Blessed being it self a Receptacle of Holy Souls made illustrious with Visitations of Angels and happy by being a Repository for such Spirits who at the day of Judgment shall go forth into Eternal Glory In the interim Christ hath trod all the Paths before us and this also we must pass through to arrive at the Courts of Heaven Justin Martyr said it was the Doctrine of Heretical Persons to say that the Souls of the Blessed instantly upon the Separation from their Bodies enter into the highest Heaven And Irenaeus makes Heaven and the intermediate Receptacle of Souls to be distinct Places both blessed but hugely differing in degrees Tertullian is dogmatical in the Assertion that till the Voice of the great Arch-Angel be heard and as long as Christ sits at the right-hand of his Father making Intercession for the Church so long blessed Souls must expect the Assembling of their Brethren the great Congregation of the Church that they may all pass from their outward Courts into the inward Tabernacle the Holy of Holies to the Throne of God And as it is certain that no Soul could enter into Glory before our Lord entred by whom we hope to have Access So it is most agreeable to the proportion of the Mysteries of our Redemption that we believe the Entrance into Glory to have been made by our Lord at his Glorious Ascension and that his Soul went not thither before then to come back again to be contracted into the Span of Humanity and dwell Forty days in his Body upon Earth But that he should return from Paradice that is from the common Receptacle of departed Spirits who died in the Love of God to Earth again had in it no lessening of his Condition since Himself in Mercy called back Lazarus from thence and some others also returned to live a Life of Grace which in all Senses is less than the least of Glories Sufficient it is to us that all Holy Souls departing go into the hands that is into the Custody of our Lord that they rest from their Labours that their Works shall follow them and overtake them too at the day of Judgment that they are Happy presently that they are visited by Angels that God sends as he pleases excellent Irradiations and Types of Glory to entertain them in their Mansions that their Condition is secured but the Crown of Righteousness is laid up against the great Day of Judgment and then to be produced and given to St. Paul and to all that love the Coming of our Lord that is to all who either here in Duty or in their Receptacles with Joy and certain Hope long for the Revelation of that day At the Day of Judgment Christ will send the Angels and they shall gather together the Elect from the four Winds and all the Refuse of Men evil Persons they shall throw into Everlasting Burning Then our Blessed Lord shall call to the Elect to enter into the Kingdom and reject the Cursed into the Portion of Devils for whom the Fire is but now prepared in the interval For we must all appear before the Judgment-Seat of Christ saith St. Paul that every Man may receive in his Body according as he hath done whether it be Good or Evil. Out of the Body the Reward is not And therefore St. Peter affirms that God hath delivered the Evil Angels into Chains of Darkness to be reserved unto Judgment And St. Jude saith that the Angels which kept not their first Estate but left their first Habitation he hath reserved in everlasting Chains under Darkness unto the Judgment of the Great Day And therefore the Devils expostulated with our Blessed Saviour Art Thou come to Torment us before the Time And the same also he does to Evil Men Reserving the Vnjust unto the Day of Judgment to be punished For since the Actions which are to be judged are the Actions of the whole Man so also must be the Judicature And our Blessed Saviour intimated this to his Apostles In my Father's House are many Mansions but I go to prepare a Place for you And if I go away I will come again and take you unto me that where I am there ye may be also At Christ's second Coming this is to be performed Many outer Courts many different Places or different States there may be and yet there is a Place whither holy Souls shall arrive at last which was not then ready for us and was not to be entred into until the Entrance of our Lord had made the Preparation and that is certainly the Highest Heaven called by St. Paul the third Heaven because the other Receptacles were ready and full of holy Souls Patriarchs and Prophets and holy Men of God concerning whom St. Paul affirms expressly that the Fathers received not the Promises God having provided some better thing for us that they without us should not be made Perfect Therefore certain it is that their Condition was a State of Imperfection and yet they were placed in Paradice in Abraham's Bosom and thither Christ went and the blessed Thief attended Him And then it was that Christ made their Condition better For tho' still it be a Place of Relation in order to something beyond it yet the Term and Object of their Hope is changed They sate in the Regions of Darkness expecting that Great Promise made to Adam and the Patriarchs the Promise of the Messias but when He that was promised came He preached to the Spirits in Prison He communicated to them the Mysteries of the Gospel the Secrets of the Kingdom the things hiddea from eternal Ages and taught them to look up to the Glories purchased by his Passion and made the term of their Expectation be his second Coming and the Objects of their Hope the Glories of the Beatifick Vision And altho' the State of Separation is sometimes in Scripture called Heaven and sometimes Hell for these Words in Scripture are of large Significations yet it is never called the third Heaven nor the Hell of the damned For altho' concerning it nothing is clearly revealed or what is their Portion till the Day of Judgment yet it is intimated in a Parable that between Good and Evil Spirits even in the State of Separation there is a Distance of Place Certain it is there is a great Distance of Condition and as the holy Souls in their Regions of Light are full of Love Joy Hope and Longing for the Coming of the Great Day so the Accursed do expect it with an insupportable Amazement and are presently tormented with Apprehensions of the Future Happy are they that through Paradice pass into the Kingdom who from their highest Hope pass to the greatest Charity from the State of a blessed Separation to the Mercies and gentle Sentence of the Day of Judgment which St. Paul prayed to God to grant Onesiphorus and more explicitly for the Thessalonians that their whole Spirit and Soul and Body be preserved blameless unto the Coming of our Lord
Payment of the last Farthing Mat. 5.25 Prisoners of Hope Zechar. 9.11 12. Sins blotted out when the times of Refreshing shall come Act. 3.19 Such as shew the Incertainty of many Souls in their separate State even such as were Professors of a high Form in this World of what their final Doom shall be at that Day as Mat. 7.22 23. and 25.44 45. c. And the Recompence of Rewards at that day 2 Thess 1.6 7. 1 Cor. 5.5 Luk. 14.14.2 Tim. 4.8 c. Which if our confident Opposers had sufficiently considered one would think they should not have presumed to make so light of that middle State as for the maintaining of Parties to deprive so many Souls there of all Benefit they might receive by their surviving Friends here which many Apparitions even among Protestants do frequently signifie The Practice of the Jews I have noted already and shall add only here That in Discourse lately with one of them he assured me that the Form they now use for that purpose is generally believed by all to have been composed by Eâ—ra and the Great Congregation I there also remembred an instance of the Practice of the Apostles themselves in St. Paul's Prayer for Onesiphorus in such a Form as is hardly to be met with for any Person living however proves it not in vain to Pray for any Person of whom there is Hope but not Certainty till that day So that tho' our great Man with more Considence I doubt than Conscience and without any Proof or Reason at all doth positively affirm him then living p. 210. he gets nothing at all by it Thus we see in this a Universal Agreement in all things but on the contrary if we examine the Obstinate Opposition of it throughout we shall find nothing solid and consistent in it neither with Truth nor Honesty nor any good Consequence but a plausible Pretence of the Pure Word of God to cover an impure Inclination and Desire to set aside the Authority which God instituted and set up themselves and their own Conceits in the place of it 2. Inconsistent with it self first denying or cavilling at the Antiquity or Universality of the Practice and then when they thought they had found out an Evasion confessing that which they could no longer for shame deny and betaking themselves to their new Invention 3. Inconsistent with the Sincerity Simplicity and Ingenuity of the Gospel in their shameless Shuffles Cavils and Evasions of which I have noted divers and many more might be observed but there is one not to be omitted here their alleadging the Writings of Epiphanius Chrysostome Augustin and others against not only their own but the confessed ancient Practice of the Church in their time in this Case Inconsistent with that Modesty Respect and Decency which the Gospel requires toward all in their Censuring as delirous not only some particular Persons but generally all the most Holy Ancient Christians in what was their common Sentiments and is believed by the most learned of the Church of England to be plainly taught in the Holy Scriptures 5. Inconsistent with that Reverence and Regard that Christians should have for the Honour of the Church of Christ his Promises to it and Care of it in so foul and scandalous an Imputation as that they received their common Notions of the present State of separate Souls in the other World from an Impostor which was not their Impudence therein as notorious as it is groundless and destitute of any proof at all might prove a Tentation to unsettled Souls to suspect all to be no better And for other Consequences it is plain they lead the way to all others to reject their own usurped Authority with the same Ease and Impudence that they do that of the Church of Christ and to set up their own Conceits against theirs and pretend Scripture for it and so to an endless Course of Separations Schisms Sects and Confusions and in conclusion set up that Authority over others which they themselves in the mean time reject as by their Synod of Dort and others in France appears And besides all this it is much to be feared that they lead multitudes of Souls into that miserable Security and Presumption wherewith our Saviour hath acquainted us that many will find themselves deceived at that day Mat. 7.22 And therefore if these be not pertinacious Schismaticks and Hereticks speaking perverse things to draw away Disciples after them and therefore carefully to be avoided I know not who are or what so many Cautions in the Scripture to that purpose do signifie FINIS The Doctrine of the Scriptures concerning The Middle State of Souls And the Tradition of the Church for Prayers for the DEAD Summ'd up by Dr. Jer. Taylor late Bishop of Down and Conner With the Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike a late most Learned Prebend of Westminster ALtho' there hath been lately Printed a Discourse of Prayers for the Dead proving the Practice and Tradition thereof in the Church to be truly Catholick and a competent Evidence of Apostolick Original and Authority wherein divers Learned Protestants are alleadged to have been of the same Opinion yet for the Readers farther Satisfaction in that respect it hath been thought fit to Print the Discourse of these two other eminent Persons of the Church of England more at large than was thought proper for that place And first that of the late Bishop Dr. Jer. Taylor 1. Of the Middle State of Souls THE Holy Jesus promised to the blessed Thief That he should that Day be with Him in Paradice which therefore was certainly a Place or State of Blessedness because it was a Promise and in the Society of Jesus whose penal and afflictive part of his Work of Redemption was finished upon the Cross Our Blessed Lord did not promise he should that day be with him in his Kingdom for that day it was not opened and the everlasting doors of those interior Recesses were to be shut till after the Resurrection that himself was to ascend thither and make way for all his Servants to enter in the same Method in which he went before us Our Blessed Lord descended into Hell saith the Creed of the Apostles from the Sermon of St. Peter as he from the Words of David that is into the State of Separation and common Receptacle of Spirits according to the Style of Scripture But the Name of Hell is no where in Scripture an appellative of the Kingdom of Christ of the Place of final and supream Glory But concerning the Verification of our Lord's Promise to the beatified Thief and his own State of Separation we must take what Light we can from Scripture and what we can from the Doctrine of the Primitive Church St. Paul had two great Revelations he was wrapt up into Paradice and he was wrapt up into the third Heaven and and these he calls Visions and Revelations not one but divers for Paradice is distinguished from the Heaven of the
THE LITURGY OF THE ANCIENTS REPRESENTED As near as well may be IN English Forms WITH A PREFACE Concerning the RESTITUTION of the most Solemn Part of the Christian Worship in the Holy Eucharist to its Integrity and just Frequency of Celebration LONDON Printed for the AUTHOUR 1696. Bp. Andrews's Sermon on Gal. 3.4 p. 32. No Fulness there is of our Liturgy or Publick Solemn Service without the Sacrament Some part yea the chief part is wanting if that be wanting Dr. S. Patrick the present Bp. of Ely Our Worship must be confessed to be but imperfect when the Holy Communion is wanting Discourse of Frequency of Holy Communion p. 68. Id. ibid. p. 61. The Church in the best Times and the best Men in the Church in after-Ages look'd upon this as an Ordinary part of Christian Worship which Christ intended should be performed in his Church as oft as they assembled for Divine Service QUESTIONS Concerning the Proper and Peculiar Christian Worship 1. WHether the Divine Service or Liturgy as from Act. 13.2 we may conceive it to have been anciently termed as it hath been in all Ages since of the Christians hath not from all Antiquity been distinguished into two Parts The first consisting of Reading of the Scriptures and Explication thereof or Exhortation to the People with some few short Prayers called The Service of the Catechumens The other consisting principally of a Solemn Memorial of the Passion of our Saviour represented before the Father as the great Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World with Thanksgivings and Prayers for the Catholick Church and all Mankind for the particular Church and People of all Orders and Degrees where it was celebrated and for all the Necessaries of humane Life called The Service of the Faithful to which the Catechumens and Penitents were not admitted but were excluded 2. Whether this latter Part called The Service of the Faithful hath not been retained and celebrated in all Churches of the World from the Apostles Times to this Day except those called Reformed as the Peculiar and most solemn Part of the Christian Worship daily where they had any daily Worship as in most great Churches they had from whence it had the name of Sacrificium quotidianum in others three or four times in the Week and in all every Lords Day and the rest without it be any more than the Service of Catechumens and Penitents 3. Whether there be any plain Evidence or Appearance in the Holy-Scripture of any solemn Assembly of Christians in the Apostles times where this sacred Rite was not used or that any present at any such Assembly where it was used did ever depart without Communion or Participation And whether the Sacred History Act. 20.7 relating that the Disciples came together to break Bread as the End and Occasion of that famous Assembly of the Christians at Troas though Paul so eminent an Apostle was then to Preach there and to Preach his Farewell Sermon doth not thereby signify or imply that that was notwithstanding the principal Business of that and such settled Assembles And St. Paul himself 1 Cor. 11.20 speak of their coming together to eat the Lords Supper as the constant and Principal Business of such Assemblies and the same also be not strongly implied in those other Expressions Act. 2.42 46. and 1 Cor. 10.16 4. Whether by ancient Canons all the Faithful who came to Church and heard the Scriptures were not oblig'd to stay this Solemn Service of the Faithful and Communicate under the Penalty of Excommunication 5. Whether there was ever any Doubt or Question whether all the Faithful ought to Communicate every Day that is if where there was a daily Celebration till the time of St. Augustine And whether many did not continue to do so then 6. Whether this most Holy Solemn and Peculiar Worship of the Faithful Christians be not being duly performed most highly Honourable to the Father by Solemn Worship and Recognition of him as the Soveraign Lord of the Universe and also to the Son by like Solemn Worship and Recognition of him as our Lord and Redeemer and that we are all his Purchased Servants and to the Holy-Ghost by whose Presence and Virtue all Sacred Operations are perfected And moreover of very great Benefit to the Souls of the Faithful duly disposed by a Communication of Divine Virtue to them 7. Whether what some Learned Men have rightly observed à posteriori from matter of Fact That the Devil hath exercised and vented more Malice against this Holy Rite than against any other part of the Christian Religion except the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity be not also credible upon Considerations â priori from the Nature of the thing from the Honour and Worship therein performed to the Father and to our Saviour and to the Holy-Ghost and the Benefits communicated to Humane Souls but more especially because therein that Passion of our Saviour which the Devil had maliciously procured is solemnly Honoured and represented before the Father as the great Propitiation for the Sins of the whole World to the Confusion of that Proud Malicious and Envious Spirit 8. Whether great Elevation of Soul and Devotion to God and Enlargement of Souls in mutual Charity of one to another being principal Benefits ordinarily communicated to Souls duly disposed in the frequent and Reverend Use of this Holy Sacrament Deprivation of these Benefits and instead thereof Dissentions Contentions and Animosities and Decay of Piety and over-spreading of Wickedness may not be just and deserved Punishments of the Neglect of so great a Duty and Solemn Worship and of so Holy Means for the obtaining of those Benefits and may not therefore reasonably be believed to be Special Judgments of God for the same when we see them follow Notorious Neglect thereof at no great Distance 9. Whether therefore Neglect of Communion by the People in the Greek Churches where Chrysostom preached vehemently against it both at Antioch and Constantinople may not reasonably be believed to have been severely Punished by the Special Judgement of God and Malice of the Devil getting Advantage thereupon by the Divisions and Confusions which arose there not long after his Death and continued till almost all the Eastern Churches were first over-spread with them and at last over-run and enslaved by the Turks and Mohemetans And in the Latin-Churches by the abominable Corruptions Abuses Impostures and Usurpations of the Papacy 10. Whether the Neglect not only of Communion by the People but even of Celebration by the Clergy so that such of the People as would have Communicated could not and in a manner taking away of the daily Sacrifice in the Churches called Reformed may not also reasonably be believed to have been punished by the special Judgement of God and Malice of the Devil by their Divisions amongst themselves from the Beginning of their Reformation and by the great Decays of Piety and Over-spreading of Wickedness which hath by degrees increased amongst them