"The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that
day."--2 TIM. I. 18.
We must now bring to a close the discussion which has been occupying our
attention: not that everything has been said that can or ought to be said
about it; for the interest of the subject grows with the handling of it,
as the various features of it open out to view.
So far we have been dealing with the condition of the faithful dead as it
affects themselves, with the mode of their own conscious life in the
Intermediate State, and with the nature of their own progressive advance
towards perfection. But there is another aspect of the question, about
which nothing has hitherto been said, I mean, their relation to us who
are still living on earth. A few words, and they must be very few, must
be said on this point. It is asked, for example, whether the veil has
completely shut out all knowledge of what is passing on earth from those
who have gone to their rest. No doubt, we can know very little about
this. But, at all events, we do not know enough to warrant us in saying
with any confidence that they are aware of nothing that is going on here.
It is true that, as has been said, the door that opens between this life
and that life only "open inwards," and that none have come back to tell
us what in that after life they knew about us and about our doings on
earth. Yet this ignorance of ours is not the same thing as knowledge of
the contrary, any more than silence is always equivalent to denial.
Because we cannot see with our eyes, nor hear with our ears, and cannot,
by our actual senses, put the question to the test, we are not on this
account justified in denying. Do we not know almost nothing as to the
limits of the powers of the spirit world? All we can say, so far as
reason can be our guide, is this, that it is _possible_ that souls in the
Intermediate State, if they are conscious of themselves and of their
present condition, if they retain memory, if they have means of holding
intercourse with one another, may have means of knowing what goes on
here: I say that reason will tell us that this is at least possible, and
that it is quite impossible to prove the contrary.
But does the Bible throw any light upon this mysterious subject? I think
it does. It will be remembered how, in the narrative of the rich man and
Lazarus, Abraham is made to say to the rich man, "They have Moses and the
Prophets, let them hear them." We may ask, how could Abraham, who lived
more than 400 years before the birth of Moses, have known of the
existence of Moses, if there were no possible means of communication, by
which occurrences on earth could be made known in the unseen world where
Abraham was? What could he know of the prophets who lived more than a
thousand years after his time, if no possible communication could find
its way to that other world? {96} And we may trust this inference
because, in a narrative of this kind, whether it be historical or not, it
is not to be supposed that our Lord would have introduced a false detail.
Let us, however, turn to another passage. In the scene on the Mount of
the Transfiguration there appeared, talking with Christ, Moses and
Elijah. In what condition were they present? They were still in the
Intermediate State. The general Resurrection had not, and has not yet,
come. "In glory" they appeared. Yes! some outward clothing, as of a
bodily form, gloriously radiant was thrown round them, so that they
became visible for the time to the eyes of the three disciples. But in
no resurrection bodies did they come; for in those they could not yet
present themselves, since they had not yet received them. And what was
the theme of their conversation? They spoke, we are told, with Christ
concerning the exodus or "death, which He should accomplish at
Jerusalem." But how could they speak fitly of this great theme, if they
had no knowledge of the circumstances which were leading to it, of the
nature of Christ's Incarnate Life on earth, and something at least or the
real significance, known fully to the mind of GOD only, of His
approaching death? They must have known not only of each other, who and
what they had been historically in their own generation, but also what
was now passing on earth, the course and connection of prophecies and
types, and the succession of events in history which had led up to this
climax of the fulness of time.
Thus we see that the hearts of these two visitants,--visitants not from
Heaven, but from Paradise,--were fastened with a keen interest and
strained attention upon the unfolding of that wondrous Life of Christ.
His works and words were the theme of their adoring contemplation. May
we not learn then, that what these two great Saints could do was,
therefore, at least a possible thing to do, and, according to the will of
GOD, a thing which others might also do? {98} If so, the barrier between
Paradise and earth is so far transparent on that further side, that what
GOD permits souls in the Intermediate Life to know, that they do actually
see and know of the occurrences that are passing here. {99}
But I must hasten to the answer of another question. Do they pray for
us? Surely that question is as good as answered by what has just been
said. If those who have gone from our sight are still permitted to know
what it may be good for them to know of the trials and sorrows, the hopes
and fears, the temptations and the warfare to which we, whom they loved
so well and still love, are exposed on earth, we are sure that they take
thought of us and pray for us. Shall not they whose eyes are opened, now
that they are with Christ, care for and pray for those whom they have
left behind, tossing still upon the troubled seas, and buffeted by the
vexing winds and storms of this earthly life?
They are, moreover, "with Christ." What does this really imply,--to be
"with Christ"? It must mean at least this, that, where Christ is, there
is the Church. And Christ, though He has ascended to the Right Hand of
GOD, is still in a true sense in Paradise also. For "He filleth all in
all." {100a} S. Stephen, before his death, prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive
my spirit." Our Lord, therefore, must have been there in Paradise to
receive it. S. Paul, long after our Lord's Ascension, knew that to die
was better than to live, because it was to be absent from the body and
present with the Lord. {100b} But if Christ is there, He must be the
object of the worship of those who are also there. So then if Christ be
there, and the Church is there, and worship is offered there, then it
follows that the whole energy of Church life is there. The souls in
Paradise are not so many isolated and individual units. The Church
unites them. They are organised in the exercise of worship, sustained,
as it surely is, in unfailing and perpetual intensity. As the incense of
our worship rises here, it blends with the incense that ascends to Christ
there. The Church is militant on earth, it is expectant in Paradise, it
will be hereafter triumphant in Heaven. Yet these are not three
Churches, but one Church. And this helps us to see more clearly what is
meant by the Communion of Saints. The Church on earth and the Church in
Paradise are one, and one thrill of spiritual communion vibrates through
its members there and here.
But is prayer to be one sided? Communion is not one sided. And
communion implies that what they do for us, we should also do for them.
This brings us to one more question. May we, then, pray for those who
have passed on before us? Let us plainly say that there is every reason
for and none against the practice. We have in favour of it the sanction
of Bible witness, of primitive Church custom, of Christian and human
instinct.
In the Jewish synagogues in our Lord's time, prayers for the dead formed
part of the service. {102} Our Lord therefore, Who regularly frequented
the synagogue worship, must have been present at times when prayers for
the dead were used. If He had disapproved of such prayers, He must have
condemned the use of them. But did He? He did not. We have then His
tacit sanction of them. S. Paul again, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, must
have warned the Gentiles against the practice, unless he approved of it.
But so far from that, there is every reason to suppose that he himself
prayed for Onesiphorus. According to the best commentators, Onesiphorus
was dead when S. Paul wrote the words quoted in the text, "The Lord grant
unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day," _viz._, in the
Day of Judgment. {103a} He does not pray for temporal blessings, for
health, or even for grace. If it was too late to pray for these things,
this omission is quite intelligible.
The earliest Church Liturgies contained in them prayers for the dead.
{103b} And the earliest Christian writers, as well as the inscriptions
on tombs bear such witness to the existence of this primitive practice,
that it cannot be disputed. It is true that our English Prayer Book
neither expressly sanctions nor yet expressly forbids these
intercessions. But in the Liturgy, in the Litany, and in the Burial
Service, prayers occur which appear to have been purposely so worded, as
to lend themselves to a reference in the minds of worshippers to the
faithful dead, if any should desire so to apply them. Bishop Cosin, one
of the chief compilers of our present Prayer Book, writes that the words,
"that we and Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all
other benefits of His Passion," occurring in our Liturgy, are to be
understood to refer as well to "those who have been here before," that is
to say, who have died in the Lord, as to those "that are now members of
it," that is, who still are living. {104}
And is not the custom reasonable? Are we to pray for those whom we
dearly love up to the very last moment of their life, and then for ever
to refrain? We could understand this on the supposition that death was
the end of all things, or that at death there followed an immediate
heaven or an instant hell; but not if the process of purification and of
real Church life are continuing after death. And Christian instinct
urges it. GOD is a Father. As children we ought to tell Him all that is
in our heart. Whatever we may rightly desire we may rightly pray for. It
is only that which we ought not to desire that we ought not to pray for.
It is not right to pray that they may, as by a miracle, be restored to
us; that is not the will of GOD. Nor is it right that we should seek by
occult and forbidden ways to hold converse with them. But we may surely
ask for them what S. Paul asked for his friend, that they may find mercy
in that day, that they may have rest and peace and light and refreshment,
the joy of Christ's Presence, and the gladness of a blessed Resurrection.
And now these words must be brought to a close. The arguments which have
been urged rest upon the very language of Holy Scripture, or upon
legitimate inferences from it. What then? If they are worthy of trust,
to accept them is to rob death of half its fears and alarms. It is the
unknown that inspires terror. To know but a little more than we before
knew of the land in which those who have gone before now sojourn, is to
gather fresh courage to face it with less misgiving for them and for
ourselves. They have passed on, but they await us there. They are only
hidden from us for a little while. Their voices are silent. But their
life is as real a life as ours. No dull oblivion weighs them down. They
live and think and see and know,--know, it may be, more of us than we
think, know as much of us as it is for their happiness to know. A little
while and we also shall know as they know, and see as they see, in the
home and resting place of vision and of peace.
Footnotes:
{5} Rev. xxi. 27.
{8} 2 Cor. v. 10.
{14} Acts xxiv. 15.
{15} See Luckock, "The Intermediate State," pp. 14, 15.
{17} S. John xx. 17.
{19} The expression is borrowed from the custom among the Jews of
reclining instead of sitting at a banquet. The guest was stretched upon
a couch, his left elbow resting upon a cushion close to the table, his
feet being towards the outer side of the couch, which was away from the
table. By slightly bending back his head he could touch with it the
breast of the guest on his left hand, and speak to him in a low voice.
Thus S. John bent back upon our Lord's breast at the Last Supper to ask
Him, "Lord, who is it?" and is therefore spoken of as "he who leant upon
His breast at supper." To sit therefore, or to rest in the bosom of
Abraham, represented the happy lot of those who had passed to Paradise.
{23} Mozley, Univ. Serm., p. 155.
{24a} Isaiah xxxiii. 17.
{24b} Psalm xvi. 11.
{24c} 1 John iii. 2.
{25a} 1 Peter v. 4.
{25b} 1 John iii. 2.
{25c} Col. iii. 4.
{25d} 2 Tim. iv. 3.
{26} Advent Sermon, "The Day of the Lord."
{28} Rev. vi. 9, 10, 11 (_Revised Version_).
{34a} 1 Thess. v. 23. But the A.V. hardly brings out the full force of
the distinction. The definite article has a possessive force, as if it
were "_your_ spirit, _your_ soul, _your_ body"; as though the spirit was
as distinct from the soul as each of them is distinct from the body.
{34b} Heb. iv. 12.
{34c} 1 Cor. ii. 14.
{35a} 1 Cor. xv. 44.
{35b} S. James iii. 15.
{35c} Jude 19.
{35d} Gen. ii. 7.
{37} Mason, "Faith of the Gospel," p. 85.
{41a} For example, Acts vii. 60; S. John xi. 11, 14; 1 Thess. v. 14; 1
Cor. xv. 18, 20.
{41b} Rev. xiv. 13.
{43} Phil i. 21.
{44} 1 Peter iii. 18.
{47} Isaiah i. 2.
{63} See p. 100 _infra_.
{72} In the A.V. the words in v. 18 are printed differently from the
R.V. In the former the reading is "quickened by the Spirit," as though
S. Peter meant to assert, that it was by the special operation of GOD the
Holy Ghost that our Lord, after He died upon the Cross, still lived. But
this rendering entirely destroys the evident antithesis which is marked
in the contrast between "put to death" and "quickened," and between
"flesh" and "spirit." That antithesis limits the effect of Christ's
death to His human Body, while His human Spirit was still alive.
{73} 2 Peter ii. 5.
{74} The same word is used constantly in the N.T. for the special
proclamation of the Gospel.
{75} 1 Peter iv. 6.
{84} Thus the Catechism of the Council of Trent states that "There is a
Purgatorial Fire where the souls of _the righteous_ being tormented are
purified."
{86} In the Holy Communion the priest and the people offer to the Father
"the one full, perfect, and sufficient Sacrifice, oblation, and
satisfaction for the sins of the whole world." The Christian Society is
called in 1 Peter ii. 9, a "royal _priesthood_," ([Greek]), and in Rev.
i. 6 "kings and _priests to God_." ([Greek]); and as [Greek] and [Greek]
are sacrificial terms, it is to be inferred that a Sacrifice is really
offered by them. As Christ perpetually, being a "Priest forever," and
therefore "having of necessity something to offer" for ever (Heb. viii.
3), presents in the Holy Place not made with hands, in Heaven itself, the
Sacrifice of Himself before the eyes of the Father, so, at every Altar on
earth, the "kings and priests" being a sacrificing priesthood, represent
and commemorate the same sacrifice and none other, a sacrifice which
never can be repeated.
{87} See Dr. Maclear on the Articles, p. 368. If the Sacrifice on the
Cross served one purpose and effected one propitiation, and the Sacrifice
of the Mass another, then the inference is that they were themselves, so
far, different things. It was the same Body of Christ which was offered
in each case, but the sacrifices of the same Body were different.
Therefore the Sacrifice of the Mass was a repetition of the Sacrifice on
the Cross for a distinct object and a distinct purpose. It was
supplementary, and supplied a defect which the Sacrifice on the Cross
failed to supply!
{88} What has been said on the subject of "The Sacrifices of Masses" for
souls in Purgatory must not be understood as implying that the Sacrifice
in the Holy Communion has no efficacy, when pleaded in behalf of the
souls in the Intermediate State. To use the words of Bishop Forbes, "The
application of the Blessed Eucharist to the departed must in our Church
stand and fall with the practice of prayers for the dead. In its aspect
of the great oblation, the Holy Communion may be considered as prayer in
its most intense and highest form. If it is unlawful to pray for the
faithful departed, it must be unlawful to remember them in the sacred
mysteries; but, if the first be permitted, the second must be so
likewise." (Article XXXI., p. 63.) The subject of Prayers for the Dead
is dealt with in the next Address, page 101 _sq._
{92} Psalm xxvii. 1.
{96} A friend has suggested that Moses and the prophets may, one after
the other, have reported to Abraham the occurrences on earth in which
they had severally themselves taken part, and that, therefore, we have in
this narrative no more than an illustration of the mutual intercourse
which exists in the Intermediate Life. To this it may be replied that
this suggestion, so far from discrediting, really confirms the argument
in the sermon. The suggestion is an attempt to explain the mode by which
knowledge of what passes here is attained, which is certainly no disproof
of the existence of such knowledge. But it is safer to say that, some
how or other, the denizens of the Intermediate State do probably know, as
Abraham certainly knew, occurrences on earth.
{98} Both these illustrations are, I find, referred to by Canon McColl
in his "Life Here and Hereafter," pp. 105, 106. But may I presume to
question the value of his illustration of our Lord's knowledge of what
was said, in His absence, on the way to Emmaus, and by S. Thomas? Our
Lord's knowledge after His Resurrection, and indeed at any time, is
scarcely on a level with the knowledge possessed by souls in the
Intermediate State of what passes on earth.
{99} There is so much doubt as to the bearing upon this point of the
words in Hebrews xii. 1, that I have not referred to it. Yet I would
suggest that the comparison of our life on earth to the endeavours of the
runners in the games of the amphitheatre implies that those efforts are
made under the gaze of a cloud of spectators. The existence of the
spectators, and their interest in the contests, are integral facts in the
similitude, and essential elements in it.
{100a} Eph. i. 23.
{100b} 2 Cor. v. 8.
{102} See 2 Macc. xii. 44, 45.
{103a} See Plummer, Expositor, Pastoral Epp., p. 324.
{103b} Forbes on 39 Articles, p. 612.
{104} See the note on p. 88, Address viii. _supra_.