to other eminent benefactors into the church, and none but them: and now that it is grown so common, both in our churches and the Roman, we may thank partly superstition, partly ambition and covetousness; superstition of them that think the holiness of the place doth not a little avail the soul; ambition of those that love these (πρωτοκλισιας) both living and dead: covetousness of those greedy hucksters of the church of Rome, who upon the sale of their suffrages, raise the prices of their holy ground to their unreasonable advantages. But to speak freely, what I think concerning this so common practice, I must need say, I cannot but hold it very unfit and inconvenient, both, first in respect of the majesty, it is the Lord’s House, the palace of the King of Heaven; and what prince would have his court made a charnel-house? How well soever we loved our deceased friends, yet when their life is dissolved, there is none of us but would be loath to have their corpses inmates with us in our houses; and why should we think fit to offer that to God’s house which we should be loath to endure in our own.--Secondly, in regard of the annoyance of the living; for the air (kept close within walls) arising from dead bodies, must needs be offensive, as we find by daily experience, more offensive now than of old to God’s people: they buried with odours, the fragrancy whereof was a good antidote for this inconvenience; (“she did this to bury me,” saith our Saviour). Not so with us; so as the air receives no other tincture than what arises from the evaporation of corrupted bodies. But though I approve not common buryings within the church, as not deeming that a fit bestowage for the dead; yet forasmuch as the church is a place of most public resort and use, I cannot mislike that in some meet parts, whether floors, or pillars, or walls, (especially of the side chapels pertaining thereto) there be memorials or monuments of worthy and well deserving Christians, whereby their knowledge and precious remembrances may be perpetuated to posterity.” Thus far the worthy Bishop, on this indecent and unwholesome practice: to which I shall only add (observes the writer) a quotation from Mr. Strutt, who informs us, “that before the time of Christianity, it was held unlawful to bury the dead within the cities, but they used to carry them out into the fields hard by, and there deposit them. Towards the end of the sixth century, Augustine obtained of king Ethelbert, a temple of idols, (where the king used to worship before his conversion) and made a burying place of it; but St Cuthbert afterwards obtained leave to have _yards_ made to the churches, proper for the reception of the dead.” * * * * *