'The field of God is sown with the seeds of the resurrection': Jeremy Taylor and the month of the departed

Jeremy Taylor's Holy Dying is a text for November days, the month of the departed. The final section of the work is "A peroration concerning the contingencies, and treatings of our departed friends after death, in order to their buriall, &c.". Addressing our duties to the departed, it sets forth what we might term a Prayer Book piety with regards to mourning. This is immediately seen in the exhortation against ostentatious ceremonies for the departed - which would, of course, be the very opposite of the sparse, reserved nature of the Prayer Book Burial of the Dead:

When we have received the last breath of our friend and closed his eyes, and composed his body for the grave, then seasonable is the counsell of the son of Sirach: Weep bitterly and make great moan, and use lamentation as he is worthy, and that a day or two, lest thou be evil spoken of; and then comfort thy self for thy heavinesse. But take no grief to heart; for there is no turning again, thou shalt not do him good, but hurt thy self ... But that which is to be faulted in this particular is, when the grief is immoderate, and unreasonable ... But it is worse yet when people by an ambitious and a pompous sorrow, and by ceremonies invented for the ostentation of their grief fill heaven and earth with exclamations and grow troublesome because their friend is happy, or themselves want his company.

The counsel against immoderate grief is also significant, not least in our own time when such self-indulgent immoderation is often indulged. Alongside Taylor's invocation of the teaching of the wise son of Sirach we might also consider the Apostle's exhortation: "sorrow not, even as others which have no hope". An immoderate grief, in addition to being self-indulgent, also too easily suggests that it is grief without the Christian hope.

Regarding the burial, Taylor roots our duties in this regards in both natural religion and - quite beautifully - the Christian hope:

When thou hast wept a while compose the body to burial; which that it be done gravely, decently and charitably, we have the example of all nations to engage us, and of all ages of the world to warrant: so that it is against common honesty, and publike fame and reputation not to do this office ... Among Christians the honour which is valued in the behalf of the dead is that they be buried in holy ground, that is in appointed coemitaries, in places of religion, there where the field of God is sowen with the seeds of the resurrection, that their bodies also may be among the Christians, with whom their hope and their portion is and shall be for ever ... That we are sure of; our bodies shall all be restored to our souls hereafter, and in the intervall they shall all be turned into dust, by what way soever you or your chance shall dresse them.

Walking around an old churchyard in November days, the leaves falling, the days short, another year coming to its end, we are standing in "the field of God ... sowen with the seeds of the resurrection". And if a grave happens to be overgrown, its headstone covered in moss and unreadable, we are to remember "that we are sure of" the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.

Beyond mourning and burial, we have other duties to the departed, acts of grace, charity, and goodwill to fulfill the obligations of the departed:

But that which is most considerable, is that we should do something for the dead, something that is reall and of proper advantage. That we performe their will the lawes oblige us, and will see to it; but that we do all those parts of personall duty which our dead left unperformed, and to which the lawes do not oblige us, is an act of great charity, and perfect kindnesse: and it may redound to the advantage of our friends also, that their debts be payed even beyond the Inventary of their moveables.

We are also to be kind to their memory:

Besides this, let us right their causes, and assert their honour: When Marcus Regulus had injured the memory of Herennius Senecio, Metius Carus asked him, What he had to do with his dead? and became his advocate after death, of whose cause he was Patron when he was alive: And David added this also, that he did kindnesse to Mephibosheth for Ionathans sake, and Solomon pleaded his Fathers cause by the sword against Ioab and Shimei. And certainly it is the noblest thing in the world to do an act of kindnesse to him whom we shall never see; but yet hath deserved it of us, and to whom we would do it if he were present; and unlesse we do so, our charity is mercenary.

Grace does not destroy nature: refusing to speak ill of the departed is not only an act of natural piety, it also is an act of charity, for charity "doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil ... Charity never faileth".

Note what is absent from Taylor's description of our duties to the departed: there is no reference to intercession for them. As we have previously seen, Taylor was quite willing to propose a modest petition for the departed in light of the final judgement, on the basis of 2 Timothy 1:18. This, however, was very far indeed from any sense of a need to pray for the departed in their post-mortem state. Just as the departed our in no need of our immoderate tears, so they are in no need of urgent prayers:

For if the dead did die in the Lord, then there is joy to him, and it is an ill expression of our affection and our charity to weep uncomfortably at a change that hath carried my friend to the state of a huge felicity.

Here again Taylor is reflecting the piety of the Prayer Book Burial of the Dead. This office lacks any urgent petitions for the departed; there is no prayer that the departed may rest in peace, for such is the assured promise of Christ; there is no purgatory from which the departed require deliverance, for those who die in Christ "rest from their labours".

Taylor concludes this section and the work by reminding us that our duties towards the departed - mourning, burial, charity, honouring their memory - also call us to prepare for our own passing from this transitory life:

It remains, that we who are alive should so live, and by the actions of Religion attend the coming of the day of the Lord, that we neither be surprized, nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our sins uncanceld, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased: but that when we descend to our graves we may rest in the bosome of the Lord, till the mansions be prepared, where we shall sing and feast eternally. Amen.

Te Deum laudamus.

This too echoes the Prayer Book Burial office: "so by continual mortifying our corrupt offences we may be buried with him"; "suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee"; "that, when we shall depart this life, we may rest in him". 

I happened to recently see on social media a Church of England cleric declare that the 1662 Burial rite was no longer relevant as it 'came from a different era'. We can easily imagine that the same view would be taken of Taylor's exposition in this concluding section of Holy Dying, a piety embedded in the Prayer Book Burial of the Dead. It is, however, precisely this character - 'from a different era' - that recommends both Taylor and the Prayer Book Burial office. In a culture profoundly incapable of meaningfully addressing death, addicted to self-indulgent forms of grief, and ignorant of any concept of divine judgement, there is much to be said for a sparse, sharp piety which cuts through the sickly shallowness with a robust focus on the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.

(The photograph is of the churchyard at The Middle Church, in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country, late October 2024.)