IN the Jewish religion there were no sacred rites appointed for the dead, or performed at sepulture. Although the Jews were placed under a dispensation highly ceremonial, although the external observances of their worship reached to every department of society, and mingled with almost every duty and every event of their life, it is deserving of particular notice that their divine ritual prescribed nothing to be done at the moment of death or in the act of interment. They had no burial service. He who provided that Moses should be interred secretly, so that “no man knoweth of his sepulture to this day,” lest the Jews should have abused it to idolatry, wisely and graciously guarded against a practice which He foresaw would easily degenerate into superstition. When they began to lose the purity of their religion, one way in which they corrupted themselves was by joining in the funeral services and commemorations of the heathen—by “eating the sacrifices of the dead,” and “weeping for Tammuz.”
- This is an extract from the elder Dr MacCrie’s famous pamphlet, “Free Thoughts on the Religious Celebration of the Funeral of the Princess Charlotte.” The Princess’s death produced a sensation on the public mind, and the Court papers, calculating on this, announced that on the day of the funeral, Wednesday, 19th November, 1817, the churches throughout the whole country were to be opened for divine service. The Magistrates of Edinburgh, with the consent of some of the ministers, issued a proclamation to this effect on the preceding Monday. Dr Andrew Thomson’s Church, St George’s, however, was not opened. Immediately Dr Thomson was assailed and his character attacked. Dr MacCrie came forward to defend his friend, and in the above pamphlet he shows that the Edinburgh solemnity was but a clumsy imitation of the Church of England Burial Service. His biographer says: “These reasonings were considered so conclusive in vindication of Dr Thomson, that the voice of censure was hushed and nothing more was heard on the subject.—(“Life of Dr MacCrie,” p. 230)—EDITOR.
There was no funeral service among the primitive Christians. When our Saviour died, Joseph of Arimathea, a counsellor, and Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, obtained permission to inter Him, and they performed this office with all due reverence and honour. They brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight, and took the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.” But they performed no religious service over Him. And when the women came to His sepulchre, early on the first day of the week, it was not to pray, or read, or sing over it, but “to anoint His body with the spices they had prepared.” In the case of the first person who was honoured to fall a martyr to Christianity, we are informed that “devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.” But devout as they were, and deeply as they lamented his loss, we do not read of them performing a single religious act or rite over his grave. Nor is there the slightest vestige in the New Testament of any such practice among the primitive Christians.
But the worship of the Christian Church, it is well known, was not suffered long to stand on the base of its original simplicity. The history of its corruption, of the causes from which this proceeded, and the extent to which it grew, forms one of the most humiliating, but, at the same time, most instructive branches of study; and the lessons which it reads, and the beacons which it holds up to future generations, ought never to be lost sight of, or forgotten. From motives the most pious, and with intentions the most innocent and laudable, practices were indulged in and sentiments were generated, which superstition, in alliance with priestcraft, improved to rear a dominion unparalleled in the annals of mankind. It is impossible to describe one of the most fertile sources of this corruption better than in the words of a judicious historian in giving an account of the rites and ceremonies added to the Christian worship during the second century:—”These changes, while they destroyed the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel, were naturally pleasing to the gross multitude, who are more delighted with the pomp and splendour of external institutions than with the native charms of rational and solid piety, and who generally give little attention to any objects but those which strike their outward senses. But other reasons may be added to this, which, though they suppose no bad intentions, yet manifest a considerable degree of precipitation and imprudence. And here we may observe, in the first place, that there is a high degree of probability in the notion of those who think that the bishops augmented the number of religious rites in the Christian worship, by way of accommodation to the infirmities and prejudices, both of Jews and Heathens, in order to facilitate their conversion to Christianity. Both Jews and Heathens were accustomed to a vast variety of pompous and magnificent ceremonies in their religious service; and as they considered these rights an essential part of religion, it is but natural that they should behold with indifference, and even with contempt, the simplicity of the Christian worship, which was destitute of these idle ceremonies that rendered their service so specious and striking. To remove, then, in some measure, this prejudice against Christianity, the bishops thought it necessary to increase the number of rites and ceremonies, and thus to render the public worship more striking to the outward senses” (Mosheim’s “Church History,” cent. ii., part ii.).
The rites of sepulture introduced into Christian worship were borrowed, not from the Jews, but from the Heathens. The Greeks and Romans paid the utmost attention to these; and the want of them they considered as the severest curse that their gods could inflict. Hence, of all deaths, that by shipwreck was deemed the most awful. Among others, the following ceremonies may be mentioned:—Supplications addressed to the god whose province it was to carry the spirit of death—the invocation of the manes, or calling on the dead at regular intervals—the ringing of bells or brazen vessels at the moment of dissolution, to drive away the furies—the putting a small coin into the mouth of the deceased, to pay for his passage across the infernal river—the funeral oration in praise of the dead—the carrying of torches in the procession to the grave—the sacrifices—the oblations of honey, milk, and wine—the erection of a small altar before the sepulchre, on which incense was burnt, and libations made, both occasional and stated—the lustrations and funeral feast, which were prolonged or repeated on the anniversaries of the interment, and celebrated with great intemperance and excess.
The greater part of these rites were accommodated to the Christian religion, and adopted into the worship of the Church. This was not, indeed, done all at once; but the spirit of superstition is restless and encroaching, and when once admitted, none can predict where it will stop. Those who have unwarily let it loose possess no control over it, and cannot say: “Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further.” One superstitious rite paves the way for another, and one superstitious opinion generates seven worse and more monstrous than itself. The Primitive Christians, from regard for those who suffered death for the Gospel, began to perform their funeral obsequies with great solemnity. They visited their tombs, they held their assemblies for worship at them, they celebrated the anniversary of their martyrdom. The prayers and commemorations at the funeral of martyrs (which came to be extended to all who died in the faith) were at first confined to thanksgivings for their deliverance and glorification, with supplications that those who survived might be enabled to follow their example. But prayers over the dead were soon succeeded by prayers for them; and produced in due time the doctrines of purgatory, penances, pardons, the merit of masses, obits and dirges, canonization, saints’ days, prayers to the dead, the collecting and worshipping of relics, pretended miracles, and a thousand absurdities of the same pernicious description.
Our ancestors, at the Reformation, wisely resolved to strike at the root of this system of corruption and imposture as the only effectual way of getting rid of the evils which it had entailed on them, and of guarding against their return. Upon this principle they completely abolished, not only the funeral service, which they justly regarded as having been a powerful instrument in the hands of superstition and priestcraft, but also holy days, the hierarchy, the use as well as the names of the five popish sacraments, with a multitude of other ceremonies, which, though introduced with the view, or under the pretext, of decorating and recommending divine worship, tend, in fact, to tarnish its beauty, and to reduce and exhaust its spirit. This thorough reform constitutes the high distinction of Scotland among the Protestant Churches. Its beneficial influence has extended to all departments of society—it has improved our temporal as well as our spiritual welfare, it has freed us from many galling impositions, which diminish the comforts, and fret the spirits of other nations. It may be seen in the superior information of our people, in their freedom from childish fears and vulgar prejudices, in the purity of their morals, and in that practical regard which, unconstrained by forms and unattached by show, they voluntarily pay to the ordinances of religion. One of the worst symptoms of our state, and which may justly cause foreboding apprehensions, is that we are not duly sensible of our privileges, nor aware of the cause to which, under Providence, we are principally to ascribe them; and that there are many among us whose conduct gives too much ground for suspect, that they would be ready to part, at a very cheap rate, with those privileges which their fathers so dearly won. . . .
To the argument from the abuse of a burial service, some think it sufficient to reply, “The age of superstition is past; there is now no danger from that quarter; why should we be afraid of a bugbear?” This is the light talk of superficial thinkers, and of such as are glad to find a plausible excuse for accommodating measures. No man who had an extensive acquaintance with the history of religion, and an intimate knowledge of human nature, ever reasoned after this manner. If such persons were capable of thinking, or if they would allow themselves to think for a moment, they would be aware that there was a time when the primitive Church was as exempt from superstition as even Scotland has been since the Reformation, and when there was as much reason to deride the fears of its introduction as there is at present. Was he a fool or an alarmist who said: “The thing that hath been is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done; and there is no new thing under the sun?” Is it wisdom to throw away all the instruction which former ages have treasured up for us? Is it fortitude, or is it fool-hardiness, to rush on actions which formerly betrayed multitudes into “temptation and a snare?”
Wait on the Lord.
“They shall mount up.” If you cannot fly, endeavour to run without wearying; if you cannot run, endeavour to walk without fainting; if you cannot walk because of your broken leg, creep to the Great Physician with it, and hold out the broken leg, the withered arm, to Him. If you cannot creep will you cry to Him. “He hath not said to the seed of Jacob seek ye Me in vain.” If you cannot cry will you look to Him: “Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” If you cannot look to Him will you long for Him. “He satisfieth the longing soul.” Sigh, sob, and groan after Him, and if after all you feel you can do nothing; because of your absolute weakness, then “wait upon the Lord, and He shall renew your strength.” Wait on Him in the use of means, lie at the pool, and you know not how soon you shall have strength to “mount.” “Wait, I say, on the Lord.”—Ralph Erskine.