One section in the Directory is "Concerning visitation of the sick." It is observed that times of affliction are special opportunities put into the minister's hands to communicate a word in season to weary souls, and topics of spiritual address and advice are largely suggested for his guidance in conducting conversation in the chamber of disease and death. The minister is directed to admonish the patient to set his house in order, to make provision for the payment of his debts, to render satisfaction for any wrong he has done, to be reconciled to his enemies, and to forgive all men their trespasses. The minister also would, in addition to this, according to the instructions given in the Directory, improve the occasion for the spiritual benefit of relatives, friends, or servants present; but no mention is made, in any way, of the administration of the Lord's supper, which, being then regarded exclusively as a Church ordinance, both by Presbyterians and Independents, would not be deemed a proper solemnity for a few persons around a sick bed. But in numerous cases, beyond all doubt, the sacrament would be administered secretly by Anglican clergymen to persons of their own communion in the last hours of life.
The End of Life.
The Episcopal burial service could not be used—a hardship which can be appreciated by those, who, in the present day, occasionally find enactments and prejudices interfering with their sentiments of natural piety.[442] The custom of kneeling down by the side of the corpse was pronounced by the Presbyterians to be superstitious; and all praying, reading, and singing at funerals was forbidden. The minister was directed simply to put people in mind of their duty of applying "themselves to meditation and conferences suitable to the occasion." Funeral sermons incurred from certain Divines strong objections. The Puritans, Cartwright and Hildersam, had scrupled to allow them, and some Reformed Churches abroad had abandoned their use. The Westminster Assembly debated the question, and Baillie reports, that the difference upon this point between the Scotch and some of the English brethren appeared irreconcilable. Funeral sermons, he adds, were an abuse of preaching, intended to humour the rich for reward, and employed in order to augment the minister's livelihood; and, on these accounts, he says, that they could not easily be got rid of. Yet, notwithstanding this strong feeling against religious ceremonies at funerals, many public ones are recorded in those times as having been conducted on a scale of splendour surpassing anything we are familiar with now-a-days. Pym's was very imposing; but in magnificence it was eclipsed by the processions and formalities at the interment of the Earl of Essex, Ireton, Blake, and Oliver Cromwell. Indeed, sometimes there seems to have been an unusual love of display manifested at the tomb of a Puritan grandee. In the British Museum is a curious deposition by a herald, relative to the funeral of John St. John; that functionary declares it to have been in violation of all heraldic laws, insomuch that the escutcheons went beyond those pertaining to a duke, and that he never saw so many pennons, except at the funeral of one of the blood royal.[443]
Far different, and far more touching, were the obsequies of the Master of St. Paul's School: as he died a single man, the boys walked before the corpse with white gloves, verses being hung upon the pall instead of escutcheons.[444]
CHAPTER XV.
Sometimes, by the shore of a lake, the eye catches prismatic effects upon the ripples, as if chains and rings of gold, and green, and crimson, were thickly scattered in fragments over the surface, whilst weeds lie plain enough beneath, covering the bottom of the mountain-girdled waters. Little creations and images of the glorious light above are those ripples; and no unapt illustration do they afford of the varieties of spiritual life in this lower world; for all these varieties are really reflections of the Sun of Righteousness—reflections manifold, always imperfect and sometimes confused, and ever found with the weeds of fallen humanity growing underneath them.
The religious history of the Commonwealth abounds in specimens of such varieties: we proceed to furnish further instances of these, not only from Anglo-Catholic and Puritan biographies, but from others in which there is the absence of either peculiarity, or a blending of the two.