The War and the Gospel: Sermons and Addresses During the Present War

by Henry Wace

Prayer for the Dead.

FROM “THE RECORD,” NOVEMBER 20, 1914

The question of Prayers for the Dead, and particularly of the adoption of such prayers in the public services of the Church, has for some time been pressed forward among us, and under the strain of the distressing bereavements of the present war it is likely to become urgent. An attempt has more than once been made at St. Paul’s to celebrate what would have been a formal Requiem for those who have fallen; and though it has not yet been fully successful, it may very likely be renewed. In the forms issued by authority, both at the time of the Boer War and during the present war, supplications on behalf of the dead have been introduced, which provoked a gentle remonstrance from even so moderate and tolerant an Evangelical as the Bishop of Durham. Other forms will no doubt be prepared by authority for use at the national intercession on the first Sunday of next year; and in many quarters much anxiety is felt lest the introduction of such supplications should be further extended.

This anxiety will not be lessened by the deliberate observations on the subject which were made by the Primate, in a sermon he preached at All Hallows, Barking, on All Souls’ Day, which is fully reported in the Guardian of November 5. He said that “we are not forgetful of the long and mischievous abuse of the devotion” of praying for the dead “in the later mediæval days, until,” as Dr. Mason said “it might almost be said that the main object of religion in the fifteenth century had been to deliver souls out of the ever-heightening horrors of Purgatory, and to ensure the living against incurring them.” “We understand,” said the Archbishop, “why repression of these mischiefs, prevention of these perils, took in our formularies and our Prayer Books so stern, so drastic, a character that no explicit Prayers for the departed at all were admitted into the public language of the Church, and people were taught to rely, in those public offices, upon that alone which can be definitely proved by Holy Scripture. I have no word of censure for those men—Laud and Andrewes, remember, were among them—who thus handled the difficulties which they had to face. But,” the Archbishop significantly proceeded, “surely now there is place for a gentler recognition of the instinctive, the natural, the loyal craving of the bereaved; and the abuses of the chantry system and the extravagances of Tetzel need not now, nearly four centuries afterwards, thwart or hinder the reverent, the absolutely trustful, prayer of a wounded spirit, who feels it natural and helpful to pray for him whom we shall not greet on earth again, but who, in his Father’s loving keeping, still lives, and, as we may surely believe, still grows from strength to strength in truer purity and in deeper reverence and love. I must not dwell on that to-day, but in our thought of what our College of Clergy can do, and has already done, ‘for the perfecting of the Saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,’ I do not like to pass unmentioned a task of wise teaching and of careful guidance, which at a time of such special opportunity and need may appropriately be ours.”

These, I think it must be felt, are very significant words. They indicate clearly that, in the mind of the Archbishop’s advisers, the present time of bereavement and distress affords an opportunity for authorizing the use of Prayers for the Departed, which go beyond “that alone which can be definitely proved by Holy Scripture.” Now, I hope that, without any lack of respect, I may say at once that, while there are, as I believe, many members of the Evangelical School to whom some modification in the language of our Prayer Book in reference to the departed would not be unwelcome, we should be unanimous in deprecating in the strongest manner the introduction of anything beyond “that which can be definitely proved by Holy Scripture”—meaning, as no doubt the Archbishop does, that which can be proved to be conformable to Holy Scripture. Supplications which are not strictly conformable to Holy Scripture may be “natural”—too natural—“instinctive,” and prompted by a “loyal craving.” But the very place and function of Holy Scripture is to direct and control our natural and instinctive cravings; and to allow such natural and instinctive cravings to carry us beyond the limits which a strict adherence to Holy Scripture would prescribe, is to abandon an essential principle of the Church of England, and to forsake the sure guidance which the revelation of the Gospel affords us.

This, in fact, is the very source of the superstitions by which the worship of God has been corrupted in the Church of Rome. There is no better illustration of this danger than is afforded by those abuses in connection with the belief in Purgatory, which the Archbishop so severely denounces. The Roman system of Prayers for the Dead did not originally rise from the doctrine of Purgatory, though in their extreme form they were based on that doctrine. But, historically, the doctrine of Purgatory was developed out of an undue and unscriptural indulgence of Prayers for the Dead; and in so far as natural instincts are allowed at the present day to dictate any such unscriptural indulgence, a tendency will again be encouraged towards a belief in some form of Purgatory. The Archbishop asks whether we need be afraid of the abuses of four centuries ago. But it is not a question of the circumstances of four centuries ago; it is a question of the dangers of human nature in every century, and not least in a century like the present, when there prevails in the Church an avowed drift towards the errors against which, as the Archbishop says, even Laud and Andrewes thought it necessary to be on their guard. The condition of the departed is a matter on which nature can tell us nothing. Our whole knowledge respecting it, all our hopes respecting it, are derived from the revelations of our Lord and His Apostles in the New Testament; and if we wish our prayers in relation to the dead to be in accordance with truth, and to be acceptable to God, we have more reason on this subject than on any other “to rely in our public offices upon that alone which can be proved by Holy Scripture.”

This is so cardinal a principle of our Church that I cannot but feel confident that it is by an inadvertence, if language is used by any persons in authority which seems to imply a disregard of it. I apprehend that what it really means is that our Reformers excluded from our Prayer Book forms of Prayer for the Dead which were in use in the primitive Church; and that an appeal is being made to that primitive example as an authority for their reintroduction. Now, I fully admit that primitive practice has a prima-facie claim to favourable consideration; and, as I have urged for years, if that principle were only acted upon, the Romish practices which are being forced upon our Church by the ritualistic party would be at once condemned. What, then, let us ask, were the Prayers for the Dead which were in use in the primitive Church? The description of them given by Bingham in his account of the ceremonies at the interment of Christians in the ancient Church (vol. viii., Oxford edition, p. 151) is in perfect harmony with that of Field and Ussher, and will not, I think, be questioned. At the interment, as at the Communion Service, “a solemn commemoration was made of the dead in general, and prayers offered to God for them—some Eucharistical, by way of thanksgiving for their deliverance out of this world’s afflictions, and others by way of intercession that God would receive their souls to the place of rest and happiness, that He would pardon their human failures, and not impute to them the sins of daily incursion, which in the best men are remainders of natural frailty and corruption; that He would increase their happiness, and finally bring them to a perfect consummation with all His Saints by a glorious resurrection.” The spirit and purpose of these prayers is illuminated by an observation of Archbishop Ussher (Answer to a Jesuit, chapter vii): “In these and other prayers of the like kind we may descry evident footsteps of the primary intention of the Church in such supplications for the dead, which was, that the whole man, not the soul separated only, might receive public remission of sins and a solemn acquittal in the judgment of that Great Day, and so obtain a full escape from all the consequences of sin, the last enemy being now destroyed, and death swallowed up in victory, and a perfect consummation of bliss and happiness. All which are comprised in that short prayer of St. Paul for Onesiphorus, though made for him while he was alive: The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.”

In other words, all these prayers are for those mercies and blessings which are revealed and promised in Holy Scripture, and for them alone. They are not prayers for any alteration in the condition of the Christian soul during the mysterious period between death and the Resurrection, respecting which very various opinions have been held by the Fathers of the Church. They are simply prayers for the fulfilment, especially at the Day of the Resurrection, of those promises of justification or acquittal, and of final glory in body and soul, which are definitely given us in the New Testament. The objection has been raised that of the fulfilment of these promises we have certain assurance, and that therefore we need not pray for them. But, as Ussher and Field abundantly show, this objection is based upon a serious misconception of the nature of prayer. The ancient Church, in accordance with the whole spirit of the Scriptures, realized the privilege of receiving everything from God in the nature of a gift, and therefore prayed to Him for the very things He had most surely promised. It is in that gracious childlike spirit that these supplications for the Christian dead were made in primitive Christian times; and though that spirit has become, unhappily, somewhat obscured among us, yet no one can use the petition “Thy Kingdom come” without being sensible that he is praying for a blessing which is most certain. For these prayers of the early Church, therefore, there was a full warrant in Holy Scripture, and there is no occasion to appeal to any other authority for them.