PROTESTANT PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD.
The editor of the Catholic Mirror takes Rev. Newell Dwight Hillis, of Brooklyn, to task on account of a recent prayer which the latter offered in his church for the victims of the volcanic disaster in Martinique. The question was not over his praying for the surviving victims, but for those who had died in the catastrophe. The Mirror says, “Protestants, of course, believe in prayer, but prayer only for the living. What means this praying for the dead? It is not for their material welfare, not for their bodies. Then it must be for their souls, and implies a belief in purgatory.” In introducing his article the editor says:— Catholic writers have often noticed the tendency of Protestant minds to a belief in such a future state as Catholic faith holds purgatory to be. The most advanced thinkers in the Anglican Church now regard purgatory as an article of belief in the ritualistic communion, and prayers for the souls of the departed are one of the features of the high-church development in England, which has most deeply stirred the resentment of the Kensitites. This phase of Anglican thought development has not made as marked strides in this country as in England; but the doctrine, founded on the Bible and taught by an infallible church, has something in it which appeals to the hearts of men. We also have noticed the tendency on the part of Protestant clergymen to revert to the dogmas of that church against which the fathers of the Reformation protested. In fact, there is a very strong drift in the fashionable church circles to minimize the differences between Romanism and professed Protestantism. The chief cause of this reverting to the beliefs of the Roman Church lies in the fact that the denominations that came out from Rome did not come out from Romanism. They came out from the body, but brought with them those essential dogmas of darkness and unbelief, the immortality of the soul and the sacredness of a day God had not blessed. Believing in the immortality of the soul, the doctrine of purgatory is the logical sequence. Only they who believe in the immortality of the soul and conscious existence in death, can pray for the dead. It is no exaggeration to say that the teaching of the soul’s immortality from Protestant pulpits is filling the pews of Catholic churches with those who once were Protestant in name. If the soul is immortal and conscious in death, purgatory is logical and reasonable. But the Bible abounds with proof to the contrary; and they who know God’s truth on this question will not be heard praying for the dead, will not believe in purgatory, will not be found going over to the Church of Rome. More than that, they will not be found at Spiritistic seances, or supporting that subtle delusion. The foundation for purgatory and Spiritism is the belief in the immortality of the soul. Without that belief, neither of those unscriptural doctrines is possible. The editor of the Mirror asks, “What means this praying for the dead?” It means that those who do it are swerving from the track of the true Gospel, and are “turned unto fables.” It means that Rome’s doctrines are gaining adherents and advocates in the churches of professed Protestantism. It means that the gulf between these two great bodies is growing narrower, and gradually fading into an almost imperceptible line—not that Romanism is coming over to Protestantism, but that professed Protestantism is gradually but surely swinging around to the doctrines of the Papacy. Had the early reform church thrown aside the spurious sabbath of the apostate church, and uplifted the Sabbath of the Lord, upon which that church had trodden with sacrilegious feet; had the early reformers thrown aside the unscriptural doctrine of the immortality of the soul, upon which purgatory is founded, and the eternal torment of the wicked is based—then the issue would have been sharp and distinct for all time. But coming out from her, and bringing some of her essential doctrines with them, there was bound to be a swinging back to the fountain-head of those beliefs, even as we see it to-day. This retrogression toward Catholicism is not imaginary—it is real and rapid. The great trend now is toward those beliefs which are fundamental in that system; and this is preparing the way for the triumph of that system over all who are not rooted and grounded in the truth of God; preparing the way for the fulfilment of that prophecy which declares that all the world shall wonder after the beast, and worship the beast, except only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life (Rev. 13:4-8); and those whose names are there written are they who “keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12. There is indeed a deep significance in prayers for the dead by Protestant pastors, as in all the other backward tendencies of professed Protestantism. It shows the beginning of the fulfilment of those scriptures above referred to. In such a time as this the only safety lies in implicit obedience to God’s commands, casting off all the doctrines of superstition and the commandments of men, and standing squarely on the Rock of His Word, which no power of earth can shake. There is shelter and safety in that. Outside of that there is no such thing as safety. It is the ark of God that will save the remnant when the destruction of that ever-hastening day of God shall burst upon the world.