(Continued from vol. xl., page 486.)
Dr. C. H. H. Wright in his Intermediate State and Prayers for the Dead after examining the writings of the Apostolic Fathers says: “In the previous chapter attention was drawn to the silence of the Apostolic Fathers on all questions concerning the intermediate state. Prayers for the dead originated, at least partly, from fanciful notions which by degrees sprung up in reference to the condition of the departed souls. The practice of prayers for the dead arose at first from small beginnings. Weeds, which spring up at first unperceived in earthly gardens, soon cover the face of the ground. Thus in like manner errors of various kinds have grown up silently and imperceptibly within the garden of the Lord. The Master often warned His disciples against this fatal tendency of human nature. The inspired writers of the New Testament spoke often distinctly of the growth of corruption within the Church of Christ” (pp. 243, 244). We have seen in our former article that the Scriptures in no way sanctions prayer for the dead but as time went on the custom, like many others of an anti-scriptural kind, gradually grew, as Dr. Wright has pointed out in the above passage, as weeds in the garden of the Church. The introduction of the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, sad
to say, was due to the great doctor of the Church, Augustine (354-430), who did such noble work in vindicating the doctrines of grace against Pelagius. He suggested that imperfect Christians might be purified in the intermediate state by purgatorial fires. His great influence in the Church gave an opening to what was at first only a conjecture to a fixed belief. As time went on the false doctrine of purgatory became a paying concern to the Roman Catholic Church and as such has become a strong vested interest bringing in millions of pounds to the coffers of the Roman Catholic Church. According to the idea that the so-called purgatorial fires would purify those who had gone to Purgatory, that imaginary place, the faithful of the Church were not only willing to pray for their departed friends but to pay sums of money for their deliverance from the purifying fires. It would take us too long and besides would not help us much to follow the history of this false doctrine and prayers for the dead in the Church of Rome our main interest meantime is with the teaching of the Reformed Church in Scotland and here there is no uncertain sound. In the Confession of Faith used in the English congregation at Geneva and which was “received and approved by the Church of Scotland” these plain words occur: The defence of Christ’s Church appertaineth to the Christian magistrates . . . to root out all doctrine of devils and men, as the Mass, Purgatory, Limbus Patrum, prayers to saints, and for the dead. In the Scottish Confession of 1560 there is nothing that can be construed in favour of praying for the dead. In the First Book of Discipline (1560) the term “contrary doctrine” includes “the superstitious observation of fasting days, difference of meat for conscience sake, prayer for the dead and keeping of holy days of certain saints . . . which things, because in God’s Scriptures they neither have commandment nor assurance, we judge them utterly to be abolished from this realm.” In the Confession of 1581 commonly called the King’s Confession or the Negative Confession and
which was embodied in the National Covenant of 1638, “prayers for the dead” as well as “purgatory” are strongly denounced. The Order of the English Congregation at Geneva, printed in 1556 and adopted by the Church of Scotland as its Book of Common Order in its section on burial, has not a word about even prayer at the grave to say nothing of prayer for the dead. The First Book of Discipline is more explicit in that it condemns the “singing of mass, placebo, and dirige, and all other prayers over and for the dead as idolatry and repugnant to the plain Scriptures of God. There is no vagueness in the teaching of the Westminster Confession on the subject—”Prayer,” it says, “is to be made for things lawful, and for all sorts of men living, or that shall live hereafter; but, not for the dead, nor for those of whom it may be known, that they have sinned the sin unto death” (chap. xxi.). The Larger Catechism in its answer to Question 183 says: “We are to pray for the whole Church of Christ upon earth; for magistrates, and ministers; for ourselves, our brethren, yea, our enemies; and for all sorts of men living or that shall live hereafter; but not for the dead, nor for those that are known to have sinned the sin unto death.” The Westminster Directory of Public Worship in the section forbidding prayers at the grave gives as reasons that “they have been grossly abused, are no way beneficial to the dead, and have proved many ways hurtful to the living.”
The late Dr. Cooper as one of the leading Scoto-Catholics in the Church of Scotland in a Sermon preached in 1894—The Blessed Dead and Their Remembrance in Prayer by the Church on Earth—strongly advocated prayers for the blessed dead. The Sermon caused some stir at the time but we fear the practice has gone so far now that where indulged in it gives rise to little or no criticism.
We have seen that the practice of praying even for the blessed dead receives no sanction from the Scripture and is condemned by the recognized formularies of the Church of Scotland.
Sermon.
Preached by the late Rev. NEIL CAMERON, St. Jude’s,
Sabbath, 24th February, 1929.
“I love them that love me; and those that seek me early shall find me”—(Proverbs viii., 17).