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'They are words that cannot deceive us': Jeremy Taylor and the month of the departed

On this penultimate day of November, and on the cusp of Advent, we draw to a close this short series of posts meditating upon the month of the departed through the words of Jeremy Taylor. In this extract from his sermon at the 1657 funeral of Sir George Dalston, a Cumberland Royalist, Taylor turns to what are, I think, the most significant words in the Prayer Book Order of Burial:

I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours.

Introduced by Cranmer in BCP 1549, this remained an enduring feature of burial rites in the Prayer Book tradition. Said at the graveside immediately after the committal, it defines the quiet and gentle hope which underpins the Prayer Book's Order of Burial: the faithful departed are now at rest. No post-mortem pains await them. No urgent prayers need be offered for them. We are to carry no fears for them. They are, in Christ, at rest.

It is these words that Taylor then invokes in his sermon at Dalston's funeral:

I have now made it as evident as questions of this nature will bear, that in the state of separation, the spirits of good men shall be blessed and happy souls, they have an ante-past or taste of their reward; but their great reward itself, their crown of righteousness, shall not be yet; that shall not be until the day of judgment ... the consummation and perfection of the saints' felicity shall be at the resurrection of the dead ... the saints do not yet enjoy the beatific vision; and though they are in a state of ease and comfort, yet are not in a state of power and glory and kingdom, till the day of judgment.

This also perfectly does overthrow the doctrine of purgatory. For as the saints departed are not perfect, and therefore certainly not to be invocated, not to be made our patrons and advocates; so neither are they in such a condition as to be in torment; and it is impossible that any wise man should believe that the souls of good men after death should endure the sharp pains of hell, and yet at the same time believe those words of Scripture, "Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them." If they can rest in beds of fire, and sing hymns of glory in the torments of the damned, if their labours are done when their pains are almost infinite, then these words of the Spirit of God, and that doctrine of purgatory, can be reconciled; else never to eternal ages. But it is certain they are words that cannot deceive us: "Non tanget eos tormentum mortis - torment in death shall never touch them."

Readers of the extracts from Bishop Bull's sermon 'The Middle State of Happiness or Misery' - also posted during November - will recognise how Bull firmly stands within the understanding of the post-mortem middle state defined by Taylor. Against both purgatory and - contrary to the creedal affirmation of the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting - a denial of any middle state, Taylor proclaimed the blessed rest of the faithful departed, in anticipation of the fullness of the beatific vision after the restoration of all things. The words of Revelation 14:13 - so wisely placed by Cranmer in the burial rite - beautifully proclaim this hope, this blessed rest.

While many contemporary Anglican burial rites, including Common Worship, have foolishly removed these words, I am grateful that the contemporary burial rite in the Church of Ireland BCP 2004 has retained them, said - as in 1662 - immediately after the committal. Amidst much contemporary cultural confusion about death and its aftermath, the words from Revelation cut through both hopelessness and gaudy sentiment, to proclaim rest in Christ, awaiting the resurrection of the dead. 

There is also, of course, a word of judgement in these words: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord". As Taylor declared, "the spirits of good men shall be blessed and happy souls". The Prayer Book's prayer at the graveside likewise echoes the phrase from Revelation: "Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord". Such evangelical clarity and faithful hope is what should be heard from the church at the graveside. 

As November passes into December, as Advent begins, we may yet find ourselves on a cold, dark Winter's day wandering through an old churchyard, perhaps laying a Christmas wreath on the grave of a loved one ahead of the festive season. Then we can recall, with Jeremy Taylor, "words that cannot deceive us", that the faithful departed rest in Christ, and that we also, at the end of our earthly lives, will join them in that rest, until "the last day, when he shall come again his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and dead".

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