Let us pray. PRAYER. GOD, whose days are without end, and whose mercies can not be numbered: Make us, we beseech Thee, deeply sensible of the shortness and uncertainty of human life; and let Thy Holy Spirit lead us through this vale of misery, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our lives: that when we shall have served Thee in our generation, we may be gathered unto our fathers, having the testimony of a good conscience; in the communion of the Christian Church; in the confidence of a certain faith; in the comfort of a reasonable, religious, and holy hope; in favour with Thee our God, and in perfect charity with the world: all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN. THE grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. AMEN. THE SERVICE AT THE GRAVE. AN goeth to his long home, and the mourners go MAN about the streets. What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? Shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write: Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. At the time of burial, the Minister shall say: HE dust returns to dust, and the spirit unto God THE who gave it: therefore do we now commit the body of our departed brother to the earth [or deep] until that hour when earth and sea shall give up their dead, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ to judge the world. Let us pray. A LMIGHTY and Everlasting God! we Thine un upon us. worthy servants beseech Thee for Christ's sake to have mercy upon us. From the borders of the grave we cry unto Thee; for Christ's sake have mercy It hath pleased Thee to call out of this world the soul of our departed friend, whose body we have now brought for his burial. We humbly entreat Thee that we may with true penitence of heart receive the warning of Thy providence, and consider that by reason of our guilt it is appointed unto us to die, and that in a moment when we think not we may appear before Thee. Yea, Lord, by reason of our sins we lie in the midst of death. Spare us, O Lord, O most pitiful and long-suffering Lord God, spare us a little longer, that we may take refuge in Christ, abiding in Him, that when He shall appear we may have confidence, and not be ashamed at His coming. O Merciful God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, suffer none of us to live without godliness and die without hope; but constrain us mightily by Thy love that we, being renewed by Thy grace, and accepted through Christ's intercession, may walk before Thee in newness of life, and praise Thee for ever among the Assembly of the Elect, where there shall be no more death, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away: which we implore for the sake of Him who has taught us to say, OUR UR Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but de And forgive us our debts, as we forgive liver us from evil: For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. BENEDICTION. NOW the God of Peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd |