Primitive Christian Worship

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IC, AND APOS

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OTED SERVA

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f that one faith which all Catholics hold dear, their sentiments of sympathy and affection have been absorbed by the abhorrence with which each body has regarded the characteristic tenets of its

iveness of a liberality, falsely so called, to soften down and make light of those differences which keep the Churches of England and Rome asunder. But surely the points at issue may be examined without exasperation and rancour;

eed. From his boyhood he has lived on terms of friendly intercourse and intimacy with individuals among her laity and of her priesthood. In his theological pursuits, he has often studied her ritual, consulted her commentators, and perused the homilies

of any sincere Christian. He has been prompted by a hope that he may perhaps induce some individuals to investigate with candour, and freedom, and with a genuine desire of arriving at the truth, the subjects here discussed; and that whilst some, even of those who may have hitherto acquiesced in

od, the author presumes not to anticipate; but he will hope for the best. He believes that the honest pursuit of the truth, undertaken with

ult of an inquiry into the doctrine and practice of the Invo

ot, for example, discussed the practice of praying for the dead; he has investigated no theory relating to the soul's intermediate state between our dissolution and the final judgment; he has canvassed no opinion as to any power in the saints and the faithful departed to succour either by their prayers or by any other offices, those who are still on ear

arious progressive stages, till it had reached its widest prevalence in Christendom. When, however, he had arranged and filled up the results of the inquiries which he made into the sentiments and habits of those later writers of the Church, whose works he considered it necessary to examine with this specific object in view, he found that the bulk of the work would be swollen far beyond the limits which he had pres

e Assumption of the Virgin, on which much of the religious worship now paid to her seems to be founded, in any work written before the middle of the fifth century, h

ch than to any other, yet he has throughout adopted the form of an address to his Roman Catholic countrymen. Such a mode of conveying his sentiments he considered to be less controversial, while the facts and the arguments would

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r Faith-Principles of conducting that examination-Er