and now the
whole house is but a handful of sand, so much dust, and but a peck of
rubbish, so much bone. If he who, as this bell tells me, is gone now,
were some excellent artificer, who comes to him for a cloak or for a
garment now? or for counsel, if he were a lawyer? if a magistrate, for
justice? Man, before he hath his immortal soul, hath a soul of sense,
and a soul of vegetation before that: this immortal soul did not forbid
other souls to be in us before, but when this soul departs, it carries
all with it; no more vegetation, no more sense. Such a mother-in-law is
the earth, in respect of our natural mother; in her womb we grew, and
when she was delivered of us, we were planted in some place, in some
calling in the world; in the womb of the earth we diminish, and when she
is delivered of us, our grave opened for another; we are not
transplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with profane dust,
with every wind.

XVIII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, if expostulation be too bold a word, do thou mollify it
with another; let it be wonder in myself, let it be but problem to
others; but let me ask, why wouldst thou not suffer those that serve
thee in holy services, to do any office about the dead,[247] nor assist
at their funeral? Thou hadst no counsellor, thou needst none; thou hast
no controller, thou admittedst none. Why do I ask? In ceremonial things
(as that was) any convenient reason is enough; who can be sure to
propose that reason, that moved thee in the institution thereof? I
satisfy myself with this; that in those times the Gentiles were
over-full of an over-reverent respect to the memory of the dead: a great
part of the idolatry of the nations flowed from that; an over-amorous
devotion, an over-zealous celebrating, and over-studious preserving of
the memories, and the pictures of some dead persons; and by _the vain
glory of men, they entered into the world_,[248] and their statues and
pictures contracted an opinion of divinity by age: that which was at
first but a picture of a friend grew a god in time, as the wise man
notes, _They called them gods, which were the work of an ancient
hand_.[249] And some have assigned a certain time, when a picture should
come out of minority, and be at age to be a god in sixty years after it
is made. Those images of men that had life, and some idols of other
things which never had any being, are by one common name called
promiscuously dead; and for that the wise m