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Funeral Sermons

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 21, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 23.

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Funeral Sermons.

By JOS. CLARKE.

I HAVE heard many. They seem to me all well enough; but over the corpse of a dear friend is no place to bring up abstract and disputed points of doctrine. So it seems to me. If we do it, our opponents will do the same to a greater extent.
People come to a funeral to sympathize; to show civility, friendship, love. They often feel shocked at hearing a single discourse embrace a great many important points, which a single discourse cannot fully elucidate. One discourse can at best but open the subject. A funeral sermon, as I view it, should be a familiar talk to those in distress, a eulogy, if possible, consolatory and awakening; alarming and comforting; everything but doctrinal. People cannot reason much at such a time.
An address, solemn, sweet, elevating, is timely, or a chapter from the Bible may suffice; but I would not that an advocate of error should have an opportunity to deceive, given at the grave of a friend of truth.
The resurrection is properly introduced on such an occasion. The fourteenth chapter of Job is a good funeral sermon, good enough for the funeral of a prince.
JOS. CLARKE.