This Is Not a Prayer for the
Dead. Henry Hammond: What
“the household of Onesiphorus” here signifies is thought fit to be examined by
some in order to [prove] the doctrine of praying for the dead. For because the
prayer is here for the household, and not for the master of it, Onesiphorus
himself, it is by some presently concluded that Onesiphorus was dead at that
time. And then that being supposed, it appears that St. Paul prays for him that
he may find mercy in that day. How far it may be fit to pray for those who are
departed this life needs not to be disputed here. It is certain that some
measure of bliss, which shall at the day of judgment be vouchsafed the saints
when their bodies and souls shall be reunited, is not till then enjoyed by
them, and therefore may safely and fitly be prayed for them (in the same manner
as Christ prays to his Father to glorify him with that glory which he had
before the world was). And this is a very distant thing from that prayer which
is now used in the Romish Church for deliverance from temporal pains, founded
in their doctrine of purgatory, which would no way be deducible from hence,
though Onesiphorus for whom St. Paul here prays for mercy had been now dead.…
But neither is there any evidence of Onesiphorus being then dead, nor
probability of it here. A Paraphrase and Annotations. (Henry
Hammond, Paraphrase and Annotations on the New Testament (1653), in 1-2
Thessalonians, 1-2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon: New Testament [Reformation
Commentary on Scripture; Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 2019], 225)
