turned a deaf ear to their loud cries and supplications, only bidding them believe for the future, (what they could not believe,) that half the sacrament was every whit as good as the whole. Immediately follows this article: "I firmly hold “that there is a purgatory, and that the souls de"tained there are relieved by the prayers of the "faithful"." Now this article of a "purgatory after "this life," as it is understood and taught by the Roman church, (that is, to be a place and state of misery and torment, whereunto many faithful souls go presently after death, and there remain till they are throughly purged from their dross, or delivered thence by masses, indulgences, &c.,) is contrary to Scripture, and the sense of the catholic church for at least the first four centuries, as I have at large proved in a discourse concerning the state of the souls of men in the interval between death and the resurrection*: which I am ready to communicate to monsieur de Meaux, if he shall desire it. Indeed the doctrine of purgatory is not only an error, but a dangerous one too, which (I am verily persuaded) hath betrayed a multitude of souls into eternal perdition, who might have escaped hell, if they had not depended upon an after-game in purgatory. But this article, being very gainful to the Roman clergy, must above others be held fast, and constantly maintained and defended. "I firmly hold ity." Prayers for the dead, as founded on the hypo u Constanter teneo purgatorium esse, animasque ibi detentas fidelium suffragiis juvari. 2 [This passage, "Prayers for the dead-misery and tor"ment," is taken almost literally from the third Sermon, p. 70, &c.] thesis of purgatory, (and we no otherwise reject them,) fall together with it. The prayers for the dead used in the ancient church (those, I mean, that were more properly prayers, i. e. either deprecations or petitions) were of two sorts, either the common and general commemoration of all the faithful at the oblation of the holy Eucharist, or the particular prayers used at the funerals of any of the faithful lately deceased. The former respected their final absolution, and the consummation of their bliss at the resurrection; like as that our church useth both in the Office for the Communion, and in that for the Burial of the Dead: which indeed seems to be no more than what we daily pray for in that petition of the Lord's Prayer, (if we rightly understand it,) "Thy king"dom come." The latter were also charitable omens, and good wishes of the faithful living, as it were accompanying the soul of the deceased to the joys of paradise, of which they believed it already possessed, as the ancient author of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy in the last chapter of that book plainly informs us. In a word, let any understanding and unprejudiced person attentively observe the prayers for the dead in the most undoubtedly ancient Liturgies, especially those in the Clementine Liturgy, and those mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; and he will be so far from believing the Roman purgatory upon the account of those prayers, that he must needs see they make directly against it. For they all run (as even that prayer for the dead, which is unadvisedly left by the Romanists in their own canon of the mass, as a testimony against themselves) in this form: "For all that are in peace or "at rest in the Lord." Now how can they be said to be "in peace or at rest in the Lord," who are supposed to be in a state of misery and torment? The next article is this: "As also that the saints "reigning together with Christ are to be venerated " and invoked, and that they offer up prayers to God “for us; and that their relicks are to be venerated"." Now, for the worship and invocation of saints deceased, there is no ground or foundation in the holy Scriptures, no precept, no example. Nay it is by evident consequence forbidden in the prohibition of the worship and invocation of angels, Col. ii. 18. with which text compare the 35th canon of the council of Laodicea, and the judgment of the learned Father Theodoret concerning it, who flourished shortly after that council. He, in his notes upon that text of St. Paul, hath these express words; "The synod, met at Laodicea in Phrygia, made a law forbidding men to pray even to the angels a." See also Zonaras upon the same canon. He, as well as Theodoret long before him, rightly judged, that both in the text of St. Paul, and in the Laodicean canon, all prayers to angels are forbidden. Now if we must not pray to angels, then much less may we pray to saints. The angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation : they watch over us, and are frequently present with us, nay they are internuncii, messengers between 66 66 z Similiter et sanctos una cum Christo regnantes venerandos et invocandos esse, eosque orationes Deo pro nobis offerre, eorumque reliquias esse venerandas. 8 Η σύνοδος συνελθοῦσα ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ τῆς Φρυγίας νόμῳ κεκώλυκε καὶ τοῖς ἀγγέλοις προσεύχεσθαι. God and us, conveying God's blessings to us, and our prayers to God, Acts x. 4. Apoc. viii. 3, none of which things are any where affirmed of the deceased saints. And yet we must not pray even to the angels. 66 Hear also Origen, who lived long before the Laodicean council, delivering the sense of the church of his time in this matter, lib. V. contra Cels. p. 233. edit. Cantab. [c. 4. p. 580.] where he excellently discourseth against the religious worship and invocation of angels; in opposition to which, he first lays down this as a received doctrine among all catholic Christians, "That all prayers, all supplications, deprecations, and thanksgivings, are to be offered to "God the Lord of all, by the chief High Priest, who "is above all angels, the living Word, and God b. And presently after he shews the folly and unreasonableness of praying to angels upon several accounts. As first, because the particular knowledge of angels, and what offices they severally perform, is a secret which we cannot reach to; which is the very reason which St. Paul suggests in the text before mentioned, that whosoever worships and invocates the angels, doth intrude into those things which he hath not seen ". From whence we may easily gather, that Origen, in this discourse of his, had an eye to that text of St. Paul, and understood it as we do, to be a prohibition of all prayer to angels. 2. He argues, that if we should suppose that we could attain such particular knowledge of • Πᾶσαν μὲν γὰρ δέησιν, καὶ προσευχὴν, καὶ ἔντευξιν, καὶ εὐχαριστίαν, ἀναπεμπτέον τῷ ἐπὶ πᾶσι Θεῷ, διὰ τοῦ ἐπὶ πάντων ἀγγέλων ἀρχιερέως, ἐμψύχου Λόγου καὶ Θεοῦ. εΑ μὴ ἑώρακεν ἐμβατεύων. the angels, yet it would not be lawful for us to pray to them, or any other, save to God the Lord of all, who alone is all-sufficient, abundantly able to supply all our wants and necessities, through our Saviour Jesus Christ, the Son of God, his word, wisdom, and truth. Lastly, he reasons to this effect, that the best way to gain the good-will of those blessed spirits, is not to pray to them, but to imitate them by paying our devotions to God alone, as they do. Hear the same Origen, lib. VIII. p. 402. [c. 37. p. 769.] where to Celsus talking of those spirits that preside over the affairs of men here below, who were thought to be appeased only by prayers to them in a barbarous language, he answers with derision, and tells him, he forgot with whom he had to do, and that he was speaking to Christians," who pray to God alone "through Jesus." And then he adds, that the genuine Christians, in their prayers to God, used no barbarous words, but prayed to him in the language of their respective countries, the Greek Christians in the Greek tongue, the Romans in the Roman language, as knowing that the God to whom they prayed understood all tongues and languages, and heard and accepted their prayers in their several languages, as well as if they had addressed themselves to him in one and the same language. Again in the same book, p. 420. [c. 64. p. 789.] to Celsus discoursing much after the same rate, he gives this excellent answer: "The one God is to be atoned by us, "the Lord of all, and must be entreated to be pro 66 pitious to us, piety and prayers being the best "means of appeasing him. And if Celsus would 4 Τοῖς μόνῳ τῷ Θεῷ διὰ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ εὐχομένοις. |