Bishop Fell thus comments on the passage:  “The sense seems to be, When either of us shall die; whether I, who preside at Carthage, or you, who are presiding at Rome, shall be the survivor, let the prayer to God of him whose lot shall be to remain the longest among the living, persevere, and continue.”  “Meanwhile,” continues the Bishop[63], “we by no means doubt that souls admitted into heaven apply to God, the best and greatest of Beings, that he would have compassion on those who are dwelling on the earth.  But it does not thence follow, that prayers should be offered to the saints.  THE MAN WHO PETITIONS THEM MAKES THEM GODS (Deos qui rogat ille facit).” [Oxford, 1682, p. 143.] Rigaltius, himself {167} a Roman Catholic, doubts whether, when Cyprian wrote this letter, he had any idea before his mind of saints departed praying for the living.  He translates “utrobique” very much as I have done, “with reciprocal love, with mutual charity.”  His last observations on this passage are very remarkable.  After having confessed the sentiments to be worthy of a Christian, that the saints pray for us, and having argued that Cyprian could not have thought it necessary to ask a saint to retain his brotherly kindness in heaven, for he could not be a saint if he did not continue to love his brethren, he thus concludes:  “In truth it is a pious and faithful saying, That of those who having already put off mortality are made joint-heirs with Christ, and of those who surviving on earth will hereafter be joint-heirs with Christ, the Church is one, and is by the Holy Spirit so well joined together as not to be torn asunder by the dissolution of the body.  They pray to God for us, and we praise God for them, and thus with mutual affection (utrobique) we always pray for each other.” [Paris, 1666. p. 92.]

[Footnote 63:  See the note of the Benedictine editors on this passage (p. 467), in which they refer to the sentiments of Rigaltius, Pamelius, and Bishop Fell, whom they call “the most illustrious Bishop of Oxford.”]

I will detain you only by one or two more extracts from Cyprian; one forming part of the introduction to his Comment on the Lord’s Prayer, which is fitted for the edification of Christians in every age; the other closing his treatise on Mortality, one of those beautiful productions by which, during the plague which raged at Carthage in the year 252, he comforted and exhorted the Christians, that they might meet death without fear or amazement, in sure and certain hope of eternal blessedness in heaven.  The sentiments in the latter passage will be responded to by every good Catholic, whether in communion with the Church of Rome or {168} with the Church of England; whilst in the former we are reminded, that to pray as Cyprian prayed, we must address ourselves to God alone in the name and trusting to the merits only of his blessed Son.