The Order for the
Burial of the Dead.

For the due performance of these holy publick services, a Priest, ordained for men in things pertaining to God, Heb. 5. 1. is required by the Church, as it ought to be, and as it was of old. S. Chrys. Hom. 4. in Hebr. Ambr. Ser. 90. It was an ancient custom, after Burial to go to the holy COMMUNION, unless the office were performed after noon. For then, if men were not fasting, it was done only with Prayers. Conc. Carth. 3. 29. Can. Funeral Doles were an ancient custom, Chrys. Hom. 32. in Mat.

The Priest meeting the Corps at the Church stile, shall go before it to the grave, saying or singing, I am the resurrection and the life. This, in triumph over death, O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? thou mayest a while hold the corps, but he that is the resurrection and the life, will make the dead man live again. Therefore thanks be to God, who gives this victory through Iesus Christ our Lord.

Much after this sort did the Ancients, Hieron. ep. 30. ad Ocean. de Fabiola. Chrys. Hom. 4. in Hebr. Quid sibi volunt istae lampades tam splendidae? nonne ficut athlet as mortuos comitamur? quid etiam hymni? nonne ut Deum glorificemus, quod jam coronavit discedentem, quod à laboribus liberavis, quod liberatum à timore apud se habeat? "What mean the bright burning torches? do we not follow the dead like Champions? what mean the Hymns? do we not thereby glorifie God, for that he hath crowned our departed brother, that he hath freed him from labours, that he hath him with himself, freed from fear? All these are expressions of joy, whereby we do in a holy valour laugh at death," saith Chrys. there. And this is Christian-like, whereas if we be sad and dejected as men without hope, mortem Christi, qua mors superata est, Calumniamur; [we disgrace the death of Christ, that hath conquered death: and Heathens and Atheists will deride us, saying, how can these contemn death, that cannot patiently behold a dead friend? talk what you will of the Resurrection, when you are out of passion, it is no great matter, nor perswades much; but shew me a man in passion of grief for the loss of his friend, playing the Philosopher, and triumphantly singing to God for his happy deliverance, and I will believe the Resurrection. Of so good use are such triumphant hymns at this time: and of this sort are the three first.

X. The priest meeting the corpse.] The rites of funeral exportation appear in antiquity so various as it is not easy by literal interpretation to determine of them that they are not contradictory. By the fourth council of Carthage it was decreed, ut mortuos ecclesie penitentes efferant et sepeliant, “that the penitents which were under excommunication should carry the bodies of Christians to the burial.” Where Epiphanius lived, others were peculiarly designed for this office, these were called κοπιάται, οἱ Ta σώματα περιστέλλονTes TOV κοιμωμένων, “whose care was conversant about the disposal of dead bodies.” Whether voluntary charity inclined these copiates to this office, or whether they were hirelings and mercenary, I cannot determine; the labour they underwent maketh me suspect them servile, and of the lowest row. On the contrary, Nazianzen>, speaking of St. Basil’s funeral, saith, προεκομίζετο ὁ ἅγιος χερσίν ἁγίων ὑψούμενος, i.e. “his body was taken up and carried by the saints.” Which saints may very well be esteemed the eminentest of Christians, especially when this St. Gregory’s scholar, St. Jerome, tells us that his famous Paula was éranslata episcoporum manibus, et cervicem feretro subjicientibus, “carried by the bishops supporting the bier with their hands and shoulders. Whereby the office was not it seems so servile, nor of such disparagement as the first authorities would pretend to render it.

To bring these ends nearer together, and yet not to depreciate and undervalue the credit of the witnesses, I conceive the best way is to yield up all for true, and that the bishops and eminent persons did assume this office only at the first egress from the house, and also at the last ingress into the church; and that the great toil and drudgery between both was undergone by penitents, as part of their canonical penance, or by the copiate, who therefore gained the name of labourers, because they contracted a lassitude by bearing the corpse to church. But by these, all, or which you will, the corpse went ὕμνοις ἐξ ὕμνων παραπεμπόμενος, “in state with psalmodies one after another.” Ti of ὕμνοι; οὐχὶ τὸν θεὸν δοξάζομεν, καὶ εὐχαριστοῦμεν ὅτι λοιπὸν ἐστεφάνωσε τὸν ἀπελθόντα; “what’s the matter, what means this singing of psalms?” expostulateth St. Chrysostom, and then makes answer, “do we not praise and glorify God, because, at length, He hath given the deceased a crown of glory?” The body being in this solemn pomp brought to the church, was placed in media ecclesia, “in the midst of the church;” over which, before interment, there was usually made, in praise of the dead, a funeral oration, and sometimes more than one. For as I said before of sermons upon other occasions, so at funeral solemnities, orations were performed by many, the first, at the end of his harangue or speech, usually raising up another. So St. Basil in his upon St. Barlaam; te παιδικοῖς ἐλαττῶ τὸν ἀριστέα ψελλίσμασι;: ταῖς μεγαλοπρεπεστέραις τὸν εἰς αὐτὸν ὕμνον παρωχωρήσωμεν γλώτταις, τὰς μεγαλοφωνοτέρας τῶν διδασκάλων ἐπ᾽ αὐτῷ καλέσωμεν σαλπίγγας. ἀνάστητέ μοι νῦν, ὅτο.: “but why do I, by my childish stammering, disparage this triumphant martyr? Let me give way for more eloquent tongues to resound his praise; let me call up the louder trumpets of more famous doctors to set him forth. Arise, then, I say,” &c. And so Nazianzen bespeaketh St. Basil, being present at his father’s funeral, ἐπάφες THY σὴν φωνὴν, “strike up with thine own voice.”

When they come to the Grave, while the corps is made ready to be laid into the grave, the Priest shall say or sing, Man that is born of a Woman, &c.] closing with a most devout prayer for grace and assistence in our last hour; a prayer very suitable to such a time, and such a spectacle before us.

Then they commit the body to the earth (not as a lost and perislied carkass, but as having in it a seed of eternity) in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life. This is to bury it Christianly; the hope of the resurrection, being the proper hope of Christians. Such was the Christians burial of old, that it was accounted both an evident argument and presage of the resurrection; and an honour done to that body, which the Holy Ghost had once made his Temple for the Offices of piety. Aug. de Civit. l. 1. c. 13.

Z. In sure and certain hope of the resurrection.] These words have not, as some mistake, peculiar reference to the party deceased, but import the faith of the congregation, then present, in the article of the resurrection, and that their own bodies shall rise again to eternal life, as is evident by the words, “shall change our vile bodies,” where the plural excludes the restraint to a singular number.

After follows another Triumphant Hymn. Then a Lesson out of S. PAUL to the same purpose; Then a Thanksgiving for that our brothers safe delivery out of misery; Lastly a Prayer for his and our consummation in Glory, and joyful Absolution at the last day. By all which prayers, praises, and holy Lessons, and decent solemnities, we do glorifie God, honour the dead, and comfort the living.

Take away these prayers, praises and holy lessons, which were ordained to shew at Burials, the peculiar hope of the Church of the Resurrection of the dead, and in the manner of the dumb funerals, what one thing is there, whereby the world may perceive that we are Christians? HOOKER l. 5. Eccl. pol. §. 75. There being in those dumb shews nothing but what heathens and pagans do, How can any unlearned or unbeliever be convinced by them, that either we who are present at them do, or that he ought to believe any part of Christian Religion? but when the unlearned or unbeliever hears us sing triumphant songs to God for our victory over death, when he hears holy Lessons and discourses of the Resurrection, when he hears us pray for a happy and joyful Resurrection to Glory: by all these he must be convinced, that we do believe the Resurrection, which is a principal Article of Christian faith, and the same may be the means to convince him also, and make him believe the same, and so fall down and worship God. And this is according to S. Paul's rule, 1 Cor. 14. 23, 24, 25. who thence concludes, that all our publick religious services ought to be done, that the unlearned or unbeliever may be convinced, and brought to worship God.