I. This pious practice, so full of comfort to affectionate souls, is reasonable in itself. Scripture, which is mercifully reticent respecting a subject so liable to provoke unhealthy curiosity and excitement, nevertheless does tell us plainly some facts respecting the unseen world. (2) Those whom we call the dead are still alive. God is still the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob: and He is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. xxii. 32). Those who believe that death is annihilation, and that there can be no resurrection, “do greatly err” (Mark xii. 27). And (2) the living souls of the departed are still conscious: their bodies are asleep in this world, but their spirits are awake in the other. For this truth we are not dependent upon the disputable meaning of the parable of Dives and Lazarus; although we can hardly suppose that that parable would ever have been spoken, unless the continued consciousness of the dead and their interest in the living were a fact. Christ’s parables are never mere fables, in which nature is distorted in order to point a moral: His lessons are ever drawn from God’s universe as it is. But besides the parable (Luke xvi. 19–31), there is His declaration that Abraham not only “exulted” in anticipation of the coming of the Messiah, but “he saw” that coming “and was glad” thereat (John viii. 56). And there is His promise to the penitent thief: “Verily I say unto thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise” (Luke xxiii. 43). Can we believe that this promise, given at so awful a moment with such solemn assurance (“Verily I say unto thee”), would have been made, if the robber’s soul, when in Paradise, would be unconscious of Christ’s companionship? Could Christ then have “preached unto the spirits in prison” (1 Pet iii. 19), if the spirits of those who had died in the Flood were deprived of consciousness? And what can be the meaning of “the souls of them that had been slain for the word of God” crying “How long, O Master the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood?” (Rev. vi. 10), if the souls of the slain slumber in the unseen world?
It is not necessary to quote Scripture to prove that the departed are not yet perfect. Their final consummation will not be reached until the coming of Christ at the last great day (Heb. xi. 40).
If, then, the dead are conscious, and are not yet perfected, they are capable of progress. They may increase in happiness, and possibly in holiness. May we not go farther and say, that they must be growing, must be progressing towards a better state; for, so far as we have experience, there is no such thing as conscious life in a state of stagnation? Conscious life is always either growing or decaying: and decay is incipient death. For conscious creatures, who are incapable of decay and death, growth seems to be a necessary attribute. We conclude, therefore, on grounds partly of Scripture and partly of reason, that the faithful departed are consciously progressing towards a condition of higher perfection.
But this conclusion must necessarily carry us still farther. These consciously developing souls are God’s children and our brethren; they are, like ourselves, members of Christ and joint-heirs with us of His kingdom; they are inseparably united with us in “the Communion of Saints.” May we not pray for them to aid them in their progress? And if, with St. Paul’s prayer for Onesiphorus before us, we are convinced that we may pray for them, does it not become our bounden duty to do so? On what grounds can we accept the obligation of praying for the spiritual advancement of those who are with us in the flesh, and yet refuse to help by our prayers the spiritual advancement of those who have joined that “great cloud of witnesses” in the unseen world, by which we are perpetually encompassed (Heb. xii. 1)? The very fact that they witness our prayers for them may be to them an increase of strength and joy.
II. Tradition amply confirms us in the belief that this pious practice is lawful, and binding upon all who recognize its lawfulness. The remarkable narrative in 2 Maccabees xii. shows that this belief in a very extreme form was common among the Jews, and publicly acted upon, before the coming of Christ. It is highly improbable that prayers for the dead were omitted from the public worship of the synagogue, in which Jesus Christ so frequently took part. It is quite certain that such prayers are found in every early Christian liturgy, and to this day form part of the liturgies in use throughout the greater portion of Christendom. And, although the medieval abuses connected with such prayers induced the reformers of our own liturgy almost, if not quite, entirely to omit them, yet the Church of England has never set any bounds to the liberty of its members in this respect. Each one of us is free in this matter, and therefore has the responsibility of using or neglecting what the whole of the primitive Church, and the large majority of Christians throughout all these centuries, have believed to be a means of advancing the peace and glory of Christ’s kingdom. About the practice of the primitive Church there can be no question. Doubt has been thrown upon the liturgies, because it has been said that some portions are certainly of much later origin than the rest, and therefore these prayers may be later insertions and corruptions. But that cannot be so; for liturgies do not stand alone. In this matter they have the support of a chain of Christian writers beginning with Tertullian in the second century, and also of early inscriptions in the catacombs. About the meagre allusions to the departed in our own liturgy there is more room for doubt: but perhaps the most that can safely be asserted is this;—that here and there sentences have been worded in such a way that it is possible for those, who wish to do so, to include the faithful departed in the prayer as well as the living. Bishop Cosin has given his authority to this interpretation of the prayer that “we and all Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins and all other benefits of His passion.” By this, he says, “is to be understood, as well those that have been here before, and those that shall be hereafter, as those that are now members of it:” and as one of the revisers his authority is great. And the prayer in the Burial Service, “that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of Thy holy name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul,” is equally patient of this meaning, even if it does not fairly demand it. For we do not pray that we may have our consummation and bliss with the departed; which might imply that they are enjoying these things now, and that we desire to join them; but we pray that we with the departed may have our consummation and bliss; which includes them in the prayer. And the petition in the Litany, “remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers,” may, or may not, be a prayer for our forefathers, according to the way in which we understand it.
All this seems to show that neither Scripture nor the English Church forbids prayer for the departed; that, on the contrary, both of them appear to give a certain amount of sanction to it: and that what they allow, reason commends, and tradition recommends most strongly. It is for each one of us to decide for himself whether or no he will take part in the charitable work thus placed before him.[91]
FOOTNOTES:
[89] See below on “All forsook me,” in No. XXXVII, p. 420.
[90] With the double use of Lord here, compare Exod. xxxiv. 9, where Moses prays, “O Lord, let the Lord, I pray Thee, go in the midst of us.” Comp. also Gen. xix. 24.
[91] Sec J. M. Neale, Liturgies of St. Mark, St. James, St. Clement, St. Chrysostom, etc., 1859, pp. 216–224; C. E. Hammond, Liturgies Eastern and Western, 1878, pp. 45, 75, 113, 156, 183, 217, etc.; E. Burbridge, Liturgies and Offices of the Church, 1885, pp. 34, 222, 249; M. Plummer, Observations on the Book of Common Prayer, 1847, pp. 125–127; Church Quarterly Review, April 1880, pp. 1–25; H. M. Luckock, After Death, 1879: also various articles in the Dict. of Christ. Antiquities, 1875, 1880.