Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

322 POPERY CONDEMNED BY
Indulgences, to diminish pains inflicted by the
justice of God.
In connection with the doctrine of purgatory,
it will be necessary to take a short view of the
Popish practice of using prayers and other
services
for the dead ;
because the R. has attempted
to produce the latter as an evidence of the existence
of the former. From the subsistence of
this usage in early times, he concludes, that the
primitive Christians believed in a purgatory, and
received the traditional account of it from the
apostles ;
'•'
So true is it," says he, " that in
" the practice of the Church, founded by the
*' Apostles, the genuine sense of the doctrine,
" which they taught is to be found ;" . . .
*
Protestants will not dispute vi-ith him the early
existence of this practice. We may not, however,
concede to him so readily the inferences
which he attempts to deduce from it.
In order to ascertain whether . these prayers
and services originated in the belief of a purgatory,
it will be only necessary to attend to the
nature of them. This is suiliciently explained
in the liturgies of the Church, from which the
following quotations are extracted.
"We offer unto thee this reasonable service,
" for those who are at rest in the faith ; our an-
*'
cestors, fathers, patriarchs, prophets and a-
* P. 59-
" postles,