4. At _present_, the members of the Latin Church pray for the dead, _with the avowed object that their souls may be delivered from Purgatory_: but, when prayers for the dead _first_ came into use, those prayers were offered up _with no such purpose and intention_. Let it be known and observed (for many are ignorant of the circumstance): that, at the commencement of the practice, supplication was made, not _that souls might be delivered from Purgatory_, but _that they might be partakers of the first resurrection_: {28c} and the notion itself evidently originated from a gratuitous interpretation of a well known obscure text in the Apocalypse. {29a} 5. The unauthorised practice of praying for the dead, under _any_ aspect, being thus plainly a mere innovation upon the primitive simplicity of the Gospel; its utility, as we learn from Cyril of Jerusalem, was questioned by MANY, even so late as the middle of the fourth century. Finding not a vestige of the thing in the whole Bible, and naturally judging that we can know nothing about the matter save from a distinct revelation, they very sensibly asked: _How is the soul benefited by any such mention of it_, _whether it depart from this world with sin or without sin_? {29b} It were well, if the Romish Clergy, when they boast of the immutability of their doctrine and practice, would account of these odd variations. IV. Meanwhile, let the sober inquirer judge for himself, whether there be even a shadow for the idle plea: that the doctrine of Purgatory is revealed in the Bible, and that it was maintained from the beginning by all the early Fathers. CHAPTER IV. UNWRITTEN TRADITION AND INSUFFICIENCY OF THE WRITTEN WORD ALONE. I SHALL next proceed to examine the Romish assertions respecting Unwritten Tradition and the Insufficiency of the Written Word alone. I. Although the Church of Rome, speaking through the Council of Trent, claims the Written Word of God as a voucher for her doctrines; yet, as if conscious, that, from Scripture ALONE, her peculiarities cannot be established as a part of divine revelation, she asserts: that _Unwritten Tradition ought to be __had in_ EQUAL _reverence with the Written Word_; _so that_, _what cannot be proved from the Written Word_, _must be received without hesitation_, _if it be propounded by Unwritten Tradition_. From this assertion it evidently results: that, _Without the concurrence of a supplemental Unwritten Tradition_, _the Written Word or the Holy Bible is defective and insufficient as a rule of faith and practice_.