Why placed after the office for the Burial of the Dead. ONE would think that, after an office for the Burial of the Dead, no other should be expected; and yet we see here another rises to our view, which the Church has appointed for the use of such women as have been safe delivered form the great pain and peril of childbirth, and which she has placed in her Liturgy after the office foregoing, to intimate, as it were, that such a woman’s recovery is next to a revival or resurrection from the dead. For indeed the birth of man is so truly wonderful, that it seems to be designed as a standing demonstration of the omnipotence of God. And therefore that the frequency of it may not diminish our admiration, the Church orders a public and solemn acknowledgment to be made on every such occasion by the woman on whom the miracle is wrought: who still feels the bruise of our first parent’s fall, and labours under the curse which Eve then entailed upon her whole sex.
§. 2. The original of it. As to the original of this custom, it is not to be doubted, but that as many other Christian usages received their rise from other parts of the Jewish economy, so did this from the rite of Purification, which is enjoined so particularly in the twelfth chapter of Leviticus. Not that we observe it by virtue of that precept, which we grant to have been ceremonial, and so not now of any force; but because we apprehend some moral duty to have been implied in it by way of analogy, which must be obligatory upon all, even when the ceremony is ceased. The uncleanness of the woman, the set number of days she is to abstain from the tabernacle, and the sacrifices she was to offer when she first came abroad, are rites wholly abolished, and what we noways regard: but then the open and solemn acknowledgment of God’s goodness in delivering the mother, and increasing the number of mankind, is a duty that will oblige to the end of the world. And therefore though the mother he now no longer obliged to offer the material sacrifices of the law, yet she is nevertheless bound to offer the evangelical sacrifice of praise. She is still publicly to acknowledge the blessing vouchsafed her, and to profess her sense of the fresh obligation it lays her under to obedience. Nor indeed may the Church be so reasonably supposed to have taken up this rite from the practice of the Jews, as she may be, that she began it in imitation of the blessed Virgin, who though she was rather sanctified than defiled by the birth of our Lord, and so had no need of Purification from any uncleanness, whether legal or moral, yet wisely and humbly submitted to this rite, and offered her praise, together with her blessed Son, in the temple. And that from hence this usage was derived among Christians, seems probable, not only from its being so universal and ancient, that the beginning of it can hardly any where be found: but also from the practice of the Eastern Church, where the mother still brings the child along with her, and presents it to God on her churching-day. The Priest indeed is there said to purify them: and in our first Common Prayer, this office with us was entitled The Order of the Purification of Women. But that neither of these terms implied, that the woman had contracted any uncleanness in her state of childbearing, may not only be inferred from the silence of the offices both in the Greek Church and ours in relation to any uncleanness; but is also further evident from the ancient laws relating to this practice, which by no means ground it upon any impurity, from which the woman stands in need to be purged. And therefore, when our own Liturgy came to be reviewed, to prevent all misconstructions that might be put upon the word, the title was altered, and the office named (as it is still in our present Common Prayer Book) The Thanksgiving of Women after Childbirth, commonly called The Churching of Women.
The woman to be churched at the usual time after the delivery. IN the Greek Church, the time for performing this office is limited to be on the fortieth day; and therefore the office with them is called, The Prayer for a woman forty days after childbearing. But in the West the time was never strictly determined, as will appear from the Salisbury Manual, which was of use here in England before the Reformation, where the old rubric runs thus: Note, That women after childbirth may come to church, and, giving thanks, be purified whenever they will, and they are not guilty of any sin in so doing: neither is the entrance of the church to he denied them, lest we turn their punishment into a crime; but if, out of reverence, they will abstain for some time, their devotion is not to be disallowed. And as this was consonant to the ancient canons of the Church, in relation to this affair, so is it agreeable to our present rubric; which does not pretend to limit the day when the woman shall be churched, but only supposes that she will come at the usual time after her delivery. The usual time is now about a month: for the woman’s weakness will seldom permit her coming sooner. And if she be not able to come so soon, she is allowed to stay a longer time; the Church not expecting her to return her thanks for a blessing before it is received.
§. 2. The office to be always performed in the church. It is only required that whenever she does it, she shall come into the church. And this is enjoined, first, for the honour of God, whose marvellous works in the formation of the child, and the preservation of the woman, ought publicly to be owned, that so others may learn to put their trust in him. Secondly, that the whole congregation may have a fit opportunity for praising God for the too much forgotten mercy of their birth. And, thirdly, that the woman may in the proper place own the mercy now vouchsafed her, of being restored to the happy privilege of worshipping God in the congregation of his saints.
The absurdity of being churched at home. How great therefore is the absurdity which some would introduce of stifling their acknowledgments in private houses, and of giving thanks for their recovery and enlargement in no other place than that of their confinement ana restraint! a practice which is inconsistent with the very name of this office, which is called The Churching of Women, and which consequently implies a ridiculous solecism of being churched at home. Nor is it any thing more consistent with the end and devotions prescribed by this office, than it is with the name of it. For with what decency or propriety can the woman pretend to pay her vows in the presence of all God’s people, in the courts of the Lord’s house, when she is only assuming state in a bedchamber or parlour, and perhaps only accompanied with her midwife or nurse? To give thanks therefore at home (for by no means call it churching) is not only an act of disobedience to the Church, but a high affront to Almighty God; whose mercy they scorn to acknowledge in a church, and think it honour enough done him, if he is summoned by his Priest to wait on them at their houses, and to take what thanks they will vouchsafe him there. But me thinks a Minister, who has any regard for his character, and considers the honour of the Lord he serves, should disdain such a servile compliance and submission, and abhor the betraying his Master’s dignity. Here can be no pretence of danger in the case, should the woman prove obstinate, upon the Priest’s refusal, (which Ministers are apt to urge for their excuse, when they are prevailed upon to give public baptism in private;) nor is the decision of a Council wanting to instruct him (if he has any doubts upon account of the woman’s ill health) that he is not to perform this office at home, though she be really so weak as not to be able to come to church. For if she be not able to come to church, let her stay till she is; God does not require any thanks for a mercy before he has vouchsafed it: but if she comes as soon as her strength permits, she discharges her obligations both to him and the Church.
§. 3. The woman to be decently aparelled. Veils used formerly. When the woman comes to this office, the rubric (as it was altered at the last review) directs that she be decently apparelled, i.e. as the custom and order was formerly, with a white covering, or veil. And we find that as late as in the reign of king James I, an order was made by the chancellor of Norwich, that every woman who came to be churched should come thus apparelled; an order it seems so well founded upon the practice of the Church, that a woman refusing to conform with it was excommunicated for contempt And though she prayed a prohibition, and alleged in her defence, that such order was not warranted by any custom or canon of the Church of England, yet she got no relief; for the judges desiring the opinion of the archbishop of Canterbury; and he, together with several other bishops, whom he convened to consult upon it, certifying that it was the ancient usage of the Church of England for women to come veiled, who came to be churched; a prohibition was refused her. But that custom having now for some time been discontinued, long enough I suppose to make it obsolete, I take the decency of the woman’s apparel to be left entirely to her own discretion.
§. 4. Where to kneel. The woman being come into the church decently apparelled, must there kneel down in some convenient place, as has been accustomed. To know where that is, it is necessary that we look back into the Old Common Prayer Books. king Edward’s first Liturgy says, in some convenient place, nigh unto the quire-door, which is still rendered plainer by all the other Common Prayer Books from that time till this present one, which say it must be nigh unto the place where the Table standeth, i.e. to be sure, at the rails of the Communion Table, or where she is to kneel if she receives the Communion, which the last rubric of this office declares it is convenient she should do, if there be any Communion in the church at that time. And that this same place is meant by our present rubric, which orders her to kneel in some convenient place, as has been accustomed, is evident, because we see that was the accustomed and appointed place, when these words were put in. It is true, the Presbyterians, at the Conference in the Savoy, objected against the rubric as it was worded then: And in regard that the woman’s kneeling near the table was in many churches inconvenient, they desired that those words might be left out; and that the Minister might perform that service in the desk or pulpit. And it is also true, that these words were accordingly left out, and the rubric altered thus, viz. that the woman should kneel in some convenient place, as has been accustomed, or as the Ordinary shall direct. But yet it is plain, that wherever the Ordinary does not otherwise direct, the woman is still to kneel in the accustomed place. And that the accustomed place, till the last review, was nigh unto the place where the table standeth, I have shewed before. And that no alteration was then designed, is further evident beyond contradiction, from the answer which the Bishops and the other Episcopal Commissioners gave to the aforesaid exception of the Presbyterians, viz. It is fit that the woman performing especial service of thanksgiving should have a special place, where she may be perspicuous to the whole congregation; and near the holy Table, in regard of the offering she is there to make. They need not fear Popery in this, since in the Church of Rome she is to kneel at the church-door. So that the reason, I presume, of their altering the rubric was not to give the Ordinary a general power to change the accustomed place, where there was no occasion; but because in some places the churches were so inconveniently built, that by the interposition of a belfry between the church and the chancel (as I have observed elsewhere) the Minister could not be heard out of the chancel into the church; therefore the Ordinary should, in such cases, have power or authority to allow the woman to be churched in some other place. Just as I have shewed he has power, in the same case, to order the Morning and Evening Prayer to be read where he pleases. But where there is no such impediment, or at least where the Ordinary has not otherwise enjoined, there to be sure this office is to be performed, even by virtue of this rubric, at the Communion Table or Altar.
§. 5. In what part of the service to be performed. In what part of the service this office is to come in, the rubric does not say: but by some old Articles of Visitation, which the bishops used to make the subject of their inquiry, it appears to have been used just before the Communion-office: and no one, I believe, will deny, that it is more regular there, than when it interrupts the ordinary service, as it does when it is used either just before or just after the general Thanksgiving; or than when it is performed in the midst of the hurry and noise of the people’s going out of church, as it is when it is deferred till the whole service is done. All the difficulty that lies against confining it to be used just before the Communionoffice is, that no woman could then be churched but on a Sunday or a holy-day, when that office is to be read. But to this it may be answered, that if she could not, the inconvenience would not be great: and therefore since most of the other occasional offices of the Church are supposed to be performed on Sundays and holy-days, why should not this? If I judge right from the rubric at the end of this office, it is so supposed; for it is there said, that if there be a Communion, it is convenient that the woman receive it. Now there can never be a Communion, but when the Communion-office is read; and therefore since the Church supposes there may be a Communion when the woman is churched, she seems to make no doubt but that she will come to be churched on some Sunday or holy-day when that office is appointed; though if she come upon an ordinary week-day, the Communion may be administered if she desires to receive, and then she may be churched regularly at the holy Table, before the Communionoffice begins.