Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/136

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The assumption or second part of this argument, (for the first, we think, nobody will deny,) is thus proved:

The truth of the first of these propositions doth appear by the testimony of Epiphanius, compared with those many other evidences whereby we have formerly proved, that it was the custom of the ancient Church to make prayers and oblations for them of whose resting in peace and bliss there was no doubt at all conceived. The verity of the second is manifested by the confession of the Romanists themselves, who reckon this for one of their "Catholic verities," that suffrages should not be offered for the dead that reign with Christ: and, therefore, that an ancient "form of praying for the apostles, martyrs, and the rest of the saints, is by disuse deservedly abolished," saith Alphonsus Mendoza. Nay, to offer sacrifices and prayers to God for those that are in bliss, is "plainly absurd and impious," in the judgment of the Jesuit Azorius; who was not aware that thereby he did outstrip Aerius in condemning the practice of the ancient Church, as far as the censuring it only to be "unprofitable," (for ; what shall the dead be profited thereby? was the furthest that Aerius durst to go) cometh short of rejecting it as "absurd and impious." And, therefore, our adversaries may do well to purge themselves first from the blot of Arianism, which sticketh so fast unto them, before they be so ready to cast the aspersion thereof upon others.