THE AFTER DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIII, Issue 114, 13 May 1912, Page 2

THE AFTER DEATH.

PRA-SfTRS FOB THE DEAD. BISHOP CBOSSISTTS ADVOCACY. A REPLY TO CRITICS. Extra seating accommodation had 1 to lie provided in St. Mary's Cathedral last evening for the large numbers who ivi-hed to hear the second of the series uf three sermons by Dr. Crossley, Bishop of Aucklaai, on the subject of "After Death." The Bishop, who took no text,! saij that he would deal further that evening with the question of the inter-[ mediate state. In answer to the view: that the condition of the soul immedi-; ately after death was one of sleep, that it was a sort of asphyxiated soul, existing, but unconscious of its existence, he ' ■would ask. Why. in the story of Dives | and Lazarus, did .)esus show that the! dead were possessed of both conscious- | nrss and memory? Dives had asked for help, and he had asked that- bis brothers on earth might be forewarned. If, then, I thp dead were in an unconscious state, Christ had played false with human i belief, human reason, and hitman hope. j He had suggested what would not he. St. Paul had hoped to be '•with Christ, ■which is far better." How could he have held that in death he would be unconscious? For himself he held to the teaching of the prayer in the burial service, which began. "Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with | whom the souls of the faithful, after | they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity." though I not in that "perfect consummation and bliss both in body and soul " which could come only after the great day of judgment. At death the soul took with it to the other world the same character a3 it possessed in life, the same love. "If a father, mother, or brother loved us on earth," continued the Bishop, "how they must love us now. God is the same God, loving and all-wise, and as He has ■bidden us to pray here, so He will bid us to pray in the futnre state. In every age there have been tendencies which act to the detriment of the Christian message, and now there is the tendency to nejrleet the prayers of the Church at rest for us, the Church militant. If I they have memory and love they will ! pray for us, they must pray for us, and so I say, Take comfort ; you are not; forgotten. And in that state of rest it I is such prayer! We know from Revelation that the prayers of the martyrs at rest received a tender reply. If the dead remember us, should we not remember them?" PRAYING FOR THE DEPARTED. The Bishop here drew attention to the mistaken idea that prayers for the dead were necessarily prayers to the dead, when they should be to God alone. "My •hope from these sermons," he said, "is ■ that some souls may learn the tolerability and unsinfulness of prayers for the dead." This practice, he held, -was one which gave the greatest comfort to the sonL It was unquestionably an early and continuous practice of the Church to pray for the departed. True, if he were asked for a text from the : Bible commanding such prayers he could ■: not give one, but neither could he give < a test forbidding them. If there had • been such a prohibition, the Church would never, as she did for centuries, 1 have regularly made use of prayers for J the dead. There was, however, a text « which might reasonably be interpreted 1 as favouring the practice. In the second 1 epistle of St. Paul to Timothy, the « apostle spoke of the household of one '1 Onesiphorus, who was assumed' to have < been then dead, and said of him, "The t 'Lord grant unto him that he may find ' mercy of the Lord in that day." He did < not press the point that Onesiphorus ' ■was dead, and that Paul was praying 1 for him, bat it seemed the most natural £ interpretation of the text. In the first I prayer-book of King Edward VI., the c first English reformed prayer-book, there ' ■was a prayer for the dead, which he * quoted, adding that it was a type of the ) prayers for the dead in all earlier liturgies'- In the Elizabethan prayer-book * this prayer bad been attenuated. down till all that could 'be interpreted as a * prayer for the dead was the phrase, * "That with them"—the departed—"we «■ may be partakers of Thy heavenly king- l dom." The prayer had' thus been "■ watered down, he" considered, under the x influence of a great and justifiable reaction against the sale of indulgences, ■which, without entering into polemics, > he might say was one of the abuses „ -which hastened the Reformation. More- j over, the influence of foreign reformers t ■was strong at the time of the revision of the prayer-book, and: there was much fear of confusion with the doctrine of purgatory. AN ACCUSATION. • He was dealing witk a highly contro- - •versial subject, said the Bishop, and in c bo doing was endeavouring to help many 6 anxious souls. He hoped that he had « • said no uncharitable word about any * of his critics, but as he would not enter { a public Press controversy upon such a A subject he was driven most reluctantly t to refer to a charge brought against him. a *I am accused," he said, "in the public t Press, "by a minister of another de- i nomination, of teaching a doctrine contrary to my church. This means, my b people, that'voux Bishop is disloyal, and t consequently," if he be disloyal, unworthy t of his office," and unworthy of your trust, r Such a charge, now twice repeated, | t touches an honourable man to the quick, I and I think I can claim, in common fair- fi ness, that the person who made it n should, before uttering it, have made t: himself acquainted with the facts. I ft hope to prove that lie has not done so." e< The homilies of the Church,.. which t< were recommended in tfea Thirty-nine i t< Articles as containing "Godly and whole- j w some doctrine.,' had been quoted against o; him as condemning prayers for the dead, a: He agreed that such condemnation was a] to in them, but he would refer to the opinion of Bishop Montagu, who ■wrote in 1625. as showing that the homilies had not the authority of dogmatic declarations of the Church of England. A His authority said in particular that t' they stretched some uses and sayings B beyond the use of the Church, and de- ci clared that the clergy were not bound B by them. A more important question re was whether the homilies prevented the f 0 teaching of the practice of praying for t! the dead. That question had been the d subject of an ecclesiastical trial in the I w \rches Court of Ca»»erbury in 1838, j 0 when partly on the authority of the j n third'homily on prayer, it was urged j « that the practice was unlawful. The ; t( nidge. Sir Herbert Jenner Fust, gave, a [decision to the effect that while it t eeemed that it was the intention of the tj author of the homilies to discourage i a nraver, for the dead, it did not appear! d that they were anywhere declared un-| , ffwfuL The judge 'added that even if f Si writer had declared them to be un ; I ££&], it was not to be erred that J^

■ the Church of England had adopted evorj particular of the doctrine contained in the homilies. "This is the decision of the official court of my Church," said the Bishop, "and therefore -when a man charges mc -with teaching contrary to the teaching of my Church he is ignorant of the facts." "WRONG IN" GOOD COMPACT." Another question was whether prayers could be offered' only for those who had died with the sign of faith. But who could determine exactly the presence or absence of faith? After the awful Titanic disaster, the Archbishop of Melbourne had said in a sermon, "May the Lord have mercy on their souls." "And I," continued the Bishop, "have prayed that daily since. Am I wrong? All prayer should be in conformity with the will of God, and who shall say that prayer for all those souls who went down to death in a moment is contrary to His will?" If he was wrong in praying for the departed, he was wrong in good company. In her most solemn service, the Holy Communion, the Church had for 1500 years continuously remembered the departed, and he believed the present liturgy did so still, when it said, "That we and all Thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins." He always paused at that point to enable the worshippers to think of those friends who had joined the Church at rest. Some thought that prajers for the dead were wrong and unProtestant. If they were he was wrong with Luther, who always used them; with Wesley, who defended them; with the greatest English saints since the Reformation Non-Jurors, with Bishop Andrewes, Bishop Cosin, Bishop Ken, with Heber, and with Keble, the author of "The Christian Year." During the South African war the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Temple, had printed a. number of prayers, in one of which he prayed "for all those that have fallen, that they may enter into that rest prepared for those that love Thee." This was in iMareh, 1900, and soon afterwards the Archibishop was taken to task in the House of Lords. In answer to the charge of disloyalty, he had said that the law of the Church had decided that jrayers for the dead were not unlawful, md that the decision had stood for sixty rears. "With such as these," said the Bishop, "we might even pray for for-, giveness of sins for the departed. And iiow I have spoken all my soul on the subject of the after life." The Church of England had paid a leavy price for liberty, and there was 10 compulsion in the matter of praying or the dead, nor was there any pro-1 libition. The custom was neither illegal , ior immoral. It brought comfort into Holy Communion, and was helpful to the > iving, in -that it broke down the parti-1 ion between life and death. • It helped I ill to realise that loved ones were alive >eyond the grave, that love was stronger | ;han death, and that the Church on | :arth was with the Church at rest one I nighty —the Church of God. The third sermon of the series will >c preached in the Cathedral on the! ivening of Trinity Sunday, June 2, when i .he subject will be "The Meaning and I mportance of 'Eternity' in its Relation j 0 Heaven and HelL" 'HE REV. MB, JOLLY'S STANDPOINT. A SUGGESTION OF BASH2STESS. "Bishop Crossley should not be so ash when he speake of ignorance," was j emarked by the Rev. Isa-ac Jolly, M.A., I if St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church, rhen interviewed by a "Star" reporter his morning. "Charges of that kind,' , ,c added, "when rashly made, are often lore evidence of temper than anything lse." Air. Jolly said he was aware of be decision of the Dean v. Arches in he caee referred to. The Dean, Mr. j oily said, declared that the Anglican j amilies discouraged prayers for the i cad. Although he also declared thai he practice of praying for the dead. ould not subject anyone to ecclesiastical insure in the Church of England. Whilst tEe first Reform Prayer Book of 549 included prayers for the dead, all iieh prayers were deliberately omitted •om the Second Reform Prayer Book f 1552. Further, the homilies published ithin ten years of the issuing of the Ltter -prayer book explicitly condemned ue practice of praying for the dead. That," added Mr. Jolly, "really gives tie position of the Church of England." peaking of the mention made by Bishop rossley to the scriptural reference to t. Paul's -prayer for Onesiphorus, Mr. oily said that the fact of this being the nly passage which it had been a.t;mpted to quote only showed how despite of scriptural support was the pras;ce of praying for the dead. "There ie," lid Mr. Jolly, "no proof thai. Onesihorus wae then dead. Indeed there is tradition to the effect ithat he was a ishop at a later time. Moreover, St. anl's words are not a prayer to God irt simply an expression of a pious wish ) Timothy— very different things." WESLEYAN CRITICISM. The Rev. W. Ready, president of the '.Z. Methodist Conference, and minister f Pitt-street Methodist Church, remark--1 to a reporter that he must take xception to the Bishop's reference to ohn Wesley as one who advocated rayers for the dead. In the whole of Tesley's works, consisting- of some four;en volumes, he had not found any dvocacy of prayers for the dead, and c concluded that Dr. Crossley was qnotig from something Wesley had written in his High Church days, and before is conversion." If this were so, he lought the Bishop should have menoned it, for it was no more fair to :fer to Wesley in his earlier days than > (Luther before he left the Church of ome. His own view was that prayers r the dead were of no avail, and unicessary besides. Wesley himself had ,ught that a man who was beyond the ach of mercy in this world was ually so in the next. In reference .a quotation from the second epistle Timothy regarding Onesiphorus, he shed it to be understood that, in his linion, Onesiphorus must ibe regarded absent from his home and family, d not dead, as some assumed. A BAiPTIBT OPINION. The Key. H. Knowles Kempton, of the ickland Baptist Tabernacle, when asked Js morning to give his views on the shop's pronouncement regarding prays for the dead, said that so far as Mical authority went, !the practice sted upon St. Paul's so-called prayer - Onesiphorus. The passage in which ie occurred was one of the most hotly sputed hi the New Testament, but the eight of critical opinion, including that ! such men as EUdcott, Alford, and i ore recently I>r Newport White (in the Expositor's Greek Testament) inclined , the view that Onesiphorus was dead i the time the epistle was written and ie expression used. On the other hand, r R. F. H-orton, one of the highest rthorities held than; if Onesiphorue was :ad when the epistle was composed the hole work must be set' down as dating om the second century, and thus the auline theory of the authorship would' j s upset. Personally, Mr Kempton con- [

•jeidered with mai>y commentators that i! the phrase, ''The lord giajitanto him that :! he may find mercy of the Lord in that !! day," could not be described as a prayer, i J but only as a pious wish on behalf of >! Oneeiphorus. Even supposing it •were a . I prayer, it referred not to the present, but to the future, and might be ueed of anyone irrespective of any theory of hie present eonditnon in the intermediate ntate. It wae therefore on a different j footing from prayers for the dead euch as the Bishop had quoted. He agreed with Dγ Horton when he said, "The caee of Onesiphorue affords no slenderest foothold for the dogma (of prayers for the dead); for in the first place we can only surmise that he was dead at the time, and in the eecond place there is I here no prayer, but a pious wish." If I such, prayers were of importance he was j sure that the New Testament would ! have expressly ordered them, but it did not He ibelieved them to be unnecessary, for all the departed, whether they died in Chrifit or not, were in Ilia cafe ! keeping, and since the practice had been corrupted co readily it were perhaps best avoided. Still, he quite agreed with l>. '• Crossley in his references to the early ' Church and "to great names since the '■ Feformation as showing the antiquity lof the enstom an-d the authorities who advocated it. THE THEOSOFHICAL ASPECT. Speaking last evening in the Chamber iof Commerce Rail, Mr. J. R. Thomson ' outlined the nature of man's existence : after death from the investigations that have been carried out by a number of trained students within the Theosophical Society. The lecturer stated that the powers that are latent in man's consciousness are undreamt of by the orj dinary man, and it is the investigation ■of these potential powers that form the third object of the Theosophical Society's three objects. If it is true, as all religions teach, and which theoso- j ; phists insist, that man's spiritual na- | : turc is a fragment of the one divine i life, the life of God, then it must necessarily follow that he has within him- | self all divine possibilities, and it was I the duty of all religions to prepare the minds and purify the bodies of its adherents preparatory to the awakening and unfolding of the Christ or spiritual principle within man. That each man can and must, sometime and somewhere, know and contact these inner worlds of nature as freely and more perfectly than he can the present phy- ] sical nature was essential if he were to j be an active, self-conscious agent of the diviae will, and, further, man has to raise his individual consciousness into self-conscious union with God, the One Life all pervading and animating All, the Self at the heart of being, thus realising an ever-presei.t glorious consciousness that neither death nor time can change. Many theosophists are not content with belief and theory only, but put into intelligent practice their firm convictions, for until this is done no one is in a position to say "I know," but only "I believe," and the theoso- i phist places knowledge before belief, advises theory before practice, and requires that their own leaders and teachers sliould "know" and not speculate. The Christian idea of Heaven and Hell was the mediaeval method of conveying an idea of what followed upon (the natural consequences) the effects of good and bad actions, emotions and thoughts ■ in the after death state. RATIONALISTIC THOUGHT. The recent utterances of Bishop Crossley on the subject of death and the afterlife were reviewed by Mr. H. ScottBennett in an address before a crowded audience at the Opera House last evening. The speaker dealt generally with the theological conception of a Heaven and a Hell , , and also the popular ideas of the . after-life, and suggested that Bishop , Crosaley's apologies and modifications of the old teachings of the Church had been i rendered necessary by the spread of i rationalistic thought.