XXII.

them; that it was the peculiar privilege of Jefus Chrift to ART. be above all our prayers; but that no men, not excepting the Apostles, nor the bleffed Virgin, were above the prayers of the Church. They thought this was an act of church-communion, that we were to hold even with the faints in heaven, to pray for them. Thus in the apoftolical conftitutions, in the books of the ecclefiaftical hierarchy, and in the Liturgies that are ascribed to St. Bafil and Dion. de St. Chryfoftom, they offer unto God thefe prayers, which Eccl. Hier. they thought their reafonable fervice, for thofe who were cap. 7. at reft in the faith, their forefathers, fathers, patriarchs, prophets, and apoftles, preachers, evangelifts, martyrs, confeffors, religious perfons, and for every fpirit perfected in the faith; efpecially for our most holy, immaculate, most bleffed Lady, the mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary. Particular inftances might alfo be given of this, out of St. Cyprian, St. Ambrofe, Nazianzen, and St. Auftin; who Aug. Conf. in that famous and much cited paffage concerning his mo- 1. 9. c. 19. ther, Monica, as he speaks nothing of any temporal pains that the suffered, fo he plainly intimates his belief that God had done all that he defired. Thus it will appear to thofe, who have examined all the paffages which are brought out of the Fathers, concerning their prayers for the dead, that they believed they were then in heaven, and at reft; and by confequence, though thefe prayers for the dead did very probably give the chief rife to the doctrine of Purgatory; yet, as they then made them, they were utterly inconfiftent with that opinion. Tertullian, Supra. who is the firft that is cited for them, fays, we make oblations for the dead, and we do it for that fecond nativity of theirs (Natalitia) once a year. The fignification of the word Natalitia, as they ufed it, was the Saint's day of death, in which they reckoned he was born again to heaven: fo, though they judged them there, yet they offered up prayers for them: and when Epiphanius brings in Aerius afking, why thofe prayers were made for the dead? though it had been very natural, and indeed unavoidable, if he had believed Purgatory, to have answered, that it was to deliver them from thence: yet he makes no fuch answer, but only afferts, that it had been the practice of the Church fo to do. The Greek Church retains that cuftom, though fhe has never admitted of Purgatory. Here then an objection may be made to our conftitution, that in this of praying for the dead, we have departed from the practice of the ancients: we do not deny it, both the Church of Rome and we in another practice, of equal antiquity, of giving the Eucharift to in

fants,

ART. fants, have made changes, and let that cuftom fall. The XXII. curiofities in the fecond century feem to have given rife

to thofe prayers in the third; and they gave the rife to many other diforders in the following centuries. Since, therefore, God has commanded us, while we are on earth, to pray for one another, and has made that a main act of our charity and church-communion, but has no where directed us to pray for thofe that have finished their course; and fince the only pretence that is brought from Scripture, of St. Paul's praying, that Onefphorus might find mercy in the day of the Lord, cannot be wrought up into an argument, for it cannot be proved that he was then dead; and fince the Fathers reckon this of praying for the dead only as one of their cuftoms, for which they vouch no other warrant but practice; fince, also, this has been grofsly abused, and has been applied to fupport a doctrine totally different from theirs; we think that we have as good a plea for not following them in this, as we have for not giving infants the facrament, and therefore we think it no imputation on our Church, that we do not in this follow a groundless and a much abused precedent, though fet us in ages which we highly reverence.

The greatest corruption of this whole matter comes in the last place to be confidered; which is, the methods proposed for redeeming fouls out of Purgatory. If this doctrine had rested in a speculation, we must still have confidered it as derogatory to the death of Chrift, and the truth of the Gofpel: but it raises our zeal a little more, when we confider the use that was made of it; and that fears and terrors being by this means infufed into men's minds, new methods were proposed to free them from thefe. The chief of which was the faying of masses for departed fouls. It was pretended, that this being the highest act of the communion of Chriftians, and the most fublime piece of worship, therefore God was fo well pleased with the frequent repetition of it, with the prayers that accompanied it, and with those that made provisions for men, who fhould be conftantly employed in it, that this was a most acceptable facrifice to God. Upon this followed all thofe vaft endowments for faying maffes for departed fouls; though in the inftitution of that facrament, and in all that is fpoken of it in the Scripture, there is not an hint given of this. Sacraments are pofitive precepts, which are to be measured only by the inftitution, in which there is not room left for us to carry them further. We are to take, eat and drink, and thereby fhew forth the Lord's death till his fecond coming: all which

has

has no relation to the applying this to others who are ART. gone off the ftage; therefore if we can have any juft no- XXII. tions either of fuperftition, or of will-worship, they are applicable here. Men will fancy that there is a virtue in an action, which we are fure it has not of itself, and we cannot find that God has put in it; and yet they, without any authority from God, do fet up a new piece of worfhip, and imagine that God will be pleafed with them in every thing they do or afk, only because they are perverting this piece of worthip, clearly contrary to the inftitution, to be a folitary mafs. In the primitive Church, where all the fervice of the whole affembly ended in a communion, there was a roll read, in which the names of the more eminent faints of the Catholic Church, and of the holy bithops, martyrs, or confeffors of every particular Church, were registered. This was an honourable remembrance that was kept up of fuch as had died in the Lord. When the foundness of any perfon's faith was brought in fufpicion, his name was not read till that point was cleared, and then either his name continued to be read, or it was quite dafhed out. This was thought an honour due to the memory of those who had died in the faith and in St. Cyprian's time, in the infancy of this Cypr. practice, we fee he counted the leaving a man's name out Epift. 1. as a thing that only left a blot upon him, but not as a thing of any confequence to his foul; for when a priestnit. had died, who had by his laft will named another priest the tutor (or guardian) of his children, this feemed to him a thing of fuch ill example, to put thofe fecular cares upon the minds of the clergy, that he appointed that his name fhould be no more read in the daily facrifice; which plainly fhews, unless we will tax St. Cyprian with a very unreasonable cruelty, that he confidered that only as a finall cenfure laid on his memory, but not as a prejudice to his foul. This gives us a very plain view of the fenfe that he had of this matter. After this roll was read, then the general prayer followed, as was formerly acknowledged, for all their fouls; and fo they went on in the Communion Service. This has no relation to a mass faid by a fingle prieft to deliver a foul out of Purgatory.

:

Oxon. ad

pleb. Fur

Here, without going far in tragical expreffions, we cannot hold faying what our Saviour faid upon another occafion, My houfe is a houfe of prayer, but ye have made it a Mark xi. den of thieves. A trade was fet up on this foundation. The 17. world was made believe, that by the virtue of so many maffes, which were to be purchased by great endowments, fouls were redeemed out of Purgatory; and scenes

of

ART. of vifions and apparitions, fometimes of the tormented, XXII. and fometimes of the delivered fouls, were publifhed in all places; which had fo wonderful an effect, that in two or three centuries endowments increased to fo vaft a degree, that if the scandals of the clergy on the one hand, and the ftatutes of mortmain on the other, had not reftrained the profuseness that the world was wrought up to upon this account, it is not eafy to imagine how far this might have gone; perhaps to an entire fubjecting of the temporalty to the fpiritualty. The practices by which this was managed, and the effects that followed on it, we can call by no other name than downright impostures; worse than the making or vending falfe coin; when the world was drawn in by fuch arts to plain bargains, to redeem their own fouls, and the fouls of their ancestors and pofterity, so many maffes were to be faid, and forfeitures were to follow upon their not being faid: thus the maffes were really the price of the lands. An endowment to a religious ufe, though mixed with error or fuperftition in the rules of it, ought to be held facred, according to the decifion given conNumb. xvi. cerning the cenfures of those that were in the rebellion of 38. Corah: fo that we do not excufe the violation of fuch from facrilege; yet we cannot think fo of endowments, where the only confideration was a falfe opinion first of Purgatory, and then of redemption out of it by maffes; this being expreffed in the very deeds themfelves. By the fame reafons, by which private perfons are obliged to restore what they have drawn from others by bafe practices, by falfe deeds, or counterfeit coin; bodies are alfo bound to restore what they have got into their hands by fuch fraudulent practices; fo that the states and princes of Christendom were at full liberty, upon the difcovery of these impostures, to void all the endowments that bad followed upon them; and either to apply them to better uses, or to restore them to the families from which they had been drawn, if that had been practicable, or to convert them to any other use. This was a crying abuse, which those who have obferved the progrefs that this matter made from the eighth century to the twelfth, cannot reflect on without both amazement and indignation. We are fenfible enough that there are many political reafons and arguments for keeping up the doctrine of Purgatory. But we have not fo learned Chrift. We ought not to lie even for God, much lefs for ourselves, or for any other pretended ends of keeping the world in awe and order; therefore all the advantages that are faid to arife out of this, and all the mischief that may be thought to follow

on

on the rejecting of it, ought not to make us prefume ART. to carry on the ends of religion by unlawful methods. XXII. This were to call in the affiftance of the Devil to do the work of God: if the juft apprehenfions of the wrath of God, and the guilt of fin, together with the fear of everlafting burnings, will not reform the world, nor restrain finners, we must leave this matter to the wife and unfearchable judgments of God.

The next particular in this Article is, the condemning the Romish doctrine concerning Pardons: that is founded on the diftinction between the temporal and eternal punishment of fin; and the Pardon is of the temporal punishment, which is believed to be done by a power lodged fingly in the Pope, derived from thofe words, Feed my Sheep, and To thee will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This may be by him derived, as they teach, not only to Bishops and Priefts, but to the inferior orders, to be difpenfed by them; and it excufes from penance, unlefs he who purchases it thinks fit to ufe his penance in a medicinal way, as a prefervative against fin. So the virtue of indulgences is the applying the treasure of the Church upon fuch terms as Popes fhall think fit to prescribe, in order to the redeeming fouls from Purgatory, and from all other temporal punishments, and that for fuch a number of years as fhall be fpecified in the bulls; fome of which have gone to thousands of years; one I have feen to ten hundred thousand: and as thefe indulgences are fometimes granted by fpecial tickets, like tallies ftruck on that treafure; fo fometimes they are affixed to particular churches and altars, to particular times, or days, chiefly to the year of jubilee; they are alfo affixed to fuch things as may be carried about, to Agnus Dei's, to medals, to rofaries and fcapularies; they are alfo affixed to fome prayers, the devout faying of them being a mean to procure great indulgences. The granting thefe is left to the Pope's difcretion, who ought to diftribute them as he thinks may tend moft to the honour of God, and the good of the Church; and he ought not to be too profufe, much lefs to be too fcanty in difpenfing them.

This has been the received doctrine and practice of the Church of Rome fince the twelfth century; and the Council of Trent in a hurry, in its laft feffion, did in very ge neral words approve of the practice of the Church in this matter, and decreed that indulgences fhould be continued; only they restrained fome abufes, in particular that of felling them; yet even thofe reftraints were wholly referred to the Popes them felves: fo that this crying abufe, the fcandal

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