Thus we see that the hearts of these two visitants,—visitants not from Heaven, but from Paradise,—were fastened with a keen interest and strained attention upon the unfolding of that wondrous Life of Christ. His works and words were the theme of their adoring contemplation. May we not learn then, that what these two great Saints could do was, therefore, at least a possible thing to do, and, according to the will of GOD, a thing which others might also do? {98} If so, the barrier between Paradise and earth is so far transparent on that further side, that what GOD permits souls in the Intermediate Life to know, that they do actually see and know of the occurrences that are passing here. {99}

But I must hasten to the answer of another question. Do they pray for us? Surely that question is as good as answered by what has just been said. If those who have gone from our sight are still permitted to know what it may be good for them to know of the trials and sorrows, the hopes and fears, the temptations and the warfare to which we, whom they loved so well and still love, are exposed on earth, we are sure that they take thought of us and pray for us. Shall not they whose eyes are opened, now that they are with Christ, care for and pray for those whom they have left behind, tossing still upon the troubled seas, and buffeted by the vexing winds and storms of this earthly life?

They are, moreover, "with Christ." What does this really imply,—to be "with Christ"? It must mean at least this, that, where Christ is, there is the Church. And Christ, though He has ascended to the Right Hand of GOD, is still in a true sense in Paradise also. For "He filleth all in all." {100a} S. Stephen, before his death, prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Our Lord, therefore, must have been there in Paradise to receive it. S. Paul, long after our Lord's Ascension, knew that to die was better than to live, because it was to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. {100b} But if Christ is there, He must be the object of the worship of those who are also there. So then if Christ be there, and the Church is there, and worship is offered there, then it follows that the whole energy of Church life is there. The souls in Paradise are not so many isolated and individual units. The Church unites them. They are organised in the exercise of worship, sustained, as it surely is, in unfailing and perpetual intensity. As the incense of our worship rises here, it blends with the incense that ascends to Christ there. The Church is militant on earth, it is expectant in Paradise, it will be hereafter triumphant in Heaven. Yet these are not three Churches, but one Church. And this helps us to see more clearly what is meant by the Communion of Saints. The Church on earth and the Church in Paradise are one, and one thrill of spiritual communion vibrates through its members there and here.

But is prayer to be one sided? Communion is not one sided. And communion implies that what they do for us, we should also do for them. This brings us to one more question. May we, then, pray for those who have passed on before us? Let us plainly say that there is every reason for and none against the practice. We have in favour of it the sanction of Bible witness, of primitive Church custom, of Christian and human instinct.

In the Jewish synagogues in our Lord's time, prayers for the dead formed part of the service. {102} Our Lord therefore, Who regularly frequented the synagogue worship, must have been present at times when prayers for the dead were used. If He had disapproved of such prayers, He must have condemned the use of them. But did He? He did not. We have then His tacit sanction of them. S. Paul again, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, must have warned the Gentiles against the practice, unless he approved of it. But so far from that, there is every reason to suppose that he himself prayed for Onesiphorus. According to the best commentators, Onesiphorus was dead when S. Paul wrote the words quoted in the text, "The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day," viz., in the Day of Judgment. {103a} He does not pray for temporal blessings, for health, or even for grace. If it was too late to pray for these things, this omission is quite intelligible.

The earliest Church Liturgies contained in them prayers for the dead. {103b} And the earliest Christian writers, as well as the inscriptions on tombs bear such witness to the existence of this primitive practice, that it cannot be disputed. It is true that our English Prayer Book neither expressly sanctions nor yet expressly forbids these intercessions. But in the Liturgy, in the Litany, and in the Burial Service, prayers occur which appear to have been purposely so worded, as to lend themselves to a reference in the minds of worshippers to the faithful dead, if any should desire so to apply them. Bishop Cosin, one of the chief compilers of our present Prayer Book, writes that the words, "that we and Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of His Passion," occurring in our Liturgy, are to be understood to refer as well to "those who have been here before," that is to say, who have died in the Lord, as to those "that are now members of it," that is, who still are living. {104}

And is not the custom reasonable? Are we to pray for those whom we dearly love up to the very last moment of their life, and then for ever to refrain? We could understand this on the supposition that death was the end of all things, or that at death there followed an immediate heaven or an instant hell; but not if the process of purification and of real Church life are continuing after death. And Christian instinct urges it. GOD is a Father. As children we ought to tell Him all that is in our heart. Whatever we may rightly desire we may rightly pray for. It is only that which we ought not to desire that we ought not to pray for. It is not right to pray that they may, as by a miracle, be restored to us; that is not the will of GOD. Nor is it right that we should seek by occult and forbidden ways to hold converse with them. But we may surely ask for them what S. Paul asked for his friend, that they may find mercy in that day, that they may have rest and peace and light and refreshment, the joy of Christ's Presence, and the gladness of a blessed Resurrection.

And now these words must be brought to a close. The arguments which have been urged rest upon the very language of Holy Scripture, or upon legitimate inferences from it. What then? If they are worthy of trust, to accept them is to rob death of half its fears and alarms. It is the unknown that inspires terror. To know but a little more than we before knew of the land in which those who have gone before now sojourn, is to gather fresh courage to face it with less misgiving for them and for ourselves. They have passed on, but they await us there. They are only hidden from us for a little while. Their voices are silent. But their life is as real a life as ours. No dull oblivion weighs them down. They live and think and see and know,—know, it may be, more of us than we think, know as much of us as it is for their happiness to know. A little while and we also shall know as they know, and see as they see, in the home and resting place of vision and of peace.



Footnotes:

{5} Rev. xxi. 27.

{8} 2 Cor. v. 10.

{14} Acts xxiv. 15.

{15} See Luckock, "The Intermediate State," pp. 14, 15.

{17} S. John xx. 17.

{19} The expression is borrowed from the custom among the Jews of reclining instead of sitting at a banquet. The guest was stretched upon a couch, his left elbow resting upon a cushion close to the table, his feet being towards the outer side of the couch, which was away from the table. By slightly bending back his head he could touch with it the breast of the guest on his left hand, and speak to him in a low voice. Thus S. John bent back upon our Lord's breast at the Last Supper to ask Him, "Lord, who is it?" and is therefore spoken of as "he who leant upon His breast at supper." To sit therefore, or to rest in the bosom of Abraham, represented the happy lot of those who had passed to Paradise.

{23} Mozley, Univ. Serm., p. 155.

{24a} Isaiah xxxiii. 17.

{24b} Psalm xvi. 11.

{24c} 1 John iii. 2.

{25a} 1 Peter v. 4.

{25b} 1 John iii. 2.

{25c} Col. iii. 4.

{25d} 2 Tim. iv. 3.

{26} Advent Sermon, "The Day of the Lord."

{28} Rev. vi. 9, 10, 11 (Revised Version).

{34a} 1 Thess. v. 23. But the A.V. hardly brings out the full force of the distinction. The definite article has a possessive force, as if it were "your spirit, your soul, your body"; as though the spirit was as distinct from the soul as each of them is distinct from the body.

{34b} Heb. iv. 12.

{34c} 1 Cor. ii. 14.

{35a} 1 Cor. xv. 44.

{35b} S. James iii. 15.

{35c} Jude 19.

{35d} Gen. ii. 7.

{37} Mason, "Faith of the Gospel," p. 85.

{41a} For example, Acts vii. 60; S. John xi. 11, 14; 1 Thess. v. 14; 1 Cor. xv. 18, 20.

{41b} Rev. xiv. 13.

{43} Phil i. 21.

{44} 1 Peter iii. 18.

{47} Isaiah i. 2.

{63} See p. 100 infra.

{72} In the A.V. the words in v. 18 are printed differently from the R.V. In the former the reading is "quickened by the Spirit," as though S. Peter meant to assert, that it was by the special operation of GOD the Holy Ghost that our Lord, after He died upon the Cross, still lived. But this rendering entirely destroys the evident antithesis which is marked in the contrast between "put to death" and "quickened," and between "flesh" and "spirit." That antithesis limits the effect of Christ's death to His human Body, while His human Spirit was still alive.

{73} 2 Peter ii. 5.

{74} The same word is used constantly in the N.T. for the special proclamation of the Gospel.

{75} 1 Peter iv. 6.

{84} Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent states that "There is a Purgatorial Fire where the souls of the righteous being tormented are purified."

{86} In the Holy Communion the priest and the people offer to the Father "the one full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The Christian Society is called in 1 Peter ii. 9, a "royal priesthood," ([Greek]), and in Rev. i. 6 "kings and priests to God." ([Greek]); and as [Greek] and [Greek] are sacrificial terms, it is to be inferred that a Sacrifice is really offered by them. As Christ perpetually, being a "Priest forever," and therefore "having of necessity something to offer" for ever (Heb. viii. 3), presents in the Holy Place not made with hands, in Heaven itself, the Sacrifice of Himself before the eyes of the Father, so, at every Altar on earth, the "kings and priests" being a sacrificing priesthood, represent and commemorate the same sacrifice and none other, a sacrifice which never can be repeated.

{87} See Dr. Maclear on the Articles, p. 368. If the Sacrifice on the Cross served one purpose and effected one propitiation, and the Sacrifice of the Mass another, then the inference is that they were themselves, so far, different things. It was the same Body of Christ which was offered in each case, but the sacrifices of the same Body were different. Therefore the Sacrifice of the Mass was a repetition of the Sacrifice on the Cross for a distinct object and a distinct purpose. It was supplementary, and supplied a defect which the Sacrifice on the Cross failed to supply!

{88} What has been said on the subject of "The Sacrifices of Masses" for souls in Purgatory must not be understood as implying that the Sacrifice in the Holy Communion has no efficacy, when pleaded in behalf of the souls in the Intermediate State. To use the words of Bishop Forbes, "The application of the Blessed Eucharist to the departed must in our Church stand and fall with the practice of prayers for the dead. In its aspect of the great oblation, the Holy Communion may be considered as prayer in its most intense and highest form. If it is unlawful to pray for the faithful departed, it must be unlawful to remember them in the sacred mysteries; but, if the first be permitted, the second must be so likewise." (Article XXXI., p. 63.) The subject of Prayers for the Dead is dealt with in the next Address, page 101 sq.

{92} Psalm xxvii. 1.

{96} A friend has suggested that Moses and the prophets may, one after the other, have reported to Abraham the occurrences on earth in which they had severally themselves taken part, and that, therefore, we have in this narrative no more than an illustration of the mutual intercourse which exists in the Intermediate Life. To this it may be replied that this suggestion, so far from discrediting, really confirms the argument in the sermon. The suggestion is an attempt to explain the mode by which knowledge of what passes here is attained, which is certainly no disproof of the existence of such knowledge. But it is safer to say that, some how or other, the denizens of the Intermediate State do probably know, as Abraham certainly knew, occurrences on earth.

{98} Both these illustrations are, I find, referred to by Canon McColl in his "Life Here and Hereafter," pp. 105, 106. But may I presume to question the value of his illustration of our Lord's knowledge of what was said, in His absence, on the way to Emmaus, and by S. Thomas? Our Lord's knowledge after His Resurrection, and indeed at any time, is scarcely on a level with the knowledge possessed by souls in the Intermediate State of what passes on earth.

{99} There is so much doubt as to the bearing upon this point of the words in Hebrews xii. 1, that I have not referred to it. Yet I would suggest that the comparison of our life on earth to the endeavours of the runners in the games of the amphitheatre implies that those efforts are made under the gaze of a cloud of spectators. The existence of the spectators, and their interest in the contests, are integral facts in the similitude, and essential elements in it.

{100a} Eph. i. 23.

{100b} 2 Cor. v. 8.

{102} See 2 Macc. xii. 44, 45.

{103a} See Plummer, Expositor, Pastoral Epp., p. 324.

{103b} Forbes on 39 Articles, p. 612.

{104} See the note on p. 88, Address viii. supra.

THE END