an reprehends the idolater,
_for health he prays to that which is weak, and for life he prays to
that which is dead_.[250] Should we do so? says thy prophet;[251]
_should we go from the living to the dead?_ So much ill then being
occasioned by so much religious compliment exhibited to the dead, thou,
O God (I think), wouldst therefore inhibit thy principal holy servants
from contributing any thing at all to this dangerous intimation of
idolatry; and that the people might say, Surely those dead men are not
so much to be magnified as men mistake, since God will not suffer his
holy officers so much as to touch them, not to see them. But those
dangers being removed, thou, O my God, dost certainly allow that we
should do offices of piety to the dead and that we should draw
instructions to piety from the dead. Is not this, O my God, a holy kind
of raising up seed to my dead brother, if I, by the meditation of his
death produce a better life in myself? It is the blessing upon Reuben,
_Let Reuben live, and not die, and let not his men be few_;[252] let him
propagate many. And it is a malediction, _That that dieth, let it
die_,[253] let it do no good in dying; for _trees without fruit_, thou,
by thy apostle, callest _twice dead_.[254] It is a second death, if none
live the better by me after my death, by the manner of my death.
Therefore may I justly think, that thou madest that a way to convey to
the Egyptians a fear of thee and a fear of death, that _there was not a
house where there was not one dead_;[255] for thereupon the Egyptians
said, _We are all dead men_: the death of others should catechise us to
death. Thy Son Christ Jesus is the _first begotten of the dead_;[256] he
rises first, the eldest brother, and he is my master in this science of
death; but yet, for me, I am a younger brother too, to this man who
died now, and to every man whom I see or hear to die before me, and all
they are ushers to me in this school of death. I take therefore that
which thy servant David's wife said to him, to be said to me, _If thou
save not thy life to-night, to-morrow thou shalt be slain_.[257] If the
death of this man work not upon me now, I shall die worse than if thou
hadst not afforded me this help; for thou hast sent him in this bell to
me, as thou didst send to the angel of Sardis, with commission to
_strengthen the things that remain, and that are ready to die_,[258]
that in this weakness of body I might receive spiritual strength