Such, for example, is that which is found in the Roman Missal: "Absolve, we beseech thee, O Lord, the soul of thy servant from all the bond of his sins, that in the glory of the resurrection being raised among thy saints and elect, he may breathe again,"

or be refreshed. And that other in the Roman Pontifical:

"O God, unto whom all things do live, and unto whom our bodies in dying do not perish, but are changed for the better, we do humbly pray thee that thou wouldst command the soul of thy servant N. to be received by the hands of thy holy angels, to be carried into the bosom of thy friend the Patriarch Abraham, and to be raised up at the last day of the great judgment; and whatsoever faults by the deceit of the devil he hath incurred, do thou of thy pity and mercy wash away by forgiving them."

Now, forasmuch as it is most certain that all such as depart in grace, as the adversaries acknowledge that all in purgatory do, are sure to escape hell, and to be raised up unto glory at the last day, Medina perplexeth himself exceedingly in according these kind of prayers, with the received grounds of purgatory; and after much agitation of the business to and fro, at last resolveth upon one of these two desperate conclusions. That touching these

"prayers which are made in the Church for the dead, it may first of all be said that it is not necessary to excuse them all from unfitness. For many things are permitted to be read in the Church, which al. though they be not altogether sane, and altogether fit, yet serve for the stirring up and increasing the devotion of the faithful. Many such things," saith he, "we believe, are contained in the histories that be not sacred, and in the legends of the saints, and in the opi. nions and writings of the doctors; all which are tolerated by the Church in the mean time, while there is no question moved of them, and no scandal ariseth from them. And therefore it is no marvel, that somewhat not so fit should be contained in the aforesaid prayers, and be tolerated in the Church, seeing such prayers were made by private persons, not by councils, neither were approved at all by councils."

And we do easily believe, indeed, that their offices and legends are fraught not only with untrue and unfit, but also with far worse stuff; neither is this any news unto us. Agobardus, Bishop of Lyons, complained, about eight hundred years ago, that the Antiphonary used in his Church had "many ridiculous and phantastical" things in it; that he was fain to cut off from thence such things as seemed to be "either superfluous, or light, or lying, or blasphemous."

The like complaint was made not long since by Lindanus of the Roman Antiphonaries and Missals; wherein

"not only the apocryphal tales," saith he, "out of the Gospel of Nicodemus and other toys are thrust in, but the very secret prayers themselves are defiled with most foul faults."

But, now we have the

"Roman Missal restored according to the decree of the Council of Trent, set out by the command of Pius V., and revised again by the authority of Clemens VIII.,"

I doubt much whether our Romanists will allow the censure which their Medina hath given of the prayers contained therein. And therefore if this will not please them, he hath another answer in store; of which though his countryman Mendoza hath given sentence that it is indigna viro theologo,

"unworthy of any man that beareth the name of a divine,"

yet such as it is you shall have it. Supposing, then, that the Church hath no intention to pray for any other of the dead, but those that are detained in purgatory, this he delivereth for his second resolution :

"The Church knowing that God hath power to punish everlastingly those souls by which, when they lived, he was mortally offended, and that God hath not tied his power unto the Scriptures, and unto the promises that are contained in the Scriptures, (forasmuch as he is above all things, and as omnipotent after his promises, as if he had promised nothing at all,) therefore the Church doth humbly pray God, that he would not use this his absolute omnipotency against the souls of the faithful, which are departed in grace; therefore she doth pray that he would vouchsafe to free them from everlasting pains, and from revenge and the judgment of condemnation, and that he would be pleased to raise them up again with his elect."

$3. Of the Place and Condition of Souls departed.

Bur leaving our Popish doctors, with their profound speculations of the not limiting God's power by the Scriptures, and the promises which he hath made unto us therein, let us return to the ancient Fathers, and consider the differences that are to be found among them touching the place and condition of souls separated from their bodies. For according to the several apprehensions which they had thereof, they made different applications and interpretations of the use of praying for the dead; whose particular intentions and devotions in that kind must of necessity therefore be distinguished from the general intention of the whole Church.

1. St. Augustine, (that I may begin with him, who was, as the most ingenious, so likewise the most ingenuous of all others, in acknowledging his ignorance where he saw cause,) being to

Opinion of St. Augustine as to the last judgment.

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treat of these matters, maketh this preface beforehand unto his hearers:

"Of hell neither have I had any experience as yet, nor you: and peradventure it may be that our passage may lie some other way, and not prove to be by hell. For these things be uncertain."

And having occasion to speak of the departure of Nebridius, his dear friend:

"Now he liveth," saith he, "in the bosom of Abraham; whatsoever the thing be that is signified by that bosom, there doth my Nebridius live."

But elsewhere he directly distinguisheth this bosom from the place of bliss into which the saints shall be received after the last judgment:

"After this short life," saith he, "thou shall not as yet be where the saints shall be, unto whom it is said, Come, ye blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom which was prepared for you from the begin. ning of the world. Thou shalt not as yet be there: who knoweth it not? But now thou mayest be there, where that proud and barren rich man in the midst of his torments saw afar off the poor man, sometimes full of ulcers, resting. Being placed in that rest, thou dost securely expect the day of judgment; when thou mayest receive thy body, when thou mayest be changed to be equal unto an angel."

And for the state of souls betwixt the time of the particular and general judgment, this is his conclusion in general :

"The time that is interposed betwixt the death of man and the last resurrection, containeth the souls in hidden receptacles, as every one is worthy either of rest or of trouble, according unto that which it did purchase in the flesh when it lived."

Into these hidden receptacles, he thought the souls of God's children might carry some of their lighter faults with them: which being not removed would hinder them from coming into the kingdom of heaven, whereunto no polluted thing can enter, and from which, by the prayers and almsdeeds of the living, he held they might be released. But of two things he professed himself here to be ignorant.

First, What those sins were which did so endure the coming unto the kingdom of God, that yet by the care of good friends they might obtain pardon.

Secondly, Whether those souls did endure any temporary pains in the interim betwixt the time of death and the resurrection. For howsoever in his one and twentieth book of the City of God, and the thirteenth and sixteenth chapters, (for the new patch which they have added to the four and twentieth chapter is not worthy of regard,) he affirms that some of them do suffer certain purgatory punishments before the last and dreadful judgment; yet by comparing these places with the five and twentieth chap

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ter of the twentieth book, it will appear, that by those purgatory punishments he understandeth here the furnace of the fire of conflagration, that shall immediately go before this last judgment, and, as he otherwhere describeth the effects thereof,

"separate some unto the left hand, and mete out others unto the right."

Neither was this opinion of the reservation of souls in secret places, and the purging of them in the fire of conflagration at the day of judgment, entertained by this famous Doctor alone; divers others there were that had touched upon the same string before him. Origen, in his fourth book περὶ ἀρχῶν, as we have him translated by Ruffinus, (for both in the extracts selected out of him by St. Basil and St. Gregory, and in St. Jerome's 59th epistle ad Avitum, we find the place somewhat otherwise expressed,) saith that

"such as depart out of this world after the common course of death are disposed of according to their deeds and merits, as they shall be judged to be worthy, some into the place which is called hell, others into Abraham's bosom, and through divers other places or mansions."

And in his commentaries on Leviticus, he addeth further:

"Neither have the Apostles themselves as yet received their joy; but even they do expect, that I also may be made partaker of their joy. For the saints departing from hence do not presently obtain the full rewards of their labours; but they expect us likewise, how. ever staying, however slacking."

Then touching the purging of men after the resurrection, he thus delivereth his mind in his commentaries upon Luke:

"I think that even after our resurrection from the dead we shall have need of a sacrament to wash and purge us; for none can rise without pollutions."

And upon Jeremy :

"If any one be saved in the second resurrection, he is that sinner which needeth the baptism of fire, which is purged with burning, that whatsoever he hath of wood, hay, and stubble, the fire may con. sume it."

Which in his 5th book against Celsus he doth explicate more at large.

Neither doth Lactantius show himself to vary much from him in either of those points; for thus he writeth:

"When God shall judge the righteous, he will examine them by fire. Then they whose sins shall prevail, either in weight or number, shall be touched with the fire and burned; but they whom perfect righteousness and the ripeness of virtue hath thoroughly seasoned, shall not feel that fire; for from thence have they something in them that will repel and put back the force of the flame. So great

is the force of innocency, that that fire shall fly back from it without doing any harm, which hath received this power from God, that it may burn the wicked and do service to the righteous. Yet, notwithstanding, let no man think that the souls are presently judged after death. All of them are detained in one common custody, until the time come wherein the great Judge doth make trial of their doings."

In like manner doth St. Hilary write of the one part :

" All the faithful, when they are gone out of the body, shall be reserved by the Lord's custody for that entry into the heavenly kingdom, being in the mean time placed in the bosom of Abraham, whither the wicked are hindered from coming by the gulf interposed betwixt them, until the time of entering the kingdom of heaven do come."

And thus of the other:

"Being to render an account of every idle word, shall we desire the day of judgment, wherein that unwearied fire must be passed by us, in which those grievous punishments for expiating the soul from sins must be endured?" For, "to such as have been baptized with the Holy Ghost, it remaineth, that they should be consummated with the fire of judgment."

In St. Ambrose also there are some passages to be found which seem to make directly for either of these points; as these for the former :

"The soul is loosed from the body, and yet after the end of this life it is held as yet in suspense, with the uncertainty of the future judgment: so that there is no end where there is thought to be an

end."

"We read in the books of Esdras, that when the day of judgment shall come, the earth shall restore the bodies of the deceased, and the dust shall restore the relics of the dead which do rest in the graves; and the habitacles shall restore the souls which were committed to them; and the Most High shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment."

Also that Scripture

"nameth those habitacles of the souls promtuaries," or secret receptacles; "and meeting with the complaint of man, that the just which have gone before may seem to be defrauded, until the day of judgment, which is a very long time, of the reward due unto them, saith wonderfully, that the day of judgment is like unto a crown, wherein as there is no slackness of the last, so there is no swiftness of the first. For the day of crowning is expected by all; that within that day both they who are overcome may be ashamed, and they who do overcome may obtain the palm of victory."

"Therefore while the fullness of time is expected, the souls ex. pect their due reward. Pain is provided for some of them, for some glory; and yet, in the mean time, neither are those without trouble, nor these without fruit."