A MAN of great learning, who from the Synodical association had gone over to the church of Rome, recently entered the complaint, that among us, Protestants, the body of our dead was so carelessly handled.
He supposed that the separation of soul and body in dying was not yet entire, and that the separated soul therefore still needed some time, to withdraw itself altogether from the body, or to get away from the room and the house, where the body was; and that therefore it must be so painful to our dead, to have their body left alone in the dark, with no one to stay by, to pray and keep watch.
For this reason Rome’s practices appealed to him. For in Romish families candles are burned by the side of the corpse, and family-members or else sisters of charity as a rule remain until burial, by day and by night, to keep watch over the corpse and to pray by its side.
Now let it be said at once, that this watching over a corpse is more a matter of luxury. When Protestant princes or princesses die, lights are kept burning in the same way by the side of the corpse, and in like manner the royal corpse is watched by night and by day; while on the other hand in poorer families also among the Romish oftentimes little comes of this watching over the dead.
To a certain extent this splendid watching over a corpse is more closely related to the so-called splendor ecclesiæ, i.e., with the tendency in Rome’s church, in every domain to appear with certain splendor.
Yet there is more in it than this.
The Romish representation expresses itself herein, that the transition from this life into blessedness is not at once consummated after death; but that after death a certain middle-state ensues, which is called purgatory; and that it is by the good offices of the church on earth, that the souls of the departed are delivered from purgatory.
Therefore Rome prays for her dead. Therefore she says masses for the dead. And therefore the relatives of the departed still offer all sorts of offerings and do good works, in the quiet confidence that these are to the good of the departed, and ameliorate their sufferings.
However touching this may seem, and whatever aftermath of love may express itself herein, it implies, that Rome thinks of her dead after death as in a state of suffering, from which only gradually they can be delivered, while we, with our fathers, confess, that he who dies blessed in the Lord, tastes eternal joy from his latest breath on.
And when you ask, what has the stronger appeal to the human heart, after death to be aware of much touching love in connection with the corpse, the whiles one is himself in purgatory, or immediately after dissolution to be with the Lord, then surely our Reformed confession with respect to this carries away the crown.
Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord, from now on!
WITH this, however, all Protestant practice is by no means approved.
Not infrequently one has accustomed himself to a treatment of the corpse, which altogether antagonizes the claims of love and piety.
Then, as soon as death has entered, everything that is to be done is left to strangers. In times past these were neighbors; but now for the most part hired and paid persons. With these men there is no heart; and, by this constant care for the dead, human feeling is not infrequently hardened. What part strong drink plays in some places as a rule with this lugubrious business. And then, alas, the cases are not rare, that a corpse is made game of, and is treated in an irreverent manner.
And this must not be so. This is violation of the respect, which is due a corpse, because it is human. Herein speaks lack of awe in the presence of death. A brutality that wounds and offends.
Children of God will have nothing to do with veneration of a corpse. An exhibition of a corpse on a bed of state is offensive to them. Flowers and wreaths belong with the cradle and with the bridal gown, but never at the bier of the dead. That continual touch and kiss of the corpse is an expression of passion, which must be restrained, and held back.
Holy calm and quiet seriousness is the mood of mind and heart, suitable at the bier of our dead.
But that quiet, seriousness of mood will not tolerate injury, by what hurts or hinders the feeling.
And therefore with a corpse away with all exhibition of show, but also with a corpse becoming reverence for the dead.
GOD Himself appoints the moment, when you shall turn yourself away from the dead.
Immediately after death the corpse has something about it that attracts. And especially a few hours later, when our dead has been laid out, a corpse can be very beautiful, especially in contrast with the painful expression, that preceded dying. Only at the touch you feel, that the warmth of life has left, and the chill of death has followed, and that what lies before you, is not alive but dead. But for the rest you still seek the living person in it. It seems as though the face still speaks to you. And it would not seem strange, if the eye opened itself for a moment and the mouth would say a last farewell to you.
As long as this touchingly beautiful condition continues, God Himself in and by the corpse invites you, to prolong your tarrying with your dead. It does not repel as yet. It can still charm you. In holy quiet to gaze upon it, affects you beneficently.
There is then no corruption yet. And therefore you have no thought of burial yet; even if for no other reason, than to make sure, that you are not dealing with one only apparently dead.
That beautiful corpse is still dear to you.
But that does not last long. With sickness that affected the blood, even but a very short time. And soon upon the pale marble of the corpse appear the blue, and presently the black-red spots. Dissolution goes on apace. What was shortly ago beautiful, becomes offensive and ghastly. Also the odor of death, that exhales from the corpse, tells you, that the corpse no more belongs to you, that it must be put away in the grave.
BUT … and with the touching parting from the corpse this is our boast and glory, we know, that, however deeply that corpse goes under in corruption and dissolution, it yet is sown.
It is no unsightly mass, that is cast away, to be rid of it. To bury is to sow in the acre of the dead. Confiding to the earth a self-dissolving corpse, that perishes, but in that corpse a germ, that is sown, that, when Christ comes back upon the clouds, at the resurrection of the flesh, that germ also will be made to unfold.
The soul of the departed, of course, does not suffer for a moment under this entrance upon corruption and that going down into the grave.
Our soul has an existence of her own, that in creation is bound to the body, and once shall go hand in hand again with a bodily existence; but the soul can be loosened by God from the body, as He once joined her to it; and as soon as death entered in and was consummated, whatever happens to the body, no more concerns the soul. Whether the corpses of our martyrs have been burned to ashes, or whether the corpses of our sailors have been devoured by sharks, the soul knows nothing of it. And God the Lord is able to watch over the germ of that corpse, altogether independent of whether the sea devours it or that fire consumes it. Also in that depth of the sea, and also in the crackling of the stake a sowing goes on.
Sown in corruption (I Cor, 15, 42) as every kernel of wheat must perish and must be unbound, that from it the blade might spring up; but yet in that corruptibility sown, so that from that wheatseed springs a new plant, and from that perished body of your dead proceeds once a new body.
THE soul of him who passes away, consummates her lot in dying itself.
For that soul everything depends upon the Mediator, the one and all forever on the Son of God.
If, before she separated from the body, one life’s-and faith’s-tie bound her to the Man of Sorrows, the King of glory, then death itself cuts off for her all fellowship with sin, and no valley of the shadow of death, and no Satan who wants to destroy us, can separate us from the love of Christ. Then she is unbound, to be forever with the Savior.
About the other case we prefer to maintain silence. It is so terrible. A soul that dies apart from Jesus. Nothing in all eternity binds her any more to the full-blessed Mediator. And no prayers or supplications on the part of those who remained behind can anymore save that soul from the eternal perdition.
Here, before dying, it must be decided forever.
But if he who dies, passed away in Jesus, be it the child by yet unconscious grace, be it the adult by conscious faith, that had germinated from that grace, then that same Savior, Who has the soul in His keeping, watches also over your dust, that is confided to the earth, and you may commend the mortal remains of your dead to your Savior.
For what must perish in corruptibility, that it might be sown, shall once be raised in incorruptibility.
And that does not proceed as a process, that runs of itself. Also the kernel of wheat does not spring up of itself, but God brings up that wheatseed from its grave.
And so also it shall be here.
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and so all that is corruptible in the corpse of your dead may freely perish, and, dissected in its parts, be absorbed by the earth.
Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return.
But what in that corpse constitutes the germ of the body, and hence is sown in that grave, that Christ shall once quicken.
Thus sounds the glorious word of promise, that by His apostle He has proclaimed to all the children of God:
“Who shall change our humiliated body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working, whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself” (Phil. 3, 21).
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