That it is lawfull to praise the Dead. [ 182]
IT is said of the Aethiopians,* 1.1 that they make Sepulchers of glasse; for after they have dryed the corps, they artificially paint it, and set it in a glased coffin, that all that passe by may see the whole frame and lineaments of the body, and this is com∣mended in them. But surely, they deserve better of the dead, and more benefit of the living, who draw the lineaments of their minde, and represent their vertues and graces in a Mirrour of Art and Learning:* 1.2 And they are as much to blame on the other side, that out of the purity of their precise zeal, ita praecidunt, so neer pare the nails of Romish superstition, that they make the fingers bleed, who out of fear of praying forsooth for the dead, or invocating them, are shie in speaking any word for them, or sending after them their deserved commendations. It is p••ety to honour God in his Saints; it is justice, suum cuique tribuere, to give every one his own; it is charity, to propose eminent examples of heavenly graces and vertues shi∣ning in the dead, for the imitation of the living; and then you cannot praise any so safely as the dead, for you cannot humour them into danger, nor melt away your self into flattery: Such jewells ought not to be locked up in a ••offin, as in a cabinet, but to be set out to the view of all men.