Prodromus. Or The literall destruction of Ierusalem as it is described in the 79. Psalme: in which are handled these places: Inuocation vnder the crosse. Gods deserting of his people. Christian buriall. Contumelie. God the author of the euill of punishments. Reuenge. Church not euer visible to vs. Confessions of sinnes. True religion not euer prosperous.

Verse 2. The dead bodies of thy ser∣uants haue they giuen to be meate vn∣to the Fowles of the Heauen, and the flesh of thy Saints to the Beasts of the earth.

Verse 3. Their bloud haue they shed like water round about Ierusa∣lem, and there was none to bury them.

THE Iewes first bemone the wrong done to God, and to his Temple; [they haue defiled thy Tem∣ple;] now they lament their owne calamitie: they were slaine with the edge of the sword; but yet if they might be interred in their Fathers Sepulchers, or but buried at all, their misery would be so much the lesse; * 1.1 Quid in morte miserius quàm sepeli∣ri non posse? What is more grieuous in death, then not to be buried? But behold Buriall is denyed them: Zenacherib commanded Tobiah to be slaine for burying the Iewes. * 1.2 An∣tiochus saith, Macc. 2.9. that the Iewes are not worthy of buryall,

but to be left to be eaten vp of raue∣nous Birds, and wilde beasts: and vnder Titus the slaughtered bodies were so many, they could not be in∣terred, (there died by the Famine, Sword and Pestilence, eleauen hun∣dred thousand: Ioseph.)

It is a true saying of S. Augustine, * 1.3 The care of our Funerall, the man∣ner of our Buriall, the exequiall pompe, all these Magis sunt viuo∣rum solatia quam subsidia mortuorum, are rather comforts for the liuing, then any vvay helpes for the dead. To be interred profiteth not the party deceased, his body feels it not, his soule regards it not; and we know that many holy Martyrs haue beene excluded from buriall, who in a Christian scorne thereof bespake their persecutors, in their words which were slaine at Pharsalie.

Nil agis hâc irâ, tabesne cadauera soluat, An rogus, haud refert.—Luc.

But yet there is an honesty which belongeth to the dead bodie of man. * 1.4 Iehu commanded Iezabel to

be buried. Dauid thanked the peo∣ple of Iabes Gilead, for burying of Saul. Peter that commanded Ana∣nias and Saphira, those false abdica∣tors of their patrimonie to die, commanded to haue them buried being dead. * 1.5 It is an axiome of cha∣ritie, Mortuo non prohibeas gratiam: withhold not kindnesse from the dead. It shewes our loue and regard to men in our owne flesh to see them buried; it manifesteth our Faith and Hope of the Resurrection; and therefore when that bodie, which is to rise-againe, and to be made glo∣rious and immortall in Heauen, shal be cast to the Foules of the aire, or Beasts of the Field, * 1.6 it argueth in God great indignation against sin. (Of Iehoiakim, Hee shall be buried as an Asse is buried, and cast forth with∣out the gates of Hierusalem:) in man inhumane and barbarous crueltie.

I onely dislike these three things in buriall.

1 The ambitious desire of vn∣godly men to be buried in the

Church; of some, if superstitiously affected, in the Quier nay vnder the Altar: and to purchase this, thy giue a great legacie, whereas Constantine the great thought himselfe not wor∣thy to be buried in the Church, but at the Church dore whence, I take it is that Saint Chrisostome called him Petri piscatoris ianitorem. S. * 1.7 Peter the Fishermans porter Our Sauiour condemned sitting in the first place in men aliue, & will he approue of the like contention in the dead?

2 The superfluous pompe of Funerals; to be attired with rich ap∣parell in stead of a winding sheet; to be spiced with Balmes, Mirre & A∣loes, to feast the wormes withall; to haue a long blacke armie of mour∣ners; to haue their Armes carried in triumph before them; to haue a sumptuous and tedious banquet af∣ter the exequies; as if men who ne∣uer care to follow Christ in their liues, would emulate him in their deaths: and because it is said and was fulfilled of him, Erit Sepulchrum

eius gloriosum, Isay 11. Therefore their Funerals shall be glorious al∣so. Yet I know there is a state which belongs to Princes, below which, as they might not liue, so neither may they die.

3 The cost and magnificence of their Sepulchres, matchable with Artemisias Mausoloeum, and the Egyptian Piramides, when (mee thinkes) it should be enough for vs Christians, who in this last age of the world are in continuall expectation of a sudden resurrection, to be co∣uered with a bed of thinne earth, I may say, Vt quid perditio haec? Sure I am, it were better if not for their bo∣dies, yet for their soules, and for occasioning of a blessing vpon their posteritie, that this cost had beene bestowed to Charitable vses.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Sence in Deel.
• * 1.2

  Tab. 1.
• * 1.3

  Lib. 1. de Ciuit. Dei. cap. 12.
• * 1.4

  Quisquis hon•••• tumuli. Virg. 10. Aen.
• * 1.5

  Eccles. 7.
• * 1.6

  Ier. 22.11.
• * 1.7

  Hom 66. ad Pop. Antioch.