nation of their brethren and their living with the LORD, as the putting a difference betwixt CHRIST Our SAVIOUR and all other men, how blessed soever, (in respect the one is God, the other but men; the one after His glorious resurrection remaineth now immortal in heaven, the other continue yet in a state of dissolution, with their bodies resting in the earth in expectation of the resurrection; the purity and perfection of the one is most absolute, the manifold failings of the very best of the other such that they stand in need of mercy and pardon ;) this prayer following may witness:

"Receive, O LORD, our prayers and supplications, and give rest unto all our fathers, and mothers, and brethren, and sisters, and children, and all our other kindred and alliance; and unto all souls that rest before us in hope of the everlasting resurrection. And place their spirits and their bodies in the book of life, in the bosoms of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the region of the living, in the kingdom of heaven, in the paradise of delight, by thy bright angels bringing all into thy holy mansions. Raise also our bodies together with theirs in the day which thou hast appointed, according to thy holy and sure promises. It is not a death then, O LORD, unto thy servants, when we flit from the body and go home to thee our GOD, but a translation from a sorrowful state unto a better and more delightful, and a refreshment and joy. And if we have sinned in any thing against thee, be gracious both unto us and unto them. Forasmuch as no man is clean from pollution before thee, no, though his life were but of one day, thou alone excepted, who didst appear upon 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 merciful 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 passing over his iniquities, and granting to him the resurrection."

Lastly, that these prayers have principal relation to the judgment of the great day, and to 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:

66 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 bence."

"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 brethren 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 when 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 wit 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 Aerius.

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

should not be made for such as are believed to be in bliss, do reject that kind of praying and offering for the dead which was practised by the ancient Church.

But the Romanists are of this judgment.

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 tí wpeλnOhσetaι ỏ tεOvεws; 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 Aerianism, which sticketh so fast unto them, before they be so ready to cast the aspersion thereof upon others.

85. 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 inquiry: 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. Diverse 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, "presenteth 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, "have no hope of any succour from man."

VOL. III.-72.

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