2 THESS. chap. ii. ver. 15.

THE ORDER FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of His great mercy, to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be like unto His glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.-Book of Common Prayer.

It is said that these words are very improper at the burial of wicked men. But, first, since it hath pleased God to declare, that He hath no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather desires that he should turn from his wickedness, and live, Ezek. xviii. 23, 32; we may fairly conclude, that, when it pleases God to take a wicked man out of the world, He does it in mercy, that he may not go on to "heap up wrath to himself against the day of wrath," Rom. ii. 5. Secondly, since Solomon saith of death with respect to all men, "then shall the dust returu to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," Eccles. xii. 7; it follows, that God may be properly said to take the souls of all men, that die to himself, without excepting the most notorious and impenitent offenders. When good men die, He takes them to Himself; that is, to eternal life and happiness: and, though this cannot be said of wicked men, yet it is as true that He takes them to Himself, that is, to His own most righteous and just judgement.-Venue.

When we say, that God has taken a person to himself, we must not be understood to mean, that the person is undoubtedly gone to heaven. For the wise man says of men in general, and consequently of the wicked, whose portion is not in heaven, that at their death "The spirit returns to God who gave it,"Eccles. xii. 7. And if the spirits of all men go to God, then God certainly takes them to Himself.-Dr. Bennet.

of

This phrase, of "committing 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 the resurrection to eternal life:" not that we believe that every one we bury shall rise again to joy and felicity, or profess this sure and certain hope" of the resurrection of the who person is now interred. It is not his resurrection, but the resurrection, that is here expressed...And this being a principal article of our faith, it is highly reasonable, that we should publicly acknowledge and declare our steadfastness in it, when we lay the body of any Christian in the grave.-Wheatly.

66

THE PRAYER BOOK*

THE VOICE OF THE CHURCH,

TO THE MEMBERS OF

The Church of England;

IN LETTERS TO A FRIEND.

LETTER I.

SUCH, my dear Friend, is the title I give to this Letter, in which I most sincerely hope you will find that the difficulties which have of late haunted your mind, are difficulties to those only who will not let the light of honest truth and fair inquiry shine upon their investigations. I pretend not to be able to satisfy those who ask only to cavil, and who are never so happy as when they are finding fault: but I hope better things of you, and believing the difficulties of which you complain, are the natural consequences of the training to which you have been subjected, I shall endeavour to avoid bitterness, and to cultivate peace. Truth will be my first aim: and if I can maintain that without infringing upon feelings hedged in by old prejudices, I shall be truly thankful. I trust at all events

* The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of The Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of The Church, according to the Use of the United Church of England and Ireland.

to be preserved from any the slightest breach of Christian charity, and, without more ado, I will at once state what I conceive to be your difficulty in a substantive form, and then I will endeavour to solve it. You appear, then, to me to be in this dilemma: you feel, with the Psalmist, (cxix. 142.) that God's law is the truth, and you are puzzled to conceive how, from truth, error can be deduced. You see Protestant sects around you all professing implicit deference to the Bible; all avowing that by the Bible, and the Bible alone, will they be guided, and yet each differing from the other so essentially, as to think it worth while to be angry in their disputations. You ask me to explain what I understand by God's law; and how diverse teaching, bearing the apparent authority of Holy Scripture, is to be avoided. These questions I will endeavour to answer in the following pages.

It is possible, an Apostle tells us, to wrest even the blessed Scriptures to our destruction, and inasmuch as all the various classes and denominations which claim the Christian name avow the Bible to be their exclusive rule of faith, it cannot but conduce to edification to resolve the question which determines the manner in which the Holy Scriptures may be said to answer the description given of them, as a lantern unto our feet, and a light unto our paths.

The ALMIGHTY has revealed Himself to man on several occasions, and through the intervention of various agencies. The times are few in which GOD the FATHER has directly conversed with man. Throughout the Old Testament history the second PERSON in the ever Blessed TRINITY for the most part carried on the purposes of Divine Mercy, and hence, if we may venture to spe

culate where no direct reason is assigned, may we suppose HIM to be termed the WORD of GOD. All the earlier intimations of the Divine Will were carried by the direct agency of HIM who afterward suffered as the SAVIOUR of all that believe on HIM, and for many years the tradition handed down from father to son, was the law to the actions, the lamp to guide the feet of GOD's chosen. We have heard with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us, conveys exactly the condition of the early worshippers of JEHOVAH as to the knowledge of His will. And so long as the CREATOR Saw fit to prolong the period of human existence to the length which He ordered in the early ages of the world, the possibility of error creeping into a statement was very limited. But, when the number of man's days was shortened, and the change was rapidly taking place, which was to make three score years and ten, the goal in the race of human life, which can only be overshot with a spent and wearied strength; then the word of the LORD was no longer trusted to UN-written tradition. The HOLY GHOST then began to speak by the Prophets. The Law and the Testimony were written and made permanent, and the will of the ALMIGHTY was henceforward to be sought in the written records of His Church, the books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms. And so things went on until "in the fulness of time CHRIST came." "The WORD was made flesh and dwelt with man.' "In HIM there was an end of the Law for righteousness unto all that believe in HIM." HE came to promulge a new dispensation, and to deliver a new message from heaven. Another important epoch in the Church of GOD was completed, and henceforth CHRIST was to be openly the HEAD over

all things to the Church. A fresh revelation of the Divine Mind was to be made, and as in the former instances, so in this, living men were the agents employed. Our LORD instructed His Apostles and and commissioned them to go forth and instruct others. The Gospel was passed on from mouth to mouth, and as long as the Apostles lived to whom, as men inspired of GOD, appeal could be made, the saints were edified, the household of faith was built up, without the Scriptures of the New Testament being gathered into canon.* Oral instruction, so long as its purity could be guaranteed, was a sufficient proclamation of Gospel truth. And therefore it was not until the hand of death had deprived the Church of inspired men to speak, that she, who is the "Pillar and ground of Truth," sought out what these gifted worthies had written, and thus became the "Witness and keeper of Holy Writ." It was not until some years after the disciple whom JESUS loved had concluded the last of the sacred writings, that they were thus gathered into one volume, but thenceforward the New Testament became to the Christian Church what the Old Testament had previously been to the Jews. As under the elder dispensation of the Law, the HOLY SPIRIT Spake by the Prophets: so under the newer economy of the Gospel, HE has spoken by the Evangelists and Apostles, and if we would find that Word which the Psalmist assures us is The Truth, we need not doubt but that it is contained in our Bibles, in all necessary fulness.

But here arises the further question, by what process are we to ascertain the precise meaning of Holy Scripture? How are we to know what is

* i. e. Without their being collected into one book as authoritative documents, binding upon the faithful.