of both Sexes whereever resting in Christ that being freed from all their sins they may rejoyce with thee world without end And this O mercifull God receive this Hoast offered for the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes whereever resting in Christ that delivered by this super-excellent Sacrifice out of the Chains of dreadfull death they may obtain eternal life And this O God whose property it is ever to have mercy and to forgive be favourable unto the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes and pardon all their sins that being loosed from the Chains of Death they may obtain passage into life And this Free O Lord we beseech thee the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes from all the bands of sin that being raised up among thy Saints and Elect they may live again in the glory of the Resurrection And this O Almighty and everlasting God who rulest as well over the living as the dead and shewest mercy unto all those whom thy fore-knowledge seeth will be thine in faith and good works we humbly beseech thee that those for whom we have appointed to pour out our Prayers and whom either this world does still detain in the flesh or the next hath already received uncloathed of the body may through the greatness of thy clemency be made worthy to obtain the forgiveness of all their sins and joy everlasting And this O Almighty and most mercifull God we humbly beseech thee that the Sacraments which we have received may purifie us and grant that this thy Sacrament be not unto us an obligation to punishment but a comfortable intercession for pardon that it be the cleansing of crimes that it be the strength of the fainting that it be a Bulwark against the dangers of the World that it be the remission of all the sins of the faithfull living and dead through Jesus Christ It might seem at the first sight that all these Prayers in general and every one in particular upon this very accompt that they speak of the forgiveness of sins for those who are departed this life do presuppose if not a Purgatory such as the Church of Rome hath imagined and described it some Ages since at least a certain necessity incumbent on the deceased to make satisfaction to the justice of God after their death But we must necessarily infer the contrary For not to take notice that to punish an evil doer is not to purge him if according to the tenour of the Prayers contained in the Mass of the Dead God forgives the sin of the deceased he does not require he should be punished for it if he loose the Chains he suffers him not to be still bound thereby if he exercises towards him his mercy through Jesus Christ he does not execute against him the rigour of his Justice such as it is conceived is felt by the Souls which they pretend are to pass through the fire of Purgatory Whence it follows that the design of those prayers which desire of God the effect of his mercy in the remission of their sins whom he hath called hence never was nor could be to procure their deliverance out of the torment which they are imagined at this day to suffer and whoever would finde the true meaning thereof is to reflect on the perswasions of those who were the first Authours thereof for they held that all those of whom they made a Commemoration were in as much as they were dead in the Lord gathered by him into Abraham's Bosom where they rested in a sleep of peace as it is expresly set down in the Memento So that no man well-informed prayed for them as for wretched Criminals and such as are deprived of the felicity which God hath prepared for his Saints but as for Champions already triumphant and glorious And yet out of a consideration that the perpetuity of the bliss into which every one presupposed them introduced proceeded from the continuation of the mercy according to which God had at first bestowed it and that it comprehended in it self the ratification of the pardon once granted to the deceased in pursuance whereof they were entred into and continued in the possession of celestial peace and joy the surviving thought fit to desire on their behalf mercy and remission of sins not absolutely as if they were still under the weight of God's wrath but upon a certain accompt to wit in as much as it is necessary that even in Heaven the mercy of God should be perpetually communicated to those whom it had already visited incessantly assuring them of the free gift he had made them first of his grace and afterwards of his glory as believing that those who enjoy so great a happiness are nevertheless to expect a more solemn sentence of Remission and Absolution in that great Day whereof we are all obliged both for our selves and on the behalf of our Brethren living upon Earth and reigning in Heaven to desire the blessed coming In this sence indeed the Antients never made any difficulty to desire on the behalf of the Blessed in Heaven the Pardon they had already obtained in as much as they were to obtain it again after a more glorious manner at the Day of Judgment whereto are particularly referred many of their Prayers As for instance that which we have already cited wherein they desire that their Souls freed from all the Bands of sin may be raised up again among the Saints in the Glory of the Resurrection And again thus Non intres c. Enter not into Judgment with tthy servant O Lord for in thy sight shal no man be justified unless thou grantest him the remission of all his sins We beseech therefore that the Sentence of thy Judgment may not lie heavy on him whom the sincere supplication of Christian Faith recommends but grant that he who while he lived was signed with the Sign of the blessed Trinity may by the assistance of thy Grace avoid the Judgment of Vengeance Again Oremus Fratres charissimi c. Let us pray dear Brethren for the spirit of our Brother whom the Lord God hath been pleased to deliver out of the snares of this world whose body is this day put into the Ground that the Lord would out of his goodness vouchsafe to place him in the Bosom of Abraham Isaac and Jacob that when the day of Judgment comes he may be placed among the Saints and Elect raised up again on the right hand And this taken out of the Ceremonial Deus cui omnia vivunt c. O God to whom all things live and to whom our bodies though they die perish not but are changed for the better we humbly beseech thee that thou command that the soul of thy servant N. be carried into the bosom of the Patriarch Abraham by the hands of thy holy Angels to be raised up again the last day of the great Judgment that what imperfections soever it hath through the deceit of the Devil
to felicity and desire to escape Damnation she I say neither prays nor thinks she ought to pray for either the Saints Glorified nor the Sinners Condemned but onely for the Faithfull whom she presupposes to expect their Glorification and that onely for a certain time Thirdly that if from this antecedent he hath sinned it did of necessity always follow We must Pray for him the Church of Rome would be obliged to Pray First For the Apostatized Angels who having quitted their first station sinned no less then men do but in such manner that their offence condemned by an irrevocable decree is absolutely incapable of remedy Secondly For the Damned who are not in a state capable of amendment Thirdly For those that are Glorified who have not any good to obtain and that as well after as before the last Judgment since that after the Pronuntiation of it this truth that men and Devils have sinned will remain evident and irrefragable as before though that after the retribution which shall be for ever made to every one according to his works it will not be any longer either necessary or convenient or rational to pray for him CHAP. XVII Saint Epiphanius's fift Motive considered FOr a fifth consideration Saint Epiphanius alledges that Prayers for the Dead are made by the surviving out of a design to signifie what is accomplished thereby insinuates that he conceived the state of the Faithfull from the moment of their death to the time of their resurrection to be imperfect and capable of melioration it is possible Aerius might have been of the same Sentiment and upon that account have been forced to acknowledg some necessity of praying for them untill the absolute accomplishment of their Glory But this imagination neither hath nor can have any force against the Protestants who believe that the Faithfull at the very demolition of the earthly Tabernacles of their bodies are received according to the saying of St. Paul into their celestial habitations and that at the very instant of their putting-off of Flesh God cloaths their souls with the glory which they are eternally to enjoy so that what till then was in part and imperfect in them is from thence absolutely abolished and that these Considerations that the Prayer does not cut off all that is layed in charge against the dead and that it is made to signifie what is accomplished cannot be any way seasonable in respect of those who as they are perswaded by the Scripture that to no purpose are alledged either the need which the Faithfull departed stand in of their accomplishment since they are already in actual possession thereof being present with the Lord and absent from the body particularly to that end or the charges which are pretended to remain against them after death since there can be no accusation nor any one to lay ought to their charge who are justified by the Lord who protesteth according to the tenour of his own Covenant that he will be mercifull to their unrighteousness and their sins and iniquities will he remember no more CHAP. XVIII Saint Epiphanius's sixth Motive Considered IN the sixth place St. Epiphanius tells us That some in his Time prayed for Sinners departed having a respect or recourse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Mercy of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imploring the Mercy of God and it may be said that upon this ground That sinners continued charged with sins and imperfections after their decease Antiquity was induced to demand by Prayers the remission of their sins and consequently their establishment in a place of rest To this purpose is what we read in the one and fourtieth Chapter of the eighth Book of the Constitutions attributed to Saint Clement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. That God the lover of men having received his soul would turn away his face from all his sins voluntary and unvoluntary and out of his Graciousness and Mercy place him in the Region of the godly who enjoy themselves in the Bosom of Abraham c. whence trouble sadness and sighing are departed c. Look upon this thy servant whom thou hast chosen and taken to thy self to receive another lot and pardon him what he hath voluntarily or involuntarily sinned and place about him good Angels and dispose of him into the Bosom of the Patriarchs c. where there is neither sadness nor trouble nor sighing c. In the Liturgie of the Armenians Memento Domine miserere fac gratiam animabus requiescentibus pacifica illumina eas c. Remember O Lord shew Mercy and be Gracious unto the souls which are in rest pacify them and illuminate them c. In the Liturgy of St. Basily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For the repose and remission of thy Servant In the Anaphora or Liturgie translated out of the Syriack and attributed to St. Basil whereof the Summary is alledged by Cassander That God would conduct the departed through the horrid receptacles and place them in habitations of light That God would deliver them out of the thick darkness of tribulation and grief that he would not enter into judgement with them c. If they have sinned in any manner as men clad in flesh that he would pardon them In the Missal of the Latine Church Animabus famulorum famularumque tuarum remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum ut indulgentiam quam semper optaverunt piis supplicationibus consequantur c. Grant O Lord unto the souls of thy Servants of what Sex soever the remission of all their sins that by devout supplications they may obtain that indulgence which they have always desired c. Do away by the pardon of thy most mercifull Piety the sins which he hath committed through the frailty of worldly conversation c. Do thou O God mercifully out of thy wonted Goodness wipe away the stains which the souls have contracted from the contagion of the World Amen Mercifully pardon them c. put them into perpetual oblivion Amen c. O Lord enter not into judgment with thy Servants for no man shall be justifyed in thy sight deliver their souls from the Gates of Hell c. Grant them the remission of all their sins c. free them from all their sins c. We beseech thee that thy judicial sentence fall not heavy upon them c. That what vices soever she hath through the subtlety of the Devil contracted thou wouldest out of thy compassion and mercy indulgently do away c. Free O Lord we beseech thee the soul of thy Servant from all chains of sin Which Prayers are for the most part repeated in the first Book of Sacred Ceremonies Sect. 15. chap. 1. and the ensuing is there added over and above by a late Cardinal Non intres in judicium tuum Domine cum servo tuo c. O Lord enter not into judgment with thy servant for no man shall be justifyed in thy sight if the remission of
does not concern him at all yet he does or endures something he either rejoyceth in Abraham's Bosom or he begs a drop of Water in everlasting Fire Now as according to this Doctrine the two Conditions of eternal misery and Abraham's Bosom and everlasting Fire are immediately opposite so is it necessary that whoever departs this life must immediately enter either into the Joy which is unspeakable and glorious which shall never be taken away from him or into a Misery incapable of Comfort and such as shall never end Secondly It is no less certain from the Testimony of St. Augustine formerly alledged that Abraham's Bosom is the rest of the Blessed where there is no place for Temptation Thirdly It is not possible he should have thought his Mother after her Departure any where but in Abraham's Bosom since he thought it not fit to celebrate her Funeral with Tears that he was of this Opinion that she could not die miserably or rather that she could not die at all that he acknowledged that being quickened and renewed in Christ she had so lived as that the Name of God had been praised both in her Belief and Life that he thought himself obliged to give God Thanks with Joy for her good actions that he numbered her among the Children of God and Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem who have the privilege to answer the Accuser that their Debts are discharged and who have done works of Mercy and have freely from their hearts forgiven their Debtours All this which cannot any way be contradicted presupposed I ask what Consideration of danger could prevail upon the Spirit of Saint Augustine to make him shed Tears for a Mother whom he thought so dead in Adam as that she rested in the Lord since that if he conceived he ought to say she was dead in Adam in regard of the dissolution of her Body he was withall as much obliged to confess that she was also dead in the Lord in as much as she had ended her Life in the Faith of his Name and that the dissolution of her Body in some manner changing its Nature was become to her an happy passage to the true Life of her Spirit which he acknowledged had been before quickened in Christ and by him discharged of all Sins For what danger can there be for those who dying in the Lord do according to the saying of the Holy Spirit thenceforth rest from their labours Are not the Gifts and Calling of God without repentance And as it is not possible to separate from the love of God those whom he hath loved in Jesus Christ so is it also true that None can pluck them out of his hand nor lay any thing to their charge nor condemn them and consequently that There is no condemnation for tham that They shall not see death and that They are already passed from Death to Life Saint Augustine confesses it and proclaims it saying in the fourty eighth Treatise upon St. John Quid potest Lupus c. What can the Wolf do What can the Thief and Robber do They destroy onely those that are predestinated to Death c. Of those Sheep such as was according to his own description his good Mother St. Monica neither shall they be the prey of the Wolf nor shall the Thief take them away nor the Robber kill any of them he who knows what they cost him is secure as to their Number I most willingly acknowledg that the ensuing Considerations of St. Augustine are most just and well-grounded Non audeo dicere c. I dare not affirm that from the time that thou didst regenerate her by Baptism there issued no word out of her mouth against thy Commandment and it is said by thy Son who is Truth it self that If any one call his Brother Fool he shall be guilty of Hell-fire nay wo be even to those who lead commendable lives if thou examine them without Mercy For since St. John protests of himself and all the Faithfull If we say that we have no sin we deceive our selves and the truth is not in us and we make God a Lyar since the Prophet to whose Oracle St. Augustine expresly refers himself cryes out Enter not into Judgment with thy Servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified since Job a man according to the judgment of God himself upright and just fearing God and shunning evil since Job I say being come to himself found himself obliged to make this humble Confession I have uttered that I understood not c. wherefore I abhor my self that I spoke in that manner and repent in Dust and Ashes who would be so far out of himself as to deny either of St. Monica or any other of the Blessed Saints that he ever sinned in speaking against the Commandment of God since his Baptism or imagine that his Life in the profession of Christianity hath been so perfect as might stand to the disquisition of a judgment without mercy But allowing all the pious and necessary Considerations made by St. Augustine upon the course of his Mother's Life I am still to seek and cannot finde the reason of the Consequence he would have drawn thence to think himself obliged as one shaken by the fear of some imminent danger to pray for her who by his own confession had obtained a discharge for all her sins and as St. Cyprian said of all the Faithfull delivered out of the Tempests of this world had reached the Haven of eternal safety Nay what sin soever she might be supposed to have committed after her Baptism having seriously repented of it and deplored her condition with a faithfull recourse to the good Ointment of Christ whose Blood as St. John declares cleanseth us from all Sin her Conscience being purged by that precious Blood and fully purified from dead Works is so absolutely discharged in the sight of God as St. Augustine himself expounding the Words of St. John acknowledges saying Magnam securitatem dedit Deus c. God hath given us a great assurance with good reason is it that we celebrate the Pasch since the Blood of our Lord whereby we are cleansed from all sin hath been shed for us let us fear nothing The Devil kept the Writing of Slavery against us but it hath been cancelled by the Blood of Christ c. If through the infirmity of Life sin hath crept unawares upon thee discover it immediately be offended at it immediately condemn it immediately and when thou shalt have condemned it thou wilt come confidently before the Judg there thou hast an Advocate be not afraid to lose the Cause of thy Confession Since then St. Monica expired recommending her Soul to her faithfull Creatour and imploring his Mercy through the eternal Merit of that blessed Blood the pure Oblation whereof had already washed off her Original Sin and consecrated her for ever nothing could
and afford them our assistance to deliver them out of the pretended Purgatory And yet these are in a mâ—â—ner all the materials which have been shuffled into the composure of all that piece of Worship which goes under the name of The Office of the Dead though they have not any relation to their state and do no more induce a necessity of praying for them or believing a Purgatory that should purifie them as is pretended then they do that of making boast of our own praises a vanity even though we were tempted thereto Christian moderation would not suffer us to be guilty of Nor can it be said with any more reason that the words of the Psalms which are recited in the said Office are to be considered as Prosopopoeias whereby the Faithfull deceased are represented speaking of their condition after death I. In as much as the whole Contexture of every Psalm requires that the words of it be applyed to those who live in the flesh so as that it were a manifest abuse to wrest them to any other sence II. For that it was never allowed any one to cast into the divine Worship Fictions whereby men of quick Imaginations might presume to become the mouths of their Brethren departed not having to that end either order from them or calling from God And lastly for that though it were left to any man's discretion to make after his own fancy representations of those whom God hath called to himself yet should not any one take the liberty to do it e're he were well informed and satisfied whether they might pass for true and certain especially seeing that when they should be urged out of a design to infer thence the necessity of praying for them they would prove so much the more unmaintainable for as much as in the same Office where it is pretended they are employed to that end there are those Texts alledged which absolutely destroy the use thereof For instance that of the 14th Chapter of the Apocalyps Verse 13. where the holy Spirit declares Blessed are those that die in the Lord for what rational inducement is there either to desire bliss absolutely for those who are already possessed thereof or the cessation of torments for those who do not onely not suffer any but are not subject to suffer any in as much as from henceforth they are blessed and in rest That of the sixth Chapter of St. John and the thirty seventh Verse where the Son of God attests that he will in no wise cast out him that cometh to him and that of the eleventh Chapter and the five and twentieth and six and twentieth Verses where calling himself the Resurrection and the Life he promises life and exemption from eternal death to whosoever believes in him For if he does not cast out any of the Faithfull if on the contrary he saves them all from death and puts them into possession of life the surviving believers who to express their belief of his words insert them into their publick Form of Service do thereby confess that they are obliged to give him thanks for them and not to make Requests which presuppose that they enjoy not the effect of his promise Thus is there not any Lesson in the Service of the Church of Rome which effectually induces or hath so much as the appearance of inducing any thing of what those of her Communion at this day pretend to CHAP. LII Of the Prayers contained in the Missal and Breviary used by the Church of Rome and that Purgatory cannot be necessarily inferred from any one of them FOr as much as in the Book intituled Ordo Romanus there is not any mention made of the Dead that in the Canon of the Mass which is inserted into it the Memento is not to be found and that in the other Ritual Books of the Latines there is not any Lesson obliging to the belief of Purgatory screwed up since the year 1439. by the Councels of Florence and Trent into an Article of Faith the Church of Rome who hath at this day in favour of Prayer for the Dead but one onely Lesson to wit that of the second of Maccabees a Book held by her self to be Apocryphal till after the year 590. the Church of Rome I say is forced to confess that it must have been inserted so much the later into her Missals and Breviaries though upon no other accompt then this that the Greeks use it not in their Office even to this day and that from her whole service it necessarily results that she met not in the holy Scriptures with any foundation of the opinion either of Purgatory which she maintains or of the custom which she practises in praying for the Dead upon Motives unknown to Primitive Antiquity It remains therefore that we see what can be gathered of any consequence from the Prayers which we read in the publick Forms of Service of her prescription We have in the first place such as desire of God that the sins of the deceased Person may be pardoned as for instance this Fidelium Deus omnium conditor Redemptor animabus famulorum famularúmque tuarum remissionem cunctorum tribue peccatorum ut indulgentiam quam semper optaverunt piis supplicationibus consequantur c. O God Creatour and Redeemer of all the Faithfull grant unto the Souls of thy Servants of the one and the other Sex the remission of all their sins that by pious Supplications they may obtain the indulgence they have ever desired And this We beseech thee O Lord that this Supplication of ours may be beneficial to the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes intreating thee that thou wouldest cleanse them of all their sins and make them partakers of thy Redemption And this We beseech thee O Almighty God that the Soul of thy Servant purged by these Sacrifices may obtain admission to indulgence and eternal remedy And this Vouchsafe O Lord we beseech thee that the Soul of thy Servant and the Souls of thy Servants of both Sexes the Anniversarie-day of whose Interment we now commemorate being purged by these Sacrifices may be received as well into indulgence as eternal rest And this O God who hast commanded that we should honour our Father and Mother be pleased out of thy mercy to have compassion on the Souls of my Father and Mother and pardon their sins and make me to live with them in the joy of eternal light And this We beseech thee O Lord be mercifull unto the Soul of thy Servant and being freed from the contagion of Mortality restore her to the portion of eternal salvation And this We beseech thee O Lord that by these Sacrifices without which no man is guiltless the Soul of thy Servant may be cleansed from all sins that by these offices of pious placation she may obtain eternal mercy And this O God in whose mercy the Souls of the faithfull are at rest be graciously pleased to pardon the sins of thy Servants
a little Season to rest above and further consider as the highest point of their pretension that admirable perfection which the first shall not attain without the last one and the same day to wit that of the General Resurrection and the Last Judgment being appointed to make an eternal assurance of the full Perfection of their Glory The Antients I say upon these Considerations might and after their Example the Faithfull still may and do continually desire and beg it as well for themselves as for all those who before them had served their generations by the will of God and happily finished their course in this life Fourthly It may be observed that in this kinde of Prayer they seem to follow the Example of the Apostle praying for Onesiphorus that the Lord would grant that he might finde mercy with the Lord in that day in which he shall come to be glorified in his Saints and to be admired in all them that believe For whatever may be presupposed concerning the State of Onesiphorus and whether it be said that that good Person was or was not discharged as to the necessities of this life when the Wish set down in the Second Epistle to Timothy was made for him it will make no difference in the main and it will still be certain that the good expressed by St. Paul's Prayer hath not been hitherto accomplished in any one that it is of no less importance at this day to Onesiphorus then when St. Paul prayed for him that St. Paul and Onesiphorus and all the Saints who are with God wait for as much as we do who are saved by Hope onely the Day of the Lord and the Mercy which Onesiphorus and all the rest of the Elect shall finde when that day comes and that he who prays his Friend may obtain what cannot be conferred on him till many Ages after his Introduction into celestial Beatitude seems necessarily to pray for one that is Blessed if not effectually when he conceived his Prayer at least for one considered as such when he shall see the Effect thereof so that whensover a man undertakes to pray for him whether while he is alive or after his death or both before and after his death he still makes the same Prayer for him which not onely does not but canot change its nature in the revolution of Ages since that its foundation still unchangeably subsists and that it is impossible it shall have its Effect in any but a Person that hath been already a long time in Glory with God and who stands in need not of Beatitude in it self which he is already possessed of but the last Perfection of it and as it may be expressed in vulgar Terms the Over-weight which is necessarily to be added thereunto Thus the Fathers not without some Ground conceived they had pertinent Reasons to pray for those whom they thought gathered into the eternal Rest of God nay some out of a Motive of extraordinary compassion took the liberty to pray and advised others to make Prayers and give Alms for the Damned yet so as that for ought we know it hath not happened that for the space of six hundred years together any one of them laid it down as a Tenent of Catholique Faith That the Souls of those who ended their Lives in the Profession of that Faith were reduced immediately upon their departure to endure any temporal Punishment for their sins and to make full satisfaction to the Justice of God before they took possession of their Bliss The Antient Liturgies are so far from teaching any such thing that they have formally expressed the contrary and even to this day the Form of Prayer for the Recommendation of Persons in Agony expresly presupposes that their Souls at their departure out of the Bodies are to be carried by the Angels into Abraham's Bosom a Mansion of Rest and Felicity and not of Torment For after the Litanies whereby the Mercy of God is implored they say to the sick Person Proficiscere anima Christiana de hoc Mundo c. Depart out of this World O Christian Soul in the Name of God the Father Almighty who hath created thee in the Name of Jesus Christ the Son of God who hath suffered for thee in the Name of the Holy Ghost which is shed into thee c. May thy place be this day in Peace and thy habitation in Holy Sion through the same Christ our Lord. Amen To this Wish there is added a Prayer which demands for the sick Person the Remission of his sins the Renewing of whatever there was corrupt in him and his reconciliation with God and then this Discourse is addressed to him Commendo te c. I recommend thee most dear Brother to God Almighty and cōmit thee to him whose creature thou art that when by the interposition of death thou shalt have cancelled the Obligation of humanity thou mayst return to thy Authour who hath formed thee out of the slime of the Earth May therefore a bright Assembly of Angels meet thy soul at its departure out of the body c. May the embraces of the Patriarchs confine thee to the Bosom of a blissfull rest c. Mayest thou be delivered from Torment by Christ who was crucified for thee mayst thou be delivered from eternal death by Christ who vouchsafed to die for the May Christ the Son of the living God place thee in the ever-pleasant verdures of his Paradise and may that true Shepheard own thee among his Sheep May he forgive thee all thy sins and place thee in the portion of his Elect on his right hand Mayst thou face to face see thy Redeemer and being ever present behold with thy blessed eyes the most manifest truth Being then placed among the Quires of the blessed mayst thou enjoy the sweetness of divine contemplation world without end Amen After such a Discourse there is made this Prayer Suscipe Domine servum tuum c. O Lord Receive thy servant into the place where he is to hope salvation from thy mercy Amen O Lord deliver the soul of thy servant from all dangers of Hell and from the snares of Torments and from all Tribulations Amen Then having made a recital of the Deliverances of Enoch and Elias of Noë Abraham Joab Isaac Lot Moses Daniel and his three Companions David Saint Peter and Saint Paul they conclude with these words And as thou hast delivered from three most grievous Torments the most blessed Virgin and Martyr Thecla in like manner mayest thou be pleased to deliver the soul of this this thy servant and grant that he may rejoyce with thee in the enjoyment of celestial goods Amen At last follow two Prayers whereof the former begins with these words Commendamus animam Famuli tui c. O Lord we recommend unto thee the soul of thy servant and we humbly beseech thee O Jesus Christ Saviour of the World that thou wouldest not refuse to
And that among the Liturgies of the Greeks Armenians c. there are onely two viz. those of St. Basil and St. Chryâ—ostome drawn up one by the other which have onely this word of it by the way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Resting in hope of Resurrection and eternal life Where it is evident to any one that hath but common sense that he who pronounces the Prayer desires not for the Dead either Resurrection or Life but onely declares that both of them have ever been the Object of their hope To be absolutely silent in it as the Canon of the Latine Mass is or to speak uncertainly of it without making any request is that proposing to one's self the pretended Example of Judas Maccabaeus and the Tradition of the antient Synagogue Or can it either enter into any man's Imagination to say they imitate who neither in their Discourses nor in their Actions express any thing of what is contained in the Original If it be said that the Latins in the Office of the Dead added to the Canon demand the Resurrection of the departed Person whom they recommend to God in their Prayers it will be easie to reply that of three and fourty Prayers whereof that Office consists one onely viz. the fifth proposes in one word that kinde of supplication saying Partem Resurrectionis accipiat Anima famuli tui c. That the soul of thy servant may participate of the blessed Resurrection three others which spake of the Resurrection presuppose it without making any demand and amount to no more then to require onely the effect of it as for instance the second layd down in these Terms Inter Sanctos Electos tuos resuscitati gloriâ manifestae contemplationis perpetuò satientur c. That thy servants being raised again may be perpetually silled among the Saints and Elect with the glory of a manifest contemplation the fourth which hath Ad propria corpora quandoque reversuras Sanctorum tuorum caetibus aggregari praecipias c. That thou wouldest command that the souls of all the Faithfull which are one day to return to their bodies may meet together in the Assemblies of thy Saints and the nine and thirtieth which contains these words In Resurrectionis gloria inter Sanctos Electos tuos resuscitati respirent c. That thy servants of both Sexes being raised up may live among thy Saints and Elect in the glory of the Resurrection From all which Forms it necessary follows that the Latine Church never thought of framing her Service according to the Example of Judas Maccabaeus and that it is vainly and without any shadow of Proof that any Venture at this day to maintain it never considering that if the first Authours of Praying for the Dead among Christians had had any design to build their Form of Service upon the pretended Pattern of the Maccabees they could not without prevarication from their own Intentions fo far have missed the Lineaments thereof as to have omitted in their Canon what they had proposed to themselves to put in Practice or not to insist on it but obliquely and perfunctorily not making it as they should have done their Principal business CHAP. XXXII That the Primitive Sence of the Prayers whereby the Remission of Sins is demanded for the Dead is not embraced by any THe Prayers which the antient Church made for Remission of Sins on the behalf of the Faithfull departed did not onely proceed from the Hypothesis of the Sibylline Writing concerning the consinement of all Souls in Hell and of Justine Martyr concerning the power of the Devils even over those of the greatest Saints but is also an effect of their Opinion who imagined that our Saviour and his Apostles after his Example being after their departure descended into Hell had preached there and in effect converted many of those who were gone thither in the state of Sin For looking upon as reduced to the Trial of some punishment those whose Beatitude was during their restraint in the common prison of the Dead deferred and conceiving that their Condition was capable of being changed into better they inferred very suitably to these Opinions that it was necessary to implore the mercy of God and to demand on their behalf the forgiveness of their Sins which for a time kept the Gates of glory shut against them and exposed them in some manner to the violences of Evil spirits till such time as that by their own supplications and the suffrages of their surviving Friends they might better their Condition We have already produced Examples of those Prayers and there is not any Expression so strong or efficacious which we finde not employed to make us comprehend that heretofore the surviving Faithfull were of a Belief that their departed Brethren were treated as Malefactours and in a manner covered with the wrath of God But from the beginning of the Third Age and afterwards those among the Fathers who had more attentively considered the Oracles of God affirming That There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus That No man is able to pluck them out of his hand That They are at the hour of death taken away from the evil to come That They depart out of the Body to be with the Lord That Their iniquity shall be sought for and there shall be none because God hath pardoned them That as soon as they are dead in the Lord they rest from their labours and according to what we finde in express Terms in the Canon of the Mass sleep a sleep of Peace as being actually in Peace and freed from Sin which deprives a man of it and makes a separation between the Lord and him that commits it the Fathers I say not discontinuing out of the respect they had for their Ancestours the Prayers inserted by them upon prejudications both ill-grounded and extremely mistaken into the Service of the Church do by the formal Confession of the insufficiency of those Principles make a certain disclaim of the Prayers enough to justifie that according to them being taken literally they are absolutely unprofitable as being destitute of Truth and a maintainable Foundation Hence is it that in the year 252. St. Cyprian tells us of the advantage which accrews to the Faithfull at their death Lucrum maximum jam nullis peccatis vitiis carnis obnoxium fieri c. It is a very great gain not to be any longer subject to sins and the lusts of the flesh St. Cyril of Jerusalem about the year 350. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Remission having its Ordinance onely in this life St. Epiphamus in the year 375. in the nine and fiftieth Haeresie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is not any progress either of Piety or Repentance after death St. Ambrose about the year 378. Qui hic non acceperit remissionem illic non erit c. He who shall not have received remission here shall not
enquiry into the Motives which might have induced the Authours of those Epitaphs to insert into them Prayers for their departed Friends and to place their Tombs near those of the Martyrs who had sealed with their Blood the Truth of Christianity The most antient Epitaph we finde containing a mixture of Wishes and Prayers is that which St. Gregory Nazianzene writ in Honour of St. Basil deceased the twelfth of January in the year 378. where we read these Words concerning that Great Prelate gathered to his Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God give him Happiness as if he had not been in the actual possession thereof and as if St. Gregory had not expresly required of him before that he would appear for the World and offer gifts to God and that in consequence of his being in Heaven as he had desired Again That he had quitted his Episcopal See as Christ would have it that he might become one among the Inhabitants of Heaven It seems then he believed him in Heaven and possessed of the Glory and Happiness of Heaven as soon as he had at his departure out of this World quitted his Episcopal See and yet he desires that God would give him Happiness meaning that he would confirm and improve the gift he had already made him which hath nothing common with the Hypotheses maintained at this day by the Church of Rome In the year 395. deceased the Prefect PROBUS and his Epitaph which loudly published that he was in the Plains of Heaven seated among the Saints possessed of perpetual Rest that he lived crowned with bliss in the Everlasting Mansions of Paradise concludes with this Prayer Hunc tu Christe Choris jungas Coelestibus oro Te canat placidum jugiter aspiciat Quique tuo semper dilectus pendet ab ore Auxilium soboli conjugióque ferat Joyn'd with Celestial Quires O Christ may he Thy praises sing thy constant favour see Whō ever-lov'd did ev'r on thee depend May he to 's Race and Widow some help lend Shall we say he was in Heaven and yet not joyned with the Celestical Quires That he was in any danger to see his Saviour incensed and that he could be possessed of Paradise without Happiness If not it must needs be that the Authour of his Epitaph prayed that he might enjoy it without any diminution and be eternally in the Favour and Peace of his Saviour in the Society of the rest of the Blessed Saints which hath nothing common with what is now desired by the Church of Rome We have such another Desire made in the Epitaph of Pope BENEDICT Hic Benedictus adest meritò sub rupe Sepulchri Quem tenet Angelicus Chorus in arce Poli Aurea saec'la cui pateant sine fine per aevum Sorte beatificâ scandat ut aetheria c. Here Benedict justly beneath this Stone Is plac'd whom Angels in the Heav'ns enthrone To whom be golden Ages without end That he the Skies may ever-bless'd ascend For who sees not that he who is enthroned by Angels in Heaven must of necessity be there and stood not in need of ascending thither nor that any golden Ages should be desired for him But in as much as he was to ascend thither in his Body after the general Resurrection the Authour of the Epitaph makes a Wish to that purpose and requires that the Happiness which he was then possessed of as to his Spirit might be ever continued to him that he might be eternally filled with Joy as well in body as soul thereby discovering that he reflected not in the least on the Purgatery held by the Church of Rome which none of her Followers ever yet placed in Heaven or any way thought on the delay of Benedict's Felicity whom he esteemed already received into the Society of the Angels The same accompt is to be given of the Epitaph of Marinian Arch-Bishop of Ravenna deceased in the year 601. where we finde these words Ipsius in locis sit tibi certa quies c. Mayst thou with God assured rest obtain As also of that of Venerable Bede deceased in the year 735. Dona Christe animam in Coelis gaudere per aevum c. Dáque illum Sophiae inebriari fonte Christ grant his soul in heav'n eternal joy c. And him inebriate with Wisdom's spring For it does not thence follow either that he was at the hour of his death deprived of the Joy of Heaven or that Wisdom had not filled him with the Effects of her Virtue or lastly that those who are once entred into the Joy of Heaven could ever forfeit it or be deprived of the communication of eternal Wisdom but that the Surviving thought they might rationally demand for their deceased Friends the perpetuity of their Happiness though they certainly knew it could never be taken from them That of Pope ADRIAN the First writ either by Charle-maign or in his Name by Alcuin notwithstanding he had presupposed that his Death was the entrance of a better Life yet forbore not to make these Wishes for him Cum Christo teneas regna beata Poli c. Quique legis Versus devoto pectore supplex Amborum mitis dic miserere Deus Haec tua nunc requies teneat charissime membra Cum sanctis Anima gaudeat alma Dei Ultima quippe tuas donec Tuba clamet in aures Principe cum Petro Surge videre Deum Auditurus eris vocem scio Judicis almam Intra nunc Domini gaudia magna tui Tum memor esto tui Nati c. Mayst thou with Christ a blessed Seat obtain c. Who humbly readst this Verse with pious heart May God his mercy say to both impart May here the precious body finde it's Rest May the fair soul rejoyce among the blest Since when the latest Trump shall summon thee God and the great Saint Peter for to see I know thou 'lt hear the Judge's gentle voyce Of thy Lord enter into the great Joys Remember then thy Son Now as the demand he made for Adrian that he might obtain a blessed seat with Christ in Heaven did not signify that he was not yet admitted into the Possession of that better Life whereof his death was the entrance so the Invitation to implore for him the Mercy of God was no argument that he had not obtained it since that even then he exhorted his Soul to rejoyce with the Saints of God and shewed that he thought it not tormented in a Fire such as were likely to deprive it of all Joy but that it was in Bliss reigning in the Company of the Saints of the Apostle St. Peter and our Saviour a felicity whereto nothing could be added by desire but the perpetuity of it which yet is so much the more certain in as much as it is grounded on the unchangeable counsel of God whose Gifts and Calling are without repentance That of Charle-maign of whom the Authour viz. Agobard Arch-Bishop of Lions said That he
made on their behalf at Ferrara on Saturday june xiv One Thousand Four Hundred Thirty Eight is as to what concerns them still in force and though they prayed even at that time for their Dead and presupposing as the Church of Rome would have it that some sins were venial and some Souls in the midst between Virtue and Vice made it a question whether God granting them the remission of their sins after this life makes use of any punishment or out of his Clemency gives absolution to men as inclined to mercy by the Prayers of the Church and whether in case he does make use of punishment it consists in Purgation by Fire and not rather in restraint obscurity and grief yet did they sufficiently determine themselves in these words We say that it stands more with the goodness of God not to despise a small good then to account worthy punishment a small sin leaving it to be inferred that he freely pardoned it Immediately after Mark of Ephesus in his Manifesto addressed To all Christians as well of the Continent as the Islands having made his complaint that some endeavours had been used to reduce his Countrey-men into a base Captivity and to bring them down to the Babylon of the Customs and Opinions of the Latines proposes their Sentiment concerning the Dead in these Terms We affirm that neither the Saints obtain the Kingdom prepared for them and the ineffable good things neither do Sinners fall into Hell but both expect their own Lot and that belongs to the time to come after the Resurrection and last Judgment But Gregorius Proto-Syncellus who was for the Concordate charges the said Mark with contradicting in that not onely the Fathers as St. Chrysostome St. Gregory Nazianzene Gregory of Rome Damascene and Maximus but even himself for as much as in one of his Sermons in honour of Elias the Prophet he had maintained that he enjoyed the clear Vision of God and was in the presence of his Majesty in the Heavens with the Angels and Saints who have put off the garment of the body And indeed it is possible that Mark either to discover the greater alienation from the Opinions of the Latines or to shew himself to be of their number among those of his Nation who as is expressed in the Acts of Florence hold that the Saints departed are in and enjoy bliss in their proper place expecting the perfect Crown which hath been promised them may have said it and that the more common Opinion of the Greeks may have been from that time such as the same Acts represent it saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Greeks conceive that there may be a fire and partial punishment of Souls and that the Souls of Sinners go to an obscure place a place of grief and that they are afflicted and punished in part being deprived of Divine Light and that by Prayers and the Services of the Priests and Alms they are purged or rather delivered out of that dark Place and Tribulation and that they are freed And the Greeks contrary to the Italians confess that they are purged not by fire or the action of fire but that onely Prayer and Supplication and Alms have that effect Accordingly the Greeks living in Venice in the year 1560. declared their Sentiment in Terms much to that purpose when they made answer to the Tenth of the Cardinal of Guise's Questions as hath been already observed And it is likely enough that whoever as they did imagines to himself Souls which are neither good nor bad runs into a necessity of feigning some such thing concerning the Treatment they are to receive after their departure out of the Body But there is not any thing can give us a more certain accompt of their Opinion then the Forms of Service daily used by them at the Enterment of their Dead for we have in them as in those of the Latines Lessons out of the Scripture as for instance the first Verse of the fifty first Psalm all the ninety first the first part of the hundred and nineteenth the twelfth seventy second and seventy third Verses to the hundred thirty third and the hundred seventy fifth and hundred seventy sixth the fourty second of the twenty third Chapter of St. Luke out of the fifth of St. Matthew from the third Verse to the tenth inclusively out of the fourth of the first to the Thessalonians from the thirteenth Verse to the seventeenth inclusively the twenty fourth and thirtieth Verses of the fifth of S. John the sixth Verse of the hundred and twenty sixth Psalm the seventh of the hundred and sixteenth the fifteenth of the hundred and third the whole twenty third Psalm the fifth Verse of the sixty fifth the twelfth and seventeenth Verses of the fifth Chapter of the Epistle to the Romanes the seventeenth of the fifth of St. John the first of the twenty fourth Psalm out of the fifteenth of the first Epistle to the Corinthians from the beginning to the eleventh Verse the thirty fifth of the sixth of S. John the first Verse of Psalm the eighty fourth the thirteenth of the twenty fifth the seventh Verse of the sixth to the Romanes the thirty ninth of the sixth of St. John the sixth of the fourteenth to the Romanes which contain either Lessons of Piety and Humility for the Living as the places of the hundred and third and hundred and nineteenth Psalms and of the fifth of St. Matthew or Descriptions of the Goodness of God towards those that fear Him as the twenty third and ninety first Psalm or Implorations of His Mercy for the last Day as the forty second of the twenty fourth of St. Luke and the first Verse of the fifty first Psalm or Assurances of the Beatitude Immortality and Glorious Resurrection of the Faithful as all the other places among which there is nothing alledged out of the second Book of Maccabees which the Church of Rome takes at this day for one of its principal Grounds nor yet out of any other of the Apocryphal Books Whence it evidently results that those who compiled the Office of the Greeks and put into it those Texts of Scripture had not in that any apprehension contrary to the Sentiment of the Protestants There are also in the said Forms abundance of Prayers stuffed with Invocations to the Blessed Virgin and to Martyrs all which are irrefragable marks of the alteration of the antient Service and insoluble Arguments of the adulteration of belief among the Greeks whose first Liturgies contained Prayers for all the Saints without any exception and the Fathers held as a Principle of Religion that God alone was to be invocated that the worship of Persons departed is not to be accounted by us for Religion for as much as if they lived piously they are not for that to be so looked on as if they sought such Honours but will that he should be served by us by whom we being illuminated they rejoyce
that we are made partakers of their Dignity that they are to be honoured by way of imitation and not adored upon any religious accompt In a word that neither the Blessed Virgin Mother of our Saviour nor any of the Saints of either Sex can pretend to any part of that religious homage Saint Epiphanius one of the most earnest maintainers of Prayer for the Dead hath left to them and the whole Church of these last times these remarkable Precepts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Indeed the Body of Mary was holy but it was not God the Virgin was indeed a Virgin and honoured but she was not given us to be adored on the contrary she adored him who was begotten of her as to the flesh c. If God will not have the Angels to be adored how much rather will he not that she who was born of Ann should be c. God came from Heaven and the Word was clad in flesh taken from the holy Virgin but the Virgin is not adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Father Son and Holy Spirit be adored Let no man adore Mary though Mary be excellent and holy and honoured it is not that she should be adored c. Let Mary be honoured but let the Lord be adored But not to press any further this notorious defect which we finde at present in the Service of the Greeks we are to observe that among them the Office of the Dead is full of Prayers whereby is desired as in the Latine Service the mercy of God the remission of the sins of the deceased his absolution his blessed resurrection his introduction into rest into Abraham ' s Bosom into the Mansion of the blessed into refreshment into Paradise into the Tabernacle of God into his Kingdom glory light to the right hand of the great Judge into the Society of the Saints and Angels all which Expressions according to the Hypotheses of Antiquity may be applied to the Spirits already received into glory Which is so much the more evident for that the particular Office which concerns the Obsequies of Children is full of these Prayers that God would number the deceased among the Children to whom he hath promised his Kingdom that he would place him among the just who are acceptable in his sight that he would make him partaker of the good things which are above this World that he would let him enter into the joys of the Saints that in his holy Mountain he would gratifie him with celestial goods that he would write his name in the Book of those who shall be saved that he would make his face to shine upon him that he would lodge him in Abraham ' s Bosom that he would grant him the enjoyment of his Kingdom c. Yet were not these Desires made without a presupposition of his Beatitude as First when it is said to him He who hath taken thee from the Earth and gives thee place among his Saints shew◠that thou O truly blessed Childe art a Citizen of Paradise The Sword of Death falling on thee hath cut thee off as a tender Branch O blessed art thou who hast made no tryal of worldly pleasures but behold Christ opening the Gates of Heaven to thee numbring thee◠out of his great goodness among the Elect◠Secondly When he is brought in making this Discourse Why do you bewail me a Childe translated out of the World for I am not a Subject to be bewailed The joy of all the just is required for those Children who have not done works worthy Tears Thirdly When he acknowledges that Death is a freedom to Children that they are thereby exempted from the miseries of life and that they are gone to rest that they rejoyce in Abraham ' s Bosom in the divine Quires of Blessed Children and assuredly dance because their departure hence was a deliverance from the corruption which loves sin If then the Ritual of the Creeks be full of Prayers for the Children whom they unanimously acknowledge to be among the Blessed what inconvenience can there be to attribute to them that they had the same apprehension for persons of age of whose felicity they no way doubted But though reason should not lead us to think so yet does their formal confession obliges us to believe as much for there is not any deceased person for whom they say not to God Mercifully receive the faithfull person departed who hath holily quitted this life and is O Lord passed towards thee and whose Funeral Solemnities they do not conclude saying to him three several times Our Brother worthy to be ever blessed and always remembred thy memory is eternal To every Monk without any exception they address these words Brother thè way thou art in is that of bliss for that a place of rest is prepared for thee adding to that purpose the sixteenth Verse of the one hundred and sixteenth Psalm Return unto thy rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt kindly with thee and a little after He who is taken hence hath passed through the ever-troubled Sea of Life and by Faith is arrived at his Port conduct him O Christ with the Saints into thy tranquillity and ever-living pleasures In like manner to every Priest Thou hast piously signalized thy self in Faith Charity Hope Gentleness Purity of life and in the Sacerdotal dignity and therefore O Brother of eternal memory God who is before all Ages whom thou hast served will himself dispose thy Spirit into a place full of light and pleasure where the just are in rest and will make thee obtain of Christ at the day of Judgment pardon and great mercy And the deceased Person is introduced using these words I am now at rest and have found great favour for that I have been transferred from the corruption of life glory be to thee O Lord c. Thy divine Servant Deified in his Transportation by thy now-enlivening Mystery is come towards thee To every Woman departed Detain not any longer O malicious Hell the Souls of the Elect in the condemnation of the Transgression for all being now made assuredly conformable to Christ instead of Death receive divine life In a word she is made to say the same words as had been attributed to the Priest I am now at rest c. All these Confessions grounded on the Lessons of Scripture which for the most part contain assurances of the Love of God towards those who serve him and promises of their future Beatitude and glorious Resurrection demonstratively prove that the first Compilers of the Greek Office agreeing in what is most substantial with the Protestants believed that whoever dies in the Faith of the Lord does from the moment of his Death enjoy rest and glory in him and with him But for as much as from time to time the purity of belief and worship receiving adulteration among them there rose up a sort of people apt to feign any
Creation shall be shaken with fear and then shall the light be changed O Word spare him who is translated hence Again I beseech you all who were of my acquaintance and who love me be mindful of me at the Day of Judgment that I may finde mercy before the Dreadful Tribunal Again Let us cry to the Immortal King when thou shalt come to make inquisition into the secret things of men spare thy Servant whom thou hast taken to thy self O Mankind-loving God Again I am dead after that I have passed away my life with security and I lye without voice in the Grave and now I expect the last Trumpet to awake me cries he who is dead but my Friends pray unto Christ that he would number me among the Sheep on his right hand c. I have consumed my life in great negligence and being translated from it I expect the dreadfull Tribunal before which O Jesu preserve me free from condemnation cries thy Servant Again O Lord who art the onely King entertain into the Celestial Kingdom thy Faithfull Servant whom thou hast now transferred hence and we beseech thee preserve him free from condemnation at the hour when all mortal men being to be judged shall make their appearance before the Judge c. Disacknowledged by my Brethren and sequestred from my Friends I cry in spirit from the noisomness of the Grave Examine not my failings at the day of Judgment despise not my Tears thou who art the joy of Angels but grant me rest O Lord even me whom out of thy great mercy thou hast taken to thy self c. Stuck fast in the Myriness of sin and devested of good actions I who am a prey to Worms cry to thee in Spirit cast me not behind thee wretch that I am place me not at thy left hand thou who hast framed me with thy Hands but out of thy great mercy grant him rest whom thou hast taken to thy self by thy Ordinance Having now quitted my Kinred and Countrey I am come into a strange way and am as stinking rottenness in the Grave Alass none shall afford me any assistance in that hour but O Lord because of thy great mercy grant him rest whom thou hast taken to thy self by thy Ordinance Again O what an inquisition and judgment are we to expect what fear and trembling in which Brethren the Elements themselves shall be moved and the creation shake come now and let us cast our selves at the feet of Christ that he may save the Soul he hath transferred An intolerable sire and external obscurity and the Worm which never dies is prepared for us sinners in the day of inevitable necessity then spare thy Servant whom thou hast transferred For as much then as the Prayers for the remission of sins made by the Greeks under the names as well of the Surviving praying for the Dead as of the Dead putting up their Requests for themselves are for the most part restrained to the day of Judgement we are so far from having any thing that might oblige us to take them in such a sence as that they should insinuate that the Faithfull between the moment of their death and that of the Last Judgment were reduced to the suffering of any pains that the Hypotheses of Antiquity seem clearly to exact the contrary And the result thence is that the Modern Greeks though great opposers of the Purgatory maintained by the Church of Rome have not kept within the Terms prescribed them by their Fore-fathers but have changed their Sentiments by the Introduction of Novelties which none of them would ever have imagined It will be demanded whence they derived the perswasion that there were Souls of a middle condition which being properly neither good nor bad could not after their separation from the Body enter into the possession of Paradise without having for a certain time lain drooping in I know not what place of Sequestration where they were to endure grief terrour and the incommodity of darkness which as is pretended covered them when nothing of all this either hath or could have any ground in Scripture which does every where make as immediate an opposition between Paradise and Hell the good and the bad the Faithfull and the Reprobate the Children of God redeemed and consecrated for ever by one onely Oblation and that once made with the blood of the Covenant and the children of the Devil who have held as prophane that precious blood as between life and death light and darkness the right hand and the left of the great Judge teaching us expresly that all the faithfull dying in the Lord are blessed rest from thenceforth come not into condemnation are passed from death to life are at their departure out of the body with the Lord and that all the rest without any exception dying in Adam and having not believed are already condemned 2. That Antiquity having happily shaken of the strange imagination which the Fathers of the Second Age had swallowed out of the pretended Sibylline Writing insinuating to them that the Spirits of all men as well good as bad necessarily descended into Hell and were to be there detained under the power of Devils till the Resurrection of the Bodies they had animated it thereupon formally maintained that immediately upon the Death of the Faithfull are the Nuptials of the Spouse that it remains onely for the surviving to give thanks to God that he hath crowned him who is departed from them and having delivered him out of all fear receives him to himself that to all the good Death is an assured Port a deliverance from the combat and bonds a Transporation to better things and that as soon as it happens the Cabinets are sealed and the time accomplished and the combat at an end and the race run and the Crowns bestowed and all is manifestly brought to perfection 3. That the Ritual it self as it were endeavouring to bring into discredit as well the distinction of the middle-conditioned Souls as their pretended banishment for a time into a dark place indifferently affirms of all those who die in the Faith of Christ men and women Ecclesiasticks those of Religious Professions and Laicks that they are gone to the Lord that they rest that Hell detains them not that they exchange Death for the divine life and are made the Children of immortality absolutely denying all that the vulgar Opinion temerariously and without any reason shewn affirms of some and wholly destroying it by so formal a contradiction But we are not to imagine our selves reduced to a necessity of being over-Critical in discovering the Origine of this errour since the falsificatour as well of the Ritual as of the Sentiment of those of his Nation hath done it so palpably to our hands that he hath not made any scruple to publish his own ignorance even in things evident and such as the word of God the best
Antiquity and Reason assisted by both teach so clearly that there can be onely those who are unwilling to learn of them that are not informed thereof Take the draught he gives us of it with his own hand introducing the Priest whose Funeral Obsequies are celebrated making at his death this Discourse strange indeed and more suitable with the Principles of a Pagan without hope then to those of a Christian illuminated by Faith Brethren I am banished from my Brethren I leave all my Friends and go my ways yet I know not whither I am going and am ignorant what condition I shall be in there God onely who calls me knows but make a commemoration of me with the Antients Hallelujah Whither do Souls now go And after what manner do they now converse together in that place I would gladly understand that Secret but there is no body able to declare it to me c. None of those that are there ever returned to life again to give us an accompt in what manner they behave themselves who were sometime our Brethren and Nephews who are gone before us to the Lord c. It is a bad way that I go in and I never went it before and that Region where no body knows me I have not any account or knowledge of It is a horrour to see those who are carried away and he who calls me is worthy to be dreaded he who is Lord of Life and Death and who calls us away when he pleases Hallelujah Removing out of one Region into another we stand in need of some Guids what shall we do where we go in a Region in which we have no acquaintance Of the same strain are the Discourses in the Office of the Soul in Agony for she is made to speak as one in the depth of despair begging assistance of the Blessed Virgin of Angels and of Men and complaining that she is forsaken of all that estranged from the Glory of God she served unclean Devils who holding the Schedules of her sins and crying with vehemence would impudently have her that she is alienated from God and her Brethren that a Cloud of Devils come pouring upon her and that the darkness of her own unclean actions cover her commands her Body to be cast into a Common-Sewer that as she is dragged into the places of dreadful punishments the Dogs may eat her heart declares that she is delivered up to the Devils who carry her away by violence to the bottom of Hell that she knows all have forgotten her that she shall remember God no more since that in Hell there is no memory of the Lord that overwhelmed with darkness she expects the Resurrection that examined by all men she shall be cast into the fire that neither God nor his Angels nor his Saints shall think of her for which reason she calls upon the Virgin Angels and Men Earth nay Hell it self to which she is delivered to be bitterly punished to bewail her Misery What greater Impurity could the rage of a despairing Judas disgorge shall we say there could be any thing of Christianity in the apprehensions of a sinner who without any recourse to the Mercy of God and the Merit and Intercession of his Saviour numbers himself among the damned not vouchsafing to consider the assurances which the Scripture gives all men testifying unto them that Christ is our peace and redemption that his blood cleanseth us from all sin that if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness Further that he is still living to make intercession for us and since he vouchsafes to receive us among his Sheep no man shall pluck us out of his hand and the wicked one shall not touch us When the same Divinely-inspired Scripture hath loudly published that all the righteous that is to say those who walk before God are taken away from the evil to come that being absent from the body they are present with him that even here upon Earth they are of the Houshold of God and fellow-Citizens with the Saints that they ought to go boldly to the Throne of Grace where he himself gives them access by the Spirit of his Son and that the Angels are now ministring Spirits to minister to their Salvation should we ever imagine so brutish a stupidity and so prophane an excoecation in any of those who have any way contributed to the Greek Ritual affirming according to the Scripture that the Christian who dies does by death arrive at the Port goes to the Lord rests is translated from the corruption of life exchanges death for divine life and is at his death in the way to bliss as that he should presume to say that way is bad and that he knows not whether he is going knows no body there nor is known to any Can the way to bliss be a bad way Is he who knows he is going to God in a condition to complain truly that he knows not whether he goes Since he is retiring to his Father and those of the same Houshold with him hath he any cause to say that he knows not any of those to whom he is retiring and that they know not him Being called how can he imagine that he who calls him should be so far mistaken as to take his Childe for a Stranger And since he gives him access to himself by his own Spirit is there any reason it should be supposed not onely that he stands in need of a Guid but that he neither hath nor can finde any What occasion have either the living or the dying to bemoan themselves that not any one returns from the Dead to inform them of the state of the World to come since the Son of God himself gave us this advertisement that it is of greater advantage to us to have Moses and the Prophets that is to say the holy Scriptures then if one rose from the Dead to give us an accompt of their condition It were not haply much besides our Purpose to desire those who entertain us with Stories of dark Prisons for those Souls which they pretend to be of a Middle-condition to tell us whether they hope to revive that ruined Party among the Antients who believing that Angels and separated Souls were clad with a body subject as ours to be incommodated by Darkness discovered that they apprehended not any distinction between immortal Substances and corporeal As also whether allowing them separated from all matter and assigning them for Torment Obscurity and Darkness taken in their Proper and Primitive Signification they think themselves better grounded in Reason then those who are perswaded that material Fire whose activity can onely exercise it self on Bodies is and eternally shall be the Instrument of Torment as well for Devils as impious Souls Turn which side they will they shall not free themselves