be, and doubtless is, convenient now for Romanists (especially in any crusade or propaganda against the true reformed faith) to minimise the terrors of Purgatory, as if its fires burned low and gently; but the real idea and conception of Purgatory is seen in the descriptions, found in such books as 'The Eternal Wisdom of the Blessed Henry Suso,' recently translated and republished under the highest sanction of the Roman Church in England. We quote one passage: 'I am led by the hand into Purgatory, where in the land of torments I see anguish and distress. O God, I see the wild, hot flames dart up on high and meet over the heads of suffering souls. They wander up and down amid the dark flames, and great is their affliction. Many a sad

* Works of Bishop Hooper (Parker Society), pp. 566, 567, from a 'Funeral Oration' made January 14, 1549.

cry is heard. Is not the least torment here greater (much greater) than any torment ever was on earth? One hour in Purgatory lasts a hundred years. Lo! now we boil, now we burn, now we shriek aloud for help.' But, enough! And this is the horrible doctrine of Rome about our holy and blessed Dead, and this is what prayer for the dead must ultimately lead to a belief in, for the torments there must, if they are to be more potent and purifying than the crosses and discipline here, be of necessity sharper and more bitter. O merciful God! is this cruel phantom again to rise and haunt our hearts, and to be so conjured up by the seemingly mild and harmless conjuration of prayers for the dead, to the dishonour of the love and of the merits of Thy Christ?

But we must conclude, and must be content only, therefore, to produce one more witness. Bishop Coverdale has said: 'Whereas the papists say that the Fathers from the beginning were accustomed to make memorials for the dead, this I grant to be true, as we do in our Communion. But to gather that therefore they prayed for them, it no more followeth than to say that our English service doth allow it, where it doth not. For ye must note that there is a memorial for the dead as well in giving thanks to God for them, as in praying for them; for to say, to pray for the dead is a general word including in it giving of thanks. And, therefore, when we read in the ancient Fathers of the primitive Church of memorials for the dead, or praying for the dead, it is not to be understood that they pray for to deliver them from Purgatory . . . but either for the desire of the more speedy coming of Christ to hasten the resurrection; either that they might not be thought negligent over the dead; either that the living might be occasioned to increase in love to the Church here in earth, who still followeth with goodwill and love even men when they be departed; either to admonish the Church to be diligent

over such as live, and careful to extend her love, if it were possible, even to the dead.'*

We might add the-as strong and definite-dissuasions from this use and custom of praying for the dead in Archbishop Grindal's funeral sermon on the Emperor Ferdinand, 1564; or from Bishop Hall, who says:

'As for our prayers, let us bestow them upon the living, and let them be no other when we refer to the dead than the congratulations of their joys present, and the testimonies of our hope and desire of their future resurrection and consummation of blessedness.'

Let us for one last moment retrace our steps to the Cross. We will there unclasp the hands of our mutual thoughts upon the intermediate state of our most blessed Dead; and, while we so part, the meek eyes of the dying King of Love shall fill our souls with their light, and His voice penetrate to their most secret recesses with the sweet music of consolation and of truth. The long procession has halted at Calvary. There was no death-march to muffle with its wail the confused tread and the loud curses of the crowd,—only the cry of the trumpet, with its hoarse call of doom. Oh, a marvel that it was not answered by the battle-cry of the warriorangels of God and by the arch-angelic trump! And now they are come to the place, strewn with skulls, every one a white tablet on which death,—and thạt, too, an accursed death, had written his ghastly signature. The great, last scene of the drama of the Passion is begun. The Lamb is there waiting to be offered, ready to be slain. They have brought to the Holy One the cup, drugged and medicated. partially, at least, to dull the sensibilities into a merciful oblivion, the right of every unhappy soul condemned to the

* The testimony of the late Bishop of Lincoln, which is more emphatic as from a prelate of High-Church views, will be found in his Commentary on 2 Macc. xii. 45, and on 2 Tim. i. 16. It is in perfect accord with that of his episcopal predecessors at the Reformation.