earth without sin, JESUS CHRIST our Lord, by whom we all hope to obtain mercy and pardon of our sins; therefore, as a good and mer'ciful God, release and forgive both us and them: pardon our offences as well voluntary as involuntary, of knowledge and of ignorance, both manifest and hidden, in deed, in thought, in word, in all our conversations and motions. And to those that are gone before us grant freedom and release, and us that remain bless, granting a good and a peaceable end both to us and to all thy people.' Whereunto this other short prayer also for one that is deceased may be added: “None, no, not one man hath been without sin but thou alone, O Immortal. Therefore, as a GoD full of compassion, place thy servant in light with the quires of thine angels; by thy tender mercy pass. ing over his iniquities, and granting to him the resurrection." Lastly, that these prayers have principal relation to the judgment of the great day, and do respect the escaping of the unquenchable fire of Gehenna, not the temporal flames of any imaginary purgatory, is plain, both by these kinds of prosopopoeias, which they attribute to the deceased: "Supplicate with tears unto Christ, who is to judge my poor soul, that he would deliver me from that fire which is unquenchable." "I beseech all my acquaintance and my friends, make mention of me in the day of judgment, that I may find mercy at that dreadful tribunal." "Bemired with sins and naked of good deeds, I that am worms' meat, cry in spirit, Cast not me, wretch, away from thy face; place me not on thy left hand, who with thy hands didst fashion me; but give rest unto him whom thou hast taken away by thy commands, O Lord, for thy great mercy's sake." And by these prayers, which are accordingly tendered for him by the living: "When in unspeakable glory thou dost come dreadfully to judge the whole world, vouchsafe, O Redeemer, that this thy faithful servant, whom thou hast taken from the earth, may in the clouds meet thee cheerfully." "They who have been dead from the beginning, with terrible and fearful trembling standing at thy tribunal, await thy just censure, O Saviour, and receive God's righteous judgment. At that time, O Lord and Saviour, spare thy servant, who in faith is gone unto thee, and vouchsafe unto him thine everlasting joy and bliss." "None shall fly there the dreadful tribunal of thy judgment. All kings and princes with servants stand together, and hear the dreadful voice of the Judge condemning the people which have sinned into hell, from which, O CHRIST, deliver thy servant." "At that time, O CHRIST, spare him whom thou hast translated hence." "O Lord our only King, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, thine heavenly kingdom to thy servant, whom thou hast now translated hence, and then preserve him uncondemned when every mortal wight shall stand before thee the Judge to receive their judgment.' We are to consider then, that the prayers and oblations, for rejecting whereof Aerius was reproved, were not such as are used in the Church of Rome at this day, but such as were used by the ancient Church at that time, and for the most part retained by the Greek Church at this present. And therefore as we, in condemning of the one, have nothing to do with Aerius or his cause, so the Romanists, who dislike the other as much as ever Aerius did, must be content to let us alone, and take the charge of Aerianism home unto themselves. Popish prayers and oblations for the dead, we know, do wholly depend upon the belief of Purgatory if those of the ancient Church did so too, how cometh it to pass that Epiphanius doth not directly answer Aerius, as a papist would do now, that they brought singular profit to the dead by delivering their tormented souls out of the flames of Purgatory; but forgetting as much as once to make mention of Purgatory, (the sole foundation of these suffrages for the dead, in our adversary's judgment,) doth trouble himself and his cause with bringing in such far-fetched reasons as these that they who performed this duty did intend to signify thereby that their brethen departed were not perished, but remained still alive with the Lord; and to put a difference betwixt the high perfection of our Saviour CHRIST, and the general frailty of the best of all his servants? Take away popish Purgatory on the other side, (which in the days of Aerius and Epiphanius needed not to be taken away, because it was not as yet hatched,) and all the reasons produced by Epiphanius will not withhold our Romanists from absolutely subscribing to the opinion of Aerius; this being a case with them resolved, that "if Purgatory be not admitted after death, Prayer for the dead must be unprofitable. But though Thomas Aquinas and his abettors determined so, we must not, therefore, think that Epiphanius was of the same mind, who lived in a time wherein Prayers were usually made for them that never were dreamed to have been in Purgatory, and yieldeth those reasons of that usage, which overthrew the former consequence of Thomas, every whit as much as the supposition of Aerius. For Aerius and Thomas both agree in this, that prayer for the dead would be altogether unprofitable, if the dead themselves received not special benefit thereby. This doth Epiphanius, defending the ancient use of these Prayers in the Church, show to be untrue, by producing other profits that redound from thence unto the living; partly by the public signification of their faith, hope and charity toward the deceased; partly by the honour that they did unto the Lord Jesus, in exempting him from the common condition of the rest of mankind. And to make it appear that these things were mainly intended by the Church in her memorials for the dead, and not the cutting off of the sins which they carried with them out of this life, or the releasing of them out of any torment, he allegeth, as we have heard, that not only the meaner sort of Christians, but also the best of them, without exception, even the prophets and apostles, and martyrs themselves, were comprehended therein. From whence, by our adversary's good leave, we will make bold to frame this syllogism: They who reject that kind of praying and offering for the dead which was practised by the Church in the days of Aerius, are in that point flat Aerians. But the Romanists do reject that kind of praying and offering for the dead which was practised by the Church in the days of Acrius. Therefore the Romanists are in this point flat Aerians. The assumption or second part of this argument, (for the first, we think, nobody will deny,) is thus proved: They who are of the judgment that prayers and oblations Therefore they reject that kind of praying and offering for the dead which was practised by the ancient Church. 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 sí sλnOhderai ô redvews; 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. 5. Of the profit of Prayers for the Dead to the Persons prayed for. In the mean time, the reader who desireth to be rightly informed in the judgment of Antiquity, touching this point, is to remember that these two questions must necessarily be distinguished in this enquiry whether prayers and oblations were to be made for the dead? And, whether the dead did receive any peculiar profit thereby? In the latter of these we shall find great difference among the doctors; in the former very little, or none at all. For "howsoever all did not agree about the state of the souls," saith Cassander, an indifferent Papist, "which might receive profit by these things, yet all did judge this duty as a testimony of their love towards the dead, and a profession of their faith, touching the soul's immortality, and the future resurrection, to be acceptable unto God and profitable to the Church." Therefore for condemning the general practice of the Church herein, which aimed at those good ends before expressed, Aerius was condemned; but for denying that the dead received profit thereby, either for the pardon of the sins which before were unremitted, or for the cutting off or mitigation of any torments that they did endure in the other world, the Church did never condemn him; for that was no new thing invented by him. Divers worthy men, before and after him, declared themselves to be of the same mind, and were never, for all that, charged with the least suspicion of heresy. "The narration of Lazarus and the rich man,” saith the author of the Questions and Answers, in the works of Justin Martyr, "pre. senteth this doctrine unto us, that after the departure of the soul out of the body, men cannot, by any providence or care, obtain any profit." "Then," saith Gregory Nazianzen, " in vain shall any one go about to relieve those that lament. Here men may have a remedy, but afterwards there is nothing but bonds," or "all things are fast bound." For" after death, the punishment of sin is remediless," saith Theodoret; and "the dead," saith Diodorus Tarsensis, no hope of any succour from man.” And therefore, St. Jerome doth conclude, that "have "while we are in this present world we may be able to help one another either by our prayers, or by our counsels; but when we shall come before the judgment-seat of Christ, neither Job, nor Daniel, nor Noah, can entreat for any one, but every one must bear his own burden." Other doctors were of another judgment, that the dead received special profit by the prayers and oblations of the living, either for the remission of their sins or the easing of their punishment. But whether this were restrained to smaller offences only, or such as lived and died in great sins might be made partakers of the same benefit; and whether these men's torments might be lessened only thereby, or in tract of time quite extinguished, they did not agree upon. Stephanus Gobarus, whom before I alleged, made a collection of the different sentences of the Fathers, whereof some contained the received doctrine of the Church, others the unallowable opinions of certain of the ancient that varied therefrom. Of this latter kind he maketh this sentence to be one: "That such sinners as be delivered unto punishment are purged from their sins, and after their purging are freed from their punishment; albeit, not all who are delivered unto punishment be thus purged and freed, but some only;" whereas "the true sentence of the Church was, that none at all was freed from punishment." If that were the true sentence of the Church, that none of those who suffered punishment in the other world were ever freed from the same, then the applying of prayers to the helping of men's souls out of any such punishments must be referred to the erroneous apprehension of some particular men, and not to the general intention of the ancient Church; from which in this point, as in many others beside, the latter Church of Rome hath swerved and quite gone astray. The ancient writer of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, handling this matter of praying for the dead professedly, doth by way of objection move this doubt: "To what purpose should the Bishop entreat the divine Goodness to grant remission of sins unto the dead, and a like glorious inheritance with those that have followed GoD ?" seeing by such prayers he can be brought to no other rest but that which is fitting for him, and answerable unto the life which he hath here led. If our Romish divinity had been then acknowledged by the Church, there had been no place left to such questions and doubts as these. The matter might easily have been answered, that though a man did die in a state of grace, yet was he not presently to be admitted unto the place of rest, but must first be reckoned withal, both for the committal of those smaller faults unto which, through human frailty, he was daily subject, and for the not performance of full penance and satisfaction for the greater sins, into which in this life he had fallen; and Purgatory being the place wherein he must be cleansed from the one, and make up the just payment of the other, these prayers were directed unto God for the delivery of the poor soul, which was not now in case to help itself out of that place of torment. But this author, taking upon him the person of St. Paul's scholar, and professing to deliver herein |