stoln thief. He did so, and escaped the present danger, to poffefs a Love which might change as violently as her griet had done. But so I have feen a Crowd of difordered People rush violently and in heaps till their utmost border was restrained by a wall, or had spent the fury of their first fluctuation and watry progrefs, and by and by it returned to the contrary with the fame earnestness, only because it was violent and ungoverned. A raging Paffion is the Crowd, which, when it is not under discipline and the conduct of Reason, and the proportions of temperate humanity, runs paffionately the way it happens, and by and by as greedily to another fide, being swayed by its own weight, and driven any whither by chance, in all its pursuits having no rule, but to do all it can, and spend it felf in haste, and expire with fome shame and much undecency.

When thou hast wept a while, compose the body to Burial: which that it be done gravely, decently and charitably, we have the example of all Nations to engage us, and of all ages of the World to warrant: fo that it is against common honesty, and publick fame and reputation, not to do this Office.

It is good that the Body be kept veiled and fecret, and not exposed to curious eyes, or the dishonours wrought by the changes of death difcerned and stared upon by impertinent persons. When Cyrus was dying, he called his Sons and Friends to take their leave, to touch his hand, to fee him the last time, and gave in charge, that when he had put his veil over his face no Man should uncover it. And Epiphanius his Body was rescued from inquifitive eyes by a miracle. Let it be interred after the (*) manner of the Country, and the laws of the place, and the dignity of the person.

For fo Jacob was buried with great folemnity, and Jo

(*) Νόμοις ἔπεθαι τοῖσιν ἐγχώροις καλῶς.

Τύμβον δ' ἐ μάλα πολλὸν ἐγὼ πονεέπαι

(ανοιγα,

Iliad..

feph's bones were carried in- ̓Αλλ ̓ ὀλπεικία τοῖον.

to Canaan, after they had

been embalmed and kept four hundred years; and de

vout men carried S. Stephen to his Burial, making great

lamentation over him. And Ælian tells, that those

who

Lib. 6. Var. hiftor. cap.6. Tès τελέως ἀριςεύσαντας ἐν φοινικίδι ταφῆναι.

who were the most excellent persons were buried in Purple; and men of an ordinary courage and fortune had their graves only trimmed with branches of Olive, and mourning flowers. But when Mark Anthony gave the body of Brutus to his freed-man to be buried honestly, he gave also his own Mantle to be thrown into his funeral Pile: and the magnificence of the old Funeral we may fee largely defcrib'd by Virgil in the Obfequies of Misenus, and by Homer in the funeral of Patroclus. It was noted for piety in the Men of Fabesh Gilead, that they shewed kindness to their Lord Saul, and buried him; and they did it honourably. And our bleffed Saviour, who was temperate in his expence, and grave in all the parts of his Life and Death, as age and fobriety it felf, yet was pleased to admit the cost of Mary's Ointment upon his head and feet, because she did it against his Burial: And though the little thought it had been to nigh, yet because he accepted it for that end, he knew he had made her Apology sufficient; by which he remarked it to be a great act of piety, and honourable to interr our Friends and Relatives according to the proportions of their condition, and to to give a testimony of our hope of their Refurrection. So far is piety, beyond it may be the oftentation and

Cum quid fibi faza cavata
quid pulchra volunt monumenta,
nifi quòd res creditur illis
non mortua, fed data fomno?

Pred, hymn. in Exeq. defunct.

bragging of a grief, or a design to ferve worse ends. Such was that of Herod, when he made too studied and elaborate a Funeral for Ariftobulus whom he had murthered; and of Regulus for his Boy, at whose pile he killed Dogs, Nightingales, Parrots, and little Horses: And such also was

Cupit omnia ferre
Prodigus, & totos melior fuccendere cenfus,
Defertas exofus apes

Statius lib. 2. Sylvar.

the expence of some of the Romans, who hating their left wealth, gave order by their Testament to have

huge portions of it thrown into their fires, bathing their locks, which were presently to pass through the fire, with Arabian and Ægyptian Liquors, and Balfain of Judea. In this, as in every thing elle, as our

Piety must not pass into Superstition or vain expence, so neither must the excess be turned into parfimony, and chastised by negligence and impiety to the memo

ry of their dead.

cus contem

in noftris,

Cicero.

But nothing of this concerns the dead in real and ef- Totus hic lo fective purposes; nor is it with care to be provided for nendus eft in by themselves: But it is the duty of the living. For to nobis, non them it is all one whether they be carried forth upon a negligendus chariot or a wooden bier, whether they rot in the air or in the earth, whether they be devoured by fishes or Id cinerem by worms, by birds or by fepulchral dogs, by water or aut manes by fire, or by delay. When Criton ask'd Socrates how fepultos? he would be buried, he told him, I think I shall escape from you, and that you cannot catch me; but so much of me as you can apprehend, use it as you see cause for, and bury it; but however do it according to the Laws. There is nothing in this

credis curare

but opinion and the decency of "Ὅπως ἂν σοι φίλον ἢ, κῷ μάλισα fame to be ferved. Where it is ἡγῆ νόμιμον εἶναι.

esteemed an honour and the manner of blessed people to descend into the Graves of their Fathers, there also

Iliad. ú.

it is reckoned as a curse Fugientibus Trojanis minatus est Hector. to be buried in a strange Αὐτε οἱ θάνατον μητίσσομαι, ἐδέ νυ τόνγε Land, or that the Birds of (νόντα, the air devour them. Some Γνωτοί τε γνωταί τε πορός λελάχωσι θαnations used to eat the bo- ̓Αλλὰ κύνες ἐρύκσι πρὸ ἄσεθ ἡμετέροιο dies of their friends and esteemed that the most honoured Sepulture; but they were barbarous. The Magi never buried any but fuch as were torn of beasts. The Persians besmeared their dead with wax, and the Ægyptians with gums, and with great art did condite the bodies, and laid them in charnel-houses. But Cyrus the elder would none of all this, but gave command that his body should be inter

red, not laid in a Coffin of gold

Τί γδ τότε μακαριώτερο", τη γῇ μιχθῆναι, ἡ πάντα μὲν τὰ καλὰ πάντα τ ̓ ἀγαθὰ φύει τε κα τρέφει Xenoph. δεί παιδ. Sit tibi terra levis, mollique tegaris arena, Ut tua non poflint eruere offa canes.

• Nam quòd requiefcere corpus

Vacuum fine mente videmus,
Spatium breve restat, ut alti
Repetat collegia fenfus
Hinc maxima cura fepulchris
Impenditur

behalf of the dead is, that they be buried in holy ground, that is, in appointed Cemeteries, in places of Religion, there where the field of God is fown with the feeds of the Refurrection, * that their bodies also may be among the Christians, with whom their hope and their portion is, and shall be for ever. Quicquid feceris, omnia hac eodem ventura funt. That we are fure of; our bodies shall all be restored to our Souls hereafter, and in the interval they shall all be turned into dust, by what way foever you or your

Prud. hymn. in Exeq. defunct.

Marmoreo Licinus tumulo jacet, at Cato parvo,
Pompeius nullo: credimus efle Deos ?

chance shall dress them. Licinus the freed-man slept

Varro Atacinus. in a Marble Tomb; but Cato in a little one, Pompey in none: and yet They had the best fate among the Romans, and a memory of the biggest honour. And it may happen that to want a Monument may best preserve their memories, while the fucceeding ages shall by their instances remember rem the changes of the World, and the dishonours of Death, and the equality of the dead. And * James the Fourth, King of the Scots, obtained an Epi

• Fama orbem replet, mortem fors occulit, at tu
Define fcrutari quod tegit offa folum.

Si mihi dent animo non impar fata fepulchrum;
Angusta est tumulo terra Britanna meo.

taph for wanting of a Tomb; and King Stephen is
remembred with a fad story, because four hundred
years after his death his bones were thrown into a
River, that evil men might sell the leaden Coffin.
It is all one in the final event of things. Ninus the
Affyrian had a Monument erected whose height was
nine furlongs, and the breadth ten, (faith Diodo-
dorus:) but John the Baptist had more honour, when
was humbly laid in the Earth between the bodies of
Abdias and Elizeus. And S. Ignatius, who was buried
in the bodies of Lions, and S. Polycarp, who was
burned to ashes, shall have their bones, and their
flesh again, with greater comfort than those vio-

Cernit ibi mæstos & mortis honore carentes
Leucafpim, & Lyciæ ductorem claffis Orontem.

lent persons who slept among Kings, having ufurÆneid. 6. ped their Thrones when they

they were alive, and their sepulchres when they were dead.

Concerning doing honour to the dead, the confideration is not long. Anciently the friends of the dead used to make their funeral

Orations, and what

Luftravitque viros, dixitque noviffima verba,

they spake of greater commendation, was pardoned upon the accounts of feiendship: But when Chriftianity seised upon the poffeffion of the World, this charge was devolved upon Priefts and Bishops, and they first kept the custom of the World, and adorned it with the piety of Truth and of Religion; but they also ordered it that it should not be cheap; for they made funeral Sermons only at the death of Princes, or of fuch holy Persons who shall judge the Angels. The custom defcended, and in the chanels mingled with the veins of Earth through which it paffed: and now-a-days men that die are commended at a price, and the measure of their Legacy is the degree of their Vertue. But these things ought not fo to be : the reward of the greatest vertue ought not to be prostitute to the doles of common persons, but preserved like Laurel and Coronets, to remark and encourage the noblest things. Persons of an ordinary life should neither be prais'd publickly, nor reproached in private: for it is an office and charge of humanity to speak no evil of the dead, (which, I fuppose, is meant concerning things not publick and evident;) but then neither should our charity to them teach us to tell a lye, or to make a great flame from a heap of rushes and mushromes, and make Orations crammed with the narrative of little obfervances, and acts of civil, and necessary, and eternal Religion.

Æneid.

1

But that which is most confiderable is, that we should do something Χαῖρέ μοι, ὦ Πάτροκλε, κὶ εἶν ̓ Αίδαο δέμοσι, for the dead, fome- Πάντα γδ ήδη τοι τελέω τὰ πάροιθεν ὑπές ζω. thing that is real and Iliad. 4.

of proper advantage. That we perform their Will, the Laws oblige us, and will fee to it; but that we do all those parts of personal duty which our dead left unperformed, and to which the laws do not oblige us, is an act of great charity and perfect kindness: and it may redound