'By solemn and honorary offices of funeral': Jeremy Taylor and the month of the departed
And so Jeremy Taylor begins the Preface of his A Collection of Offices. Published in 1657, when any notion of a restoration of the monarch and episcopacy was not seriously entertained, Taylor was providing liturgical texts to be used in the place of the prohibited Book of Common Prayer:
But because things are otherwise in this affair then we had hop'd, and that in very many Churches in stead of the Common Prayer which they use not, every man uses what he pleases, and all men doe not choose well, and where there are so many choosers there is nothing regular ... how much better the Curates of souls may help themselves with these or the like offices, then with their own extempore.
In addition to divine service, Curates of souls, of course, also administered the occasional offices. This being so, A Collection included occasional offices: Baptism, Thanksgiving after Child-birth, Visitation of Prisoners, and Burial of the Dead. This being November and the month of the departed, we are particularly concerned with the Burial rite provided by Taylor.
There was a pressing need for such a rite in light of the fact that the Westminster Directory - the intended replacement of the BCP - had "laid aside" any liturgy for burials, regarding such provision as "superstitious". Taylor, quite rightly, understood this to be an especial weakness of the Directory:
I shall not need to procure advantages to the reputation of the Common Prayer, by considering the imperfections of whatsoever hath been offered in its stead ... that will not doe piety to the dead, nor comfort to the living, by solemn and honorary offices of funeral
As with the Prayer Book Burial of the Dead, Taylor's rite begins with sentences of Scripture, read as the minister meets the corpse at the entrance to the church. Taylor's sentences, with the exception of "I am the resurrection and the life", are different to those of the BCP (probably a means of ensuring that he was not accused of encouraging use of the prohibited book). They do, however, share the same concerns of those used by the Prayer Book: the recognition of mortality balanced by the hope of resurrection.
Two of the Psalms - 39 and 90 - are also found in the Prayer Book rite, while Taylor added Psalm 48, a psalm which shared the emphasis on Scriptural meditation upon mortality. For the readings, Taylor provides Job 14 or 19 - "Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble", "And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God" (again, both reflections of the Prayer Book rite); and 1 Corinthans 15, the great Apostolic proclamation of the resurrection hope also at the heart of the Prayer Book rite - "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept". The first lesson is followed by Psalm 88 - "Shall thy loving-kindness be shewed in the grave: or thy faithfulness in destruction?"; the second lesson by the calm, trustful words of the Nunc Dimittis.
As the corpse is carried to the grave, Ecclesiastes 12 is to be read: "Then shall the dust returne to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall returne unto God who gave it". This is to be followed by an anthem consisting of verses from the Psalter, combining both the recognition of mortality and the hope of resurrection:
The wicked is driven away in his wickednesse: but the righteous hath hope in his death.
I said in the cutting off of my daies: I shall goe to the gates of the grave; I am deprived of the residue of my yeares.
I said I shall not see the Lord, even the Lord in the land of the living: I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world.
I have set the Lord alwaies before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be mooved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoyceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
For thou wilt not leave my soule in hell: neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousnesse: when I awake with thy likenesse I shall be satisfied.
Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy, and at thy right hand there is pleasure for evermore.
The committal is a slightly reworked version of that in the Prayer Book order and would have been instantly familiar to those who had heard the Prayer Book words. Again as in the Prayer Book, this was followed by the Lesser Litany and the Lord's Prayer. The two concluding prayers are also clearly based on the equivalent prayers in the Prayer Book rite:
Prayer Book: We give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching thee that it may please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom;
Taylor: we give thee humble thankes that thou hast delivered the soule of thy servant N. N. from the calamities of this life; putting a period to his sin and to his paines; O be pleased shortly to fill up the numbers of thine elect, and hasten thy kingdome;
Prayer Book: We meekly beseech thee, O Father, to raise us from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness; that, when we shall depart this life, we may rest in him ... and that, at the general Resurrection in the last day, we may be found acceptable in thy sight, and receive that blessing, which thy well-beloved Son shall then pronounce to all that love and fear thee, saying, Come, ye blessed children of my Father, receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world;
Taylor: give us thy holy Spirit of wisedome and peace to guide us in the wayes of God, that our affections and our conversation being in heaven; and being weaned from this world we may die daily, and every day be doing good; that laying up a treasure of good workes, we may rejoyce in the day of our death, and may be freed from the terrors of the day of judgement, and the gates of hell may not prevail against us.
It is obvious that Taylor's intention was to provide an order for Burial as close as possible to the form of that in the Book of Common Prayer and, significantly, retaining both the doctrinal and pastoral emphases of the Prayer Book. Taylor's rite, therefore, holds together, in Prayer Book fashion, the stark recognition of our mortality with the Scriptural hope of resurrection. As with the Prayer Book, it is the very starkness of the former that draws us to the robust proclamation of the latter. Taylor's rite also, as with the Prayer Book, contains no petitions for the departed. And it is not in the context of the Eucharist.
Mindful that Taylor had stated both in the title and Preface of the work that he had "collected out of the devotions of the Greek Church", what is most striking about his burial rite is how it carefully and clearly adhered to the doctrinal concerns of the Prayer Book order. In addition to this, it would seem that Taylor was also very much aware of the pastoral wisdom of the Prayer Book Order for the Burial of the Dead, retaining form and phrases from that Order which guided and comforted families and communities at the graveside, to "doe piety to the dead [and] comfort to the living, by solemn and honorary offices of funeral".
(The photograph is of The Middle Church, in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country, early November 2024.)
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