Page:Delineation of Roman Catholicism.djvu/393

 CHAP. XII.] PUaO,TY. 385 that any souls enjoy the &g.'fc a'Lsos before the day of judgment, and on that account they allow el prayers for the dead; not in reference to a deliverance from purgatory, but to a participation of their happineos at the great ds)*. But this is very different from the doctrine of the Church of Rome, which maintains a temporary punishment alter the guilt is pardoned. VI. Praying for the dead, in connection with purgatory, deserves a few remarks here. Praying for the souls of the dead supposed to be in purgatory is a very considerable exercise in the Church of Rome. John Damascene, who flourished in the eighth century, in a sermon on praying for the dead, acknowledges that it is not proved from Scripture, but by tradi- tion from the apostles. It is, however, attempted to be supported from the apocryphal book of Maccabees. Passages from the canonical Scriptures have also been sometithes adduced; but with so little suc- cess, that the gravest Roman Catholics find it best to rest its claims on I radition and the authority of their church as its only support. We readily allow, as was .shown above, that some sort of prayers for the dead were used very early; perhaps within two hundred years after Christ. But these were made, not for souls in purgatory', but for saints in paradise, for whom Romanists do not pray; for all righteous peruohs deceased, prophets, apostles, martyrs, the Virgin Mary, &c.; and they did not pray to these, but they prayed for .them. And the subject matter of their prayers was, that God would grant them his promised mercy in the da.v of judgment, and speedily complete their happiness in body'and soul. Many of them concluded, as a man is not fully delivered from all the curse of sin till he, at the resurrection, receives his body agaih, that the prayers and offerings of the living would be useful to the blessed for their increase of felicity till then. Hence, in the liturgy of the church of Constantinople, said to be Chry- sostorn's, is this prayer: "We offer unto thee, O God, this reasonable service, for those' who are at rest in.the faith; especially for our most holy, immaculate, and most blessed lady, the mother of our Lord, the ever blessed." And in the liturgy of the church of Egypt, ascribed to St. Basil, Gregory Nazisasea, and Cyril of Alexandria, we have the tbllowing: "Be mindful, O God, of thy hints, our holy fathers, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, especially the holy, glo- rious, and ever blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of our Lord." The lbllowing ancient prayer from the mass book shows that the ancient Christians, in praying for the dead, had no thought of purgatory-: "To these, O Lord, and to all who are resting in Christ, we pray that thou wouldst grant the place of rest, of light and p.eace."* Here is a prayer, not for persons sa.ler/ng, but for persons nn'/ng; and the object of the prayer is, the blessedne of the resurrecaion. In process of time, it must be owned, men fell into a variety of groundless suppositions concerning the state of Chris"=-= between death and the resurrection; and upon these, sappositions they formed

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