of his sins, that in the glory of the resurrection being raised among thy saints and elect, he may breathe again,"
or be refreshed. And that other in the Roman Pontifical:
"O God, unto whom all things do live, and unto whom our bodies in dying do not perish, but are changed for the better, we humbly pray thee that thou wouldst command the soul of thy servant N. to be received by the hands of thy holy angels, to be carried into the bosom of thy friend the Patriarch Abraham, and to be raised up at the last day of the great judgment; and whatsoever faults by the deceit of the devil he hath incurred, do thou of thy pity and mercy wash away by forgiving them."
Now, forasmuch as it is most certain that all such as depart in grace, as the adversaries acknowledge that all in purgatory do, are sure to escape hell, and to be raised up unto glory at the last day, Medina perplexeth himself exceedingly in according these kind of prayers, with the received grounds of purgatory; and after much agitation of the business to and fro, at last resolveth upon one of these two desperate conclusions. That touching these
"prayers which are made in the Church for the dead, it may first of all be said that it is not necessary to excuse them all from unfitness. For many things are permitted to be read in the Church, which although they be not altogether sane, and altogether fit, yet serve for the stirring up and increasing the devotion of the faithful. Many such things," saith he, "we believe are contained in the histories that be not sacred, and in the legends of the saints, and in the opinions and writings of the doctors; all which are tolerated by the Church in the mean time, while there is no question moved of them, and no scandal ariseth from them. And therefore it is no marvel, that somewhat not so fit should be contained in the aforesaid prayers, and be tolerated in the Church, seeing such prayers were made by private persons, not by councils, neither were approved at all by councils."
And we easily do believe, indeed, that their offices and legends are fraught not only with untrue and unfit, but also with far worse stuff; neither is this any news unto us. Agobardus, Bishop of Lyons, complained, about eight hundred years ago, that the Antiphonary used in his Church had "many ridiculous and phantastical" things in it; that he was fain to cut off from thence such things as seemed to be "either superfluous, or light, or lying, or blasphemous."
