11. In regard to that woful
compassion which I have mentioned, are those praised, and by king
David blessed, who to the dry bones of Saul and Jonathan afforded
mercy of sepulture.2735
But yet what
mercy is that, which
is afforded to them that have feeling of nothing? Or haply is this
to be challenged back to that
conceit of an infernal
river which
men unburied were not able to pass over?
Far be this from the
faith
of
Christians: else hath it gone most
ill with so great a multitude
of Martyrs, for whom there could be no burying of their bodies, and
Truth did cheat them when It said, “
Fear not them which
kill the
body, and after that have no more that they can do,”
2736
if these
have been able to do to them so great evils, by which they were
hindered to pass over to the places which they longed for. But,
because this without all doubt is most false, and it neither any
whit hurts the
faithful to have their bodies denied sepulture, nor
any whit the giving of sepulture unto infidels advantageth them;
why then are those who buried
Saul and his son said to have done
mercy, and for this are
blessed by that godly king, but because it
is a good affection with which the
hearts of the pitiful are
touched, when they grieve for that in the dead bodies of other men,
which, by that affection through which no man ever hateth his own
flesh, they would not have done after their own death to their own
bodies; and what they would have done by them when they shall have
no more feeling, that they take care to do by others now having no
feeling while themselves have yet feeling?
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
