Unction

of the Sick

in 1549.

directed to give the Israelites in the congregation, (Numb. vi. 23-26). It has been used by almost every Christian Church.

In the first Prayer Book of Edward VI. the retained practice of anointing the sick with oil was retained; and at the end of the present office a direction was added, that the Priest should anoint the sick person, if he desired it, upon the forehead or breast, making the sign of the cross, and saying a prayer which began as follows:

As with this visible oil thy body outwardly is anointed; so our heavenly Father, Almighty God, grant of his infinite goodness that thy soul inwardly may be anointed with the Holy Ghost, who is the Spirit of all strength, comfort, relief, and gladness; and vouchsafe for his great mercy (if it be his blessed will) to restore unto thee thy bodily health and strength to serve him; and send thee release of all thy pains, troubles, and diseases, both in body and mind, &c.

This was omitted in 1552.

The occasional prayers which are added at the end of this Office, and the Order for the Communion of the Sick, require no explanation. The consecration of the elements in private houses is in accordance with the practice of the early Christians, who not only carried the Eucharist from the church to those who were unable to attend there, but sometimes also consecrated it in prisons and in sick chambers, for the martyrs and the dying.

The rubric at the end is founded on the direction given in the medieval Office for extreme unction :

Deinde communicetur infirmus nisi prius communicatus fuerit: et nisi de vomitu vel alia irreverentia probabiliter timeatur: in quo casu dicat sacerdos infirmo: Frater, in hoc casu sufficit tibi vera fides, et bona voluntas: tantum crede, et manducasti1.

1 Palmer, Orig. Lit. II. 231.

SECTION V.

THE ORDER FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

rites of

Christians.

THE Christian writings of the first three centuries Funeral take little notice of the rites of burial, which in the early those unsettled and perilous times of the Church were probably brief, and conducted according to no uniform order. Tertullian alludes to the prayers said by the presbyters over the body, and concluded with the kiss of peace. He also mentions oblations for the dead, oblationes pro mortuis'. From writers of the fourth and fifth centuries it appears, that on the way to the place of burial it was customary to sing psalms, and that burial prayers, both eucharistical and commendatory, were said on behalf of the dead; passages of Scripture were read, which contained promises of the Resurrection; sometimes the Eucharist was celebrated; and in special cases a funeral oration was pronounced3.

In framing the present Office, our Church has followed the rule laid down by St Augustine, that not the benefit of the dead, but the edification and comfort of the living, is to be the object of our funeral solemnities. It is true that prayers for the dead were offered by the ancient Christians; prayers, that is to say, for the felicity of those who are at rest in the Lord, not for those who are in a place of torment. The Romish notion of purgatory, and the prayers offered in conformity with that notion, receive no support from the practice of the primitive Church. It is also true that, in the fifth century, the Eucharist was celebrated at the burial 1 De An. 51; De Cor. Mil. 3.

* See Bingham, Ant. XXIII. 3. 8 et seq.; Comber, IV. 361.

of the dead in the Western, though not in the Bingham, Eastern Church. This was the case at the funeral Ant. XXIII. 3. 12. of St Augustine in Africa, and of St Ambrose in Italy. Hence the custom arose of saying masses for the dead, which prevails in the Church of Rome. But as nothing could be found in holy Scripture to sanction prayers for the dead, and many abuses and superstitions had been derived from them in course of ages, they were totally removed from the Service-book of our Church at the revision in 1552.

In what cases this

not be

used.

It is directed by the rubric, that this Office shall Office may not be used for any that die (1) unbaptized, or (2) excommunicate, or (3) for any who by laying violent hands upon themselves, have committed a deadly sin in their last moments'. These three exceptions are to be taken in that sense in which they are by law interpreted; namely, (1) those who have neither received baptism at the hands of spiritual persons, nor of laymen; (2) those who at the time of their death are excommunicate by 'the greater excommunication,' as it is called in the sixty-eighth canon; (3) those who are found by a coroner's jury to have deprived themselves of life. With regard to all persons not included in any of these exceptions, it is charitably presumed, that whatever to outward appearance may have been their lives, they died in communion with the Church, and in the faith and fear of God. There are cases, indeed, in which our fears very much preponderate over our hopes: but in such cases we

1 By the canons of the Anglo-Saxon Church, the burial service was not to be used over perjured persons, adulterers, suicides, &c., Maskell, Mon. Rit. 1. ccxlii. A similar canon was made by the first Council of Bracara, in Spain, in the year 610. See Bingham, Ant. XXIII. 3. 9.

may still hope even against hope;' for we know
not the limits of God's mercy, and cannot tell how
great a change may be wrought in a man's heart
by the immediate approach of death.
It must,

however, be confessed, that there are one or two
passages in the Burial-service, which seem scarcely
appropriate when repeated over the body of a noto-
rious ill-liver, who has died without making any
sign of repentance.

Rubric, either into the Church, or towards the grave.' The latter alternative is often preferred, where the deceased may have died of an infectious disease.

Our Service bears a general resemblance to those of the unreformed rituals, with the important difference alluded to above, that we have retained none of the prayers formerly offered for the welfare of the deceased. Several of those prayers, as well as 'the celebration of the holy Communion when there is a burial of the dead,' were retained in the first Prayer Book of Edward VI., but were omitted in 1552. The office, however, still speaks the language of hope and thanksgiving with regard to the deceased person.

Psalms.

The singing of psalms and anthems formed the The chief part of the funeral office in primitive times. Of the two psalms selected for this purpose by our Church, the thirty-ninth is said to have been composed by David when reproached by Joab for showing his grief at Absalom's death; the ninetieth is attributed to Moses, who composed it in the wilderness, when the children of Israel were smitten with the plague. The comparison of human life to the grass of the field, contained in the latter psalm, may have suggested to the Jews their custom of

S

Casting earth on the body.

Od. I. xxviii.

plucking a handful of grass, as they accompany the body to the grave'.

The custom of casting earth upon the body, commonly repeated three times at the words 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,' reminds us of the ancient custom alluded to by Horace: 'Injecto ter pulvere curras.' But it does not appear that the modern practice is derived from the ancient, or that the resemblance is otherwise than accidental. In the Greek Church the earth was sprinkled over the body by the priest. The Manual of Sarum has the following form, from which ours is partly taken:

Commendo animam tuam Deo, Patri omnipotenti; terram terræ, cinerem cineri, pulverem pulveri; in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.

Familiar as we are with the phrases contained in this beautiful commendation, it may not be out of place to show that they are all authorized by Holy Scripture. Eccles. xii. 7: 'The spirit shall return to God who gave it.' Luke ii. 29: 'Lord, now lettest thou thy servant (avaλves, used also Phil. i. 23). thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.' Acts iv. 2: They preached through Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

depart in peace' Gen. iii. 19: Dust

Mr Wheatly observes, 'The phrase commit his body to the ground, implies, that we deliver it into safe custody, and into such hands as will faithfully restore it again. We do not cast it away as a lost and perished carcase, but carefully lay it in the ground, as having in it a seed of eternity, and in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life; not that we believe that every one we

1 Gregory's Sermon on the Resurrection, ap. Wheatly.