Burial Rites
Pulter’s hopeful anticipation of the second coming, when Christ will defeat death and sin, recalls the words spoken at English burial services in the first half of the seventeenth century. Priests or clerks were directed to follow a prescribed set of prayers and readings from scripture to ensure uniformity of worship throughout England. These prayers and the exact sequence or “Order for the Burial of the Dead” were printed in The Book of Common Prayer. Some selections from the burial service that emphasized the promise of the resurrection after death are excerpted below:
The Priest meeting the corps at the Church stile, shall say, or else the Priest and Clerks shall sing, and so go either unto the Church or towards the grave.
John 11
I am the resurrection and the life, sayeth the Lord. He that believeth in me, yea though he were dead, yet shall
he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall not die forever.
Job 19
I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise out of the earth in the last day, and shall be covered
again with my skin, and shall see God in my flesh: yea, and I myself shall behold him, not with other, but with
these same eyes. (sig. T4r)
Later in the ceremony, the officiate reads from 1 Corinthians 15:
Then shall follow this Lesson, taken out of the 15 Chapter to the Corinthians, the first Epistle.
Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that sleep. For by a man came death, and by a man came the resurrection of the dead. For as by Adam all die, even so by Christ shall all be made alive, but every man in his own order. The first is Christ, then they that are Christ’s at his coming: then cometh the end, when he hath delivered up the kingdom to God the Father, when he hath put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign until he have put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
… But some man will say, how arise the dead? With what body shall they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest, is not quickened except it die. And what sowest thou? Thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare corn, as of wheat or some other: but God giveth it a body at his own pleasure, to every seed his own body. All flesh is not one manner of flesh: but there is one manner of flesh of men, another manner of flesh of beasts, another of fish, another of birds. … So is the resurrection of the dead. It is sowen in corruption, it riseth again in incorruption. It is sowen in dishonor, it riseth again in honor. It is sowen in weakness, it riseth again in power. It is sowen a natural body, it riseth again a spiritual body.
… For the trumpet shall blow, and the dead shall rise incorruptible, and we shall be changed: For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. When this corruptible hath put on incorruption, and this mortal hath put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up into victory: Death, where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the Law. But thanks be unto God, which hath given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore my dear brethren be steadfast and unmovable. (sigs. T4v-T5v)