CHAPTER V.05

X. Our opponents will reply, that it has been a very ancient opinion in the Church. Paul removes this objection when he comprehends even his own age in this sentence, where he denounces, that all must suffer the loss of their work, who, in the structure of the Church, should place any thing not corresponding to the foundation. When our adversaries, therefore, object to me, that to offer prayers for the dead has been the practice of more than thirteen hundred years, I inquire of them, on the contrary, by what word of God, by what revelation, by what example, it is sanctioned. For they are not only destitute of any testimonies of Scripture in favour of it, but none of the examples of the saints there recorded exhibit any thing like it. Respecting mourning and funeral offices, it contains many and sometimes long accounts; but of prayers for persons deceased, you cannot discover the smallest hint. But the greater the importance of the subject, so much the rather ought it to have been particularly mentioned. Even the fathers themselves, who offered up prayers for the dead, saw that they had neither a Divine command, nor a legitimate example, to justify the practice. Why, then, did they presume to adopt it? In this, I say, they discovered themselves to be but men; and therefore I contend, that what they did ought not to be enforced for the imitation of others. For since believers ought not to undertake any thing without an assurance of conscience, according to the direction of Paul,1819 this assurance is chiefly requisite in prayer. Yet it will be urged, It is probable that they were impelled to it by some reason. I reply, Perhaps they sought some consolation to alleviate their sorrow, and it might appear inhuman not to give some testimony of their love towards the dead in the presence of God. The propensity of the human mind to this affection, all men know by experience. The custom, also, when received, was like a flame, kindling ardour in the minds of multitudes. We [pg 612] know that funeral rites have been performed to the dead among all nations, and in every age, and that lustrations have been annually made for their departed spirits. For though Satan has deluded foolish mortals with these fallacies, yet he has borrowed the occasion of the deception from a true principle—that death is not an annihilation, but a transition from this life into another. Nor can it be doubted, but that even superstition itself convicts the heathen before the tribunal of God, for neglecting all the concerns of a future life, which they professed to believe. Now, Christians, because they would not be inferior to the heathen, were ashamed to perform no services for the dead, as though they had wholly ceased to exist. Hence that inconsiderate officiousness; because if they were negligent in attending to funerals, feasts, and oblations, they were afraid they should expose themselves to great disgrace. What first proceeded from a perverse emulation, has been so repeatedly augmented by novel additions, that the principal sanctity of Popery consists in relieving the distresses of the dead. But the Scripture administers another consolation, far better and more substantial, when it declares that “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;” and adds as a reason, “that they may rest from their labours.”1820 But we ought not to indulge our own affection so far as to introduce a corrupt method of praying into the Church. Certainly, he that has but a moderate share of penetration, will easily discover all that we find on this subject in the fathers to have been in compliance with general practice and vulgar ignorance. I confess, they were also involved in the error themselves, from an inconsiderate credulity which frequently deprives the human mind of its judgment. But in the mean time, the mere reading of them demonstrates with what hesitation they recommend prayers for the dead. Augustine, in his Book of Confessions, relates that Monica, his mother, had vehemently entreated to be remembered in the celebration of the mysteries at the altar. This was the wish of an old woman, which her son did not examine by the standard of Scripture; but from his natural affection for her, wished it to gain the approbation of others. But the treatise composed by him, on Care for the Dead, contains so many hesitations, that it ought by its coolness to extinguish the heat of imprudent zeal. If any one desires to be an intercessor for the dead, this treatise, with its frigid probabilities, will certainly remove all the solicitude he may have previously experienced. For this is its only support, that since it has been customary to pray for the dead, it is a duty not to be despised. But though I concede, that the ancient writers of the Church esteemed it a pious act [pg 613] to pray for the dead, yet we must always remember a rule which can never deceive—that it is not right for us in our prayers to introduce any thing of our own, but that our desires must be submitted to the word of God; because he chooses to prescribe what he designs we should ask. Now, since there is not a syllable, in all the law or the gospel, which allows us to pray for the dead, it is a profane abuse of the name of God, to attempt more than he enjoins. But that our adversaries may not glory, as though the ancient Church were associated with them in their error, I assert that there is a considerable difference between them. The ancients preserved the memory of the dead, that they might not seem to have cast off all concern for them; but they at the same time confessed their uncertainty concerning their state. Respecting purgatory they asserted nothing, but considered it as quite uncertain. The moderns expect their reveries concerning purgatory to be admitted as unquestionable articles of faith. The fathers, in the communion of the sacred supper, merely recommended their deceased friends to the mercy of God. The Papists are incessantly urging a concern for the dead; and by their importunate declamations cause it to be preferred to all the duties of charity. Besides, it would not be difficult for us to produce some testimonies from the fathers which manifestly overthrow all those prayers for the dead which were then used. Such is this of Augustine; when he teaches that all men expect the resurrection of the body and eternal glory, and that every individual enters on the fruition of that rest which follows after death, if he is worthy of it when he dies. Therefore he declares that all the pious, as well as the prophets, apostles, and martyrs, enjoy a blessed repose immediately after death. If such be their condition, what advantage will our prayers confer on them? I pass over those grosser superstitions with which they have fascinated the minds of the simple; which nevertheless are innumerable, and for the most part so monstrous, that they cannot be varnished over by any honest pretext. I omit, also, that most disgraceful traffic which they licentiously carried on while the world was in such a state of stupidity. For I should never arrive at a conclusion, and I have already furnished the pious reader with sufficient to establish his conscience.