In other words, all these prayers are for those mercies and blessings which are revealed and promised in Holy Scripture, and for them alone. They are not prayers for any alteration in the condition of the Christian soul during the mysterious period between death and the Resurrection, respecting which very various opinions have been held by the Fathers of the Church. They are simply prayers for the fulfilment, especially at the Day of the Resurrection, of those promises of justification or acquittal, and of final glory in body and soul, which are definitely given us in the New Testament. The objection has been raised that of the fulfilment of these promises we have certain assurance, and that therefore we need not pray for them. But, as Ussher and Field abundantly show, this objection is based upon a serious misconception of the nature of prayer. The ancient Church, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Scriptures, realized the privilege of receiving everything from God in the nature of a gift, and therefore prayed to Him for the very things He had most surely promised. It is in that gracious childlike spirit that these supplications for the Christian dead were made in primitive Christian times; and though that spirit has become, unhappily, somewhat obscured among us, yet no one can use the petition “Thy Kingdom come” without being sensible that he is praying for a blessing which is most certain. For these prayers of the early Church, therefore, there was a full warrant in Holy Scripture, and there is no occasion to appeal to any other authority for them. Why, then, it will be asked, should they not be used in the Church of England? The first and chief answer is that, in substance, they are used. In the Burial Service we pray “that it may please Thee shortly to accomplish the number of Thine elect and to hasten Thy kingdom that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of Thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss in Thy eternal and everlasting glory.” That is a prayer in the very spirit described by Bingham and Ussher as that of the primitive Church. Nor can I interpret in any less comprehensive sense the prayer in our Communion Service, “that we and all Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His passion.” Field’s statement (vol. ii., Cambridge edition, p. 97) is fully justified by these prayers. “Touching Prayer for the Dead, it is well known that Protestants do not simply condemn all prayer in this kind; for they pray for the Resurrection, public acquittal in the Day of Judgment, and the perfect consummation and bliss of them that rest in the Lord, and the perfecting of whatsoever is yet wanting in them.”