"Not handling the word of GOD deceitfully, but by the manifestation of
the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of GOD."
--2 COR. IV. 2.
The Scriptural doctrine of the Intermediate Life, as I have tried, so
far, to set it forth, is a very different thing from what our
Twenty-second Article calls "The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory."
The word "purgatory" simply means the sphere or life of cleansing. The
Intermediate State, therefore, during which the soul is being purified
and fitted for the vision of GOD in Heaven may be legitimately called "a
purgatory." But "The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory" means much
more than this. It is a belief which, originating in what was true and
Scriptural, gradually became so overlaid with subsequent additions, that
the original truth was at length buried and lost sight of. What the
Twenty-second Article condemns is not any and every conceivable doctrine
concerning Purgatory, but the Romish doctrine only. And here it is well
to note that all false beliefs which have had for any length of time a
wide currency among men have been founded upon and have retained in them
some element of truth. This it is which enabled them to survive: this
and nothing else gives to error its vitality. These false beliefs are
not mere error, but contain truth and error mixed together. The error
perverts and makes void the truth; but without the truth the error could
not live.
In the case of the doctrine of Purgatory, the true and Scriptural
doctrine of the progressive purification of the soul in the Intermediate
State is the element of truth on which has been based the Romish Doctrine
of Purgatory. Wherein then lies the error of it?
1. In the first place, whereas the Bible teaches, as we have seen, that
every soul at death enters the Intermediate State, the souls of the
greatest saints as well as the souls of the greatest sinners, "the Romish
Doctrine" teaches that the souls of very many never enter the
Intermediate State at all. The souls of the holy patriarchs of old, of
Christian martyrs, and of canonized Saints, it is held, pass straight to
heaven. On the other hand, the souls of those who die in mortal sin, and
of excommunicated persons are believed to go straight to hell. Thus
practically the Intermediate State is cancelled for these two classes.
There remains, therefore, only one class which is supposed to enter the
Intermediate State, those namely, who have died in venial sin. And since
it is part of the Romish doctrine to regard Paradise as the same thing as
Heaven, and to hold that the souls which alone enter Purgatory, after
suffering due torments, pass direct out of Purgatory into Paradise or
Heaven, it follows that in the Intermediate State are only those who are
actually undergoing, for the time appointed, the pains of Purgatory. For
all, therefore, eventually the Intermediate State is terminated at some
time on this side of the Day of Judgment. Hence it came about that those
who rejected the Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory rejected along with
it the doctrine of the Intermediate State, since, virtually, Purgatory
and the Intermediate State had been regarded as practically one and the
same thing, as indeed they were in duration conterminous. In rejecting
the one therefore, men unhappily but almost naturally rejected the other
also.
2. Further, the pains which are felt in the process of purification, as
has been shown, spring from within the soul itself, and are not
necessarily or for all inflicted as a torment or punishment from without.
Rather they arise from the soul's own action upon itself, from its own
pangs of shame and self-abasement, all deepened and made more poignant by
the ever increasing sense of the love of Jesus Christ, then as never
before apprehended, and by the holy vision of His perfections. Thereby,
as they gaze on Him, they are changed by the influence of the sight of
Him, into greater likeness to Him. On the other hand, contrast with
these the nature of the pains which the Romish Doctrine assigns to the
souls in Purgatory. They are held in all cases to be penal, that is to
say, inflicted by GOD as punishment. The souls are said to suffer
torments! {84} Moreover these torments, as is taught in Roman Catholic
treatises on the subject, are caused by literal and material flames, by
actual fires which would feed on and consume corporeal substances such as
the human body. But what enters the Intermediate State is the soul only,
not the body: and, in the nature of things, the sufferings of the
incorporeal part of our being can only be themselves incorporeal. The
pains of the spirit can only be spiritual pains.
3. Again, the "Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory" is closely bound up
with what are called in the Thirty-first Article "the Sacrifices of
Masses," and with the sale of "Pardons" or Indulgences, named in the
Twenty-second Article. The character of the Romish doctrine, as of every
other doctrine, must be tested by what has grown with its growth. It was
held that by these "Sacrifices of Masses" and "Indulgences" souls, one by
one, were released from Purgatorial fires sooner than, without their aid,
they could be delivered, and thus were at once admitted to Paradise or
Heaven.
What, however, does the Thirty-first Article precisely mean by
"Sacrifices of Masses"? The expression is peculiar, and appears to have
been designedly so shaped in order to be clearly distinguished from what
is meant by the Sacrifice in the Mass, or Holy Communion. For that the
Holy Communion has been held and taught by our chief English Divines to
be a Sacrifice cannot well be disputed. {86} But the term "Sacrifices of
Masses" was intended to signify what were called, at the time when the
Article was drawn up, "Private Masses," which were offered chiefly for
souls in Purgatory, and in return for money payment. The Article refers
to modes of speaking prevalent on the lips of men at the time. It
condemns that which was "_commonly said_." And what was it that was
"commonly said"? It was commonly said that, while Christ's death on the
Cross was indeed a propitiation for original or birth sin, on the other
hand for daily sins, committed after Baptism, another propitiatory
sacrifice was needed, _viz._, the "Sacrifice of the Mass." Thus the
Sacrifice of the Mass, which is not the same thing as the Sacrifice _in_
the Mass, was regarded as an addition to and distinct from the Sacrifice
on the Cross, as indeed a repetition of it, having a propitiatory value
of its own, which the Sacrifice on the Cross had not; just as though it
were what Bishop Gardiner, in repudiating it, described as "a new
Redemption." {87} Hence it came about that the belief arose that Masses
offered for specific purposes had more virtue for those purposes than
what was called "a Common Mass." The practice, therefore, of offering
"private Masses" for souls in Purgatory, as it was very lucrative, so it
became very prevalent. Thus spiritual things were used for the purpose
of bringing large money gains to the Chantry Priests, and what should be,
and we may surely affirm was meant to be, for the common benefit of all
became the narrow privilege of the few. For rich men could provide
Masses for their dead friends and for themselves after death, which it
was quite out of the power of the poor to provide. {88}
4. But a word also must be said about "Indulgences." An Indulgence was
an abatement or remission granted by the Church's authority of some part
of the temporal penance imposed by that authority upon an evil doer. If
the guilty person should show sincere proofs of penitence, or by liberal
giving of alms made satisfactory recompense for wrongs done, his penance
might be eased, or the term of his excommunication shortened, and his
Church privileges partly or wholly restored. It may well be understood
how all this might be very wisely and fitly done. The authority which
inflicted the penance may rightly have been entrusted with the power also
of mitigating or removing it. But gradually this remission of the
temporal punishment for sins done in the past became applicable, not
seldom, to future sin also: and it soon was no uncommon thing to grant
Indulgences for 500, or 10,000, and even for 50,000 years. And, since
these long periods of years would, of course, extend beyond any man's
term of life on earth, it was obvious that they were intended to secure
the remission, not indeed of the guilt of the sin, but of the temporal
punishment of sin during all these years in Purgatory. Thus it was
supposed that the best possible provision was made whereby the duration
of the long years of torments due for sin in Purgatory might be
curtailed. But worse remained. The Papal Court needed treasure. And in
an evil moment permission was given that these Indulgences might be sold
for money. Thus grew up an unholy traffic, which, as we all know, first
roused in Germany the storm of the Reformation. Subsequently, the Papal
authorities so far yielded as to forbid all taking of money for these
Indulgences. But the system itself had meantime taken deep root. It
continued, and continues to this day. It was, however, at its worst when
the Twenty-second Article was drawn up. Can we be surprised that it
sternly condemned it? It is all a pitiful history. But it was necessary
to refer to it in order both to show how the growth of the Romish
Doctrine of Purgatory gradually gathered round it mischievous accretions,
and also to prove how little the belief, that in the Intermediate State
there is a progressive advance of the soul in holiness towards
perfection, is like the Romish teaching and practice.
But it would be an act of disloyalty to the truth, and of cowardice into
the bargain, if we should abandon or minimize a truth because it has been
by some corrupted and perverted. Many a truth which has come down to us
may have lost some of the fresh lustre of its early purity. But all the
same, if it is the truth we cannot let it go. And that truth which tells
us something of the land, now beyond our sight, to which our dear ones
have already passed, which we shall each of us ourselves soon enter--the
truth which GOD has made known to us in Holy Scripture about this land,
we cannot afford to ignore and disregard. Nothing is easier than to
discredit such a truth by raising the cry of Popery. It is one of the
penalties which those have to pay who seek to disentangle the truth which
He has in His Church revealed from the untruth which has wrapped it
round.
But we must not shrink from this duty. In days when principles are
questioned, and almost all truths disputed, we must, at all hazards,
learn to keep our sight clear and our footing steady. For the Lord is
our Light and our Salvation. Whom then shall we fear? The Lord is the
strength of our life: of whom then shall we be afraid? {92}