it out This is like the Jews Truly this is my grief and I must bear it as well as I can thus men put from them the evil day and talk as if they were but beginning to live when they are ready to dye and boast as if they made a covenant with death It highly provokes God that when his hand is lifted up they will not see it Frowardness exasperates our calamities Now there are several considerations that may move Christians to patience and a willing submission unto the hand of God in sickness as to consider That it is laid upon us by a loving and wise Father and this may compose our spirits Shall we not drink the cup which our Father hath given us to drink we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of Spirits and live they chastened us after their own pleasure but He for our profit CHAP. LXXVIII SIckness it is a pledg of our Adoption God afflicts in faithfulness He aims at our good thereby and in making sore he binds up faithful are the wounds of such a friend when the righteous God smites he doth us a kindness we are not in heaviness except need be let us not say We are sick so as to complain if sin be pardoned Again Consider how many years of health you have injoyed formerly this may compose the spirits And shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil Again Consider that it might be worse It is a mercy we are not utterly consumed that we are out of hell that we are scourged with rods not with scorpions that our calamity is a natural infirmity not a wounded spirit for that is intolerable Again consider that if our sickness be never so painful we brought it upon our selvs We should therefore bear the indignation of the Lord because we have sinned against him CHAP LXXIX A Gain the best of men in all ages have been exposed to the same distempers of body Lazarus whom Christ loved was sick It is nothing but what is common to man and we may take the Prophets and Apostles for our examples in suffering affliction of the like kind and of patience Lastly look beyond all these sorrows and sickness the Time is short the Coming of the Lord draws nigh Heaven will make amends for all take a prospect of the Land of Promise where there shall be no more crying nor pain but sorrow sighing and sickness shall fly away And these Rules being observed in sickness would be an effectual way to procure the concurrence of a Divine blessing with the means that are used towards the preservation of natural life A serious contemplation of Heaven and a future State where these vile weak languishing bodies shall be made like the glorious body of Christ in spiritual agility and immortallity may exhilarate the spirits of a Christian when his flesh upon him is so in pain as to cause his soul with in him to mourn Spiritual peace is the best cordial to chear up the heart against bodily pains the inhabitants of Sion complain not of sickness if sin be but pardoned Our bodies are like Nebuchadnezzar's Image whose feet were of clay our foundations are in the dust and it is as natural for our bodies to be out of frame as for a Watch to be irregular in its motions nay far more natural besides our indispositions depend upon supernatural causes Sometimes sickness and divine wrath are concomitants as Solomon intimates and then its sad indeed and sometimes it comes to good purposes if Naaman had not been Leprous he would not have given the Prophet a visit Detrimenta Corporis incrementa virtutis Be mercifull unto me O Lord for I am weak and my bones are sore vexed saith holy David when Gods chastning was upon him The sickness of the body many times brings the body of sin into a Consumption and the holiness of the heart is many times promoted by the weakness of the body when Jacob's thoughts were in Heaven he minded not his Thigh being out of Joynt Surely it is a mercy that God hath abridged so much of the term of mans life in these last days wherein so much of Heaven is discovered that it would put a Saints patience to it to know so much of the upper worlds glory and yet to be kept so long from it as the Fathers in the first Ages were Such is the Saints state in this world that their very life and the pompous entertainments of it are but their cross because they detain them from their Crown CHAP. LXXX VVHen we seriously consider and reflect upon the nature of man in this State of mortality and observe the wonderful composure of our Bodies the Scituation of the Parts the circulations of the Blood the secret meanders of the Veines and Nerves and the curious distributions and digestions of our aliment into Blood and Flesh and take notice how small an obstruction in any part will discompose our health and stop the current of our ease how small an inflammation will transport us into an other world as if we went in a fiery Chariot how mean a putrifaction is able to crumble us into our first Original These things considered may not only compose our spirits under sickness but fill us with admiration that we live an hour in health and ease Did we but consider our frame and remember we are but dust how should we wonder that every blast of aire doth not blow us into our sick beds and graves We are as naturally exposed to trouble and sickness as the sparks are to fly upwards why then should we not be thankfull that pains and anguish are not our constant companions CHAP. LXXXI VVEre it possible for a man to stand upon one of the Battlements of Heaven and with one glance of his eye to behold all the wounds and Diseases and so hear all the groans and complaints of all the sick persons in the world how would the blessing of health be prized by such a one how uneasie a place is a sick bed when the man is full of tossing to and fro until the dawning of the day when it is day withing t were night and when it is night wishing for day imploying his time in telling the Clock and entertaining melancholy apprehensions of the blackness of the night Sick men as Seneca observes Aegrotantes mutationibus ut remediis utuntur use changes as if they were remedies How miserable in outward appearance is that mans case whose flesh is cloathed with worms as holy Jobs was Some Criticks do observe that the word translated flesh it springs from a root which signifieth to bring glad tidings and the Gospel is exprest by it Evangelium and they give this reason for it because there must be a taking off Flesh viz. the incarnation of Christ which would bring the best news the world ever heard of CHAP.
those means which may preserve them in health and vigor King Asa was not condemned for using but for trusting to the Physitians CHAP. VI. IT is a great sin upon the pretence of Gods power to be disobedient to his will in despising Physick which God hath ordained to be the means to restore us to health this is to try what God can doe and yet neglect what he commands in not adminstering those things which are necessary for the body c. The miraculous cures which the Apostles effected by their Handkerchiffs and by Oyntment and laying on their hands these wholly ceased according to that rule cessante causa cessat effectus the cause of that miraculous power being only to confirm their Doctrine in its first preaching that being done that miraculous way ceaseth and therefore now men must use more ordinary means found out by reason and experience as the extraordinary way of understanding tongues is ceased we must doe it by humane industry and natural study The life is more then meat and the body then rayment and therfore queen Hester preferred life before liberty and importuned the King to grant the life of the Jews and told him if they had been sold for bondmen and bond-women she had held her peace CHAP. VII THe father of lyes never spake a greater truth then when he said skin for skin and all that a man hath will he give for his life It is a precious Jewel and Solomon saith the Adulteress hunts for the precious life That which was sick was not to be offer'd in Sacrifice why should we not therefore indeavour to present our bodies a healthfull as well as a holy Sacrifice which is but reasonable service When the body is in a weak and languishing condition it is not fit for holy service and therefore one part of the happiness of heaven consists in a freedom from sickness and distempers there Leah shall not be blear eyed nor Mephibosheth halt Saint John prayeth for Gaius that his body might prosper and be in health even as his soul was And Saint James bids us pray for one another that we may be healed Now if it be our duty to pray for one anothers health much more ought we to indeavor to preserve our own CHAP. VIII THe soul sits uneasie in a diseased body The body it is the sheath of the soul as Daniel calls it if the sheath be defective or impaired it is prejuditial to the blade so when the Golden bowl is broken and the sound of the grinding is low and the strong men bow themselves then the Sun and the Moon and the Stars will be darkned That is all the faculties of the Soul will be clouded and not so fit to perform their several offices the understanding the memory and the fancy will not be so clear strong and lively and desire it self must needs fail Barzillai took small delight in the pleasures of the Court when his sight and his tast fail him Our bodies are members of Christ therfore we ought to have a respect for them neglecting of the body is by St. Paul reckoned as a peece of will Worship The best way to keep the body under is by a virtuous mind CHAP. IX THe cure of the Leprous persons under the Law was appointed to be managed by the Priest rather then by the Physitian because it concern'd him to keep back men who were Leprous from the Sanctuary although it is probably though he might have the advice of the Physician for their profession was ancient as we may observe in the 50 of Genesis It is very remarkable the conformity between the Leprous contagion and the Law of cleansing the Leprosie did putrifie the skin and opposite to that was Cedar-wood commended against putrefaction it was of an offensive colour opposite to that was the colour of scarlet of an ill sent contrary to that was the sweetness of Hysop it did consume the flesh and bring death there was the sparrow let loose a significant sign of recovery and continuance of life It is probably thought that the prohibition of many sorts of meats in the 11 of Leviticus was not only upon a moral but also upon a physical account because they yield no good nourishment but are unwholsome CHAP. X. THe world is very full of complaints of the ineffectual application of Medicines in order to the procuring of Health when it is lost or the preservation of it when enjoyed and doubtlesse the the cause of these complaints must arise from the imprudent and preposterous use of so excellent an ordinance of God for the good of mankinde for who but a person whose reason is unhinged and whose intellectuals are Eclipsed with the fogs of ignorance or prejudice can reflect any deficiency in those remedies themselves which are designed by the God of nature to be good for food and physick even every herb bearing seed therefore he that dare to say in his heart ther is no God who hath given every herb for the service of man his folly is manifest to all men doubtless that profession which hath received a pattent from the King of Kings and the great preserver of men must needs be of great utillity transcendent excellency Shal the Almighty himl f prescribe an Emolient Cataplasme for the plague-sore of Hezekias in order to the addition of 15 years to his life and shall any condemn so noble a faculty as physick is in it self if rightly applyed CHAP. XI HOw many singular examples of physical applications do the inspired penmen of holy writ exhibit to us and whatsoever was written aforetime was written for our learning Were not the waters of Mara made salutiferous by the casting in of medicinal ingredients Without doubt the sons of the prophets had a physical intention in the composition of ther Broth with physicall herbs although it was attended with a mistake as to the nature of the simple CHAP. XII KIng Solomon who had the priviledge granted him from the only wise God to be the only wise man made it his business to enquire into the nature of vigetables from the tallest Cedar to the contemptible Hysop and shall we cast the Imputation of folly upon him whom the spirit of God hath recorded for the most eminent example of Wisdom and imagine that he spent his time in such a study as was not likely to be profitable to human nature shall he whose brow was incircled with a glittering Diadem whose Gold was so plentious as to pave his palace whose orchards were replenisht with delicious fruits whose eares were entertain'd with the most harmonious melodies and had all the delights of the sons of men shall he I say condescend to the study and improovement of physick and yet Contemptible fooles despise it The wiseman doth not onely tell us with what remedies the Almighty heales men and takes away their pains in his discription of the variety of plants a book which possibly the world hath lost or else
diseases with their symptomes and nicknamed distempers and giving them some common denomination and apprehending that it being nothing else but what they have known some recover of they neglect the properest remedies until it be too late or until the distemper be complicated and hath taken deep root It costs many a man his life whilest he eyeth only the external causes of distempers It is usual to discourse thus I have left off a coate or put on a damp shift or eaten somthing that did not agree with my stomach or drank cold beer when hot or over walked my self or have been frighted or grieved or the like when at the same time the stomach is disordered by a loade of corrupt humors and a meer Quagmire the Blood inflamed the Liver and Spleen obstructed and the Lungs perished and this is not taken notice of as if a man when his house is on fire should not mind it so as to quench it but satisfie himself with this consideration that it came only by a boy throwing a squib c. And many times they will depend upon the advice of some friend or apish Doctor until cold sweats affright and then the learned Physitian is sent for when the time for purgation and bleeding is let ship and so the Physitian shares with the Patient in the infamy of miscarriage and he is sent for not to cure that he cannot because nature is spent but to try whether he can antidate resurrections Nothing destroyes more Persons then imprudent hearkning to the advise of persons of other professions and neglecting learned Physitians until it be too late CHAP. XXXII A Nother effectual ingredient in the cure of distempers and that which is most necessary is the concurring influence of a divine blessing unto God the Lord belong the issues from death and therefore it concerns us so to behave our selves that we may procure a divine Benediction The best way to procure a divine influence to cooperate with the means is by a Holy and a pious life so saith God Almighty to the Jews If you obey my statutes and hearken to my Judgments I will bless your bread and your water remove sickness from the midst of you Solomon urgeth the consideration of our health as a very strong argument to promote divine fear It shall be health our Navel and marrow to our bones Wisdom is a Tree of life to them that lay hold upon it what man is he that loveth life and many dayes let him depart from evil and do good Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come Solomons asking of wisdom was attended with the addition of long life If the obedience of our naturall Parents hath the promise of long life annext to it much more the service of our spiritual parent especially so far as life is good life is yours saith the Apostle because you are Christs CHAP. XXXIII PIety it secures men from the power of evil Angels who have a great influence in the procuring of distempers by a Divine permission as in the case of the excommunicated Corinthian and the incestuous persons about Lots House struck blind Herod destroyed by an Angel and the evil angels sent amonst the Israelites and several other examples of the like nature and the Demoniacks in the Gospel Again Piety it usually secures men from the stroke of Humane Justice as it guards them from those flagitious impieties which expose them to the penalties of humane lawes as murders thefts and rapine And it also preserves men from the terrors of an evil conscience which makes men many times wash their hands in their own blood as Judas did Again Piety preserves life as it teacheth men temperance and moderation in the use of those means that preserve life We find in Sacred Oracles that immature death is threatned as the penalty of disobedience and that the Penmen of Holy writ doe often inculcate the benefit of the fear of God as it is attended with the promise of longaevity So that to imagine the life of man to be fixed beyond the possibility of the Almighties abbreviation or prolongation is vain and inconsistent with scripture and reason CHAP. XXXIV THe Turks dream that the manner and moment of every mans death is prefixt by the Immutable laws of fate and that his lot is written in invisible Characters in his forehead that they accompt it vanity and cowardise to arm themselves against the blows of war by defensive weapons but it is to be hop'd that Christians have learned better It being a confest verity that every natural motion hath its beginning duration and period dependent on the will of the first motive now the life of man being a natural motion our nativity and death are both order'd by divine providence for in him we live and move and have our being The natural life of man consisting in a requisite harmony of the first qualities and in a proportionate comixture of the natural heat and radical moysture which harmony is more or less according to the more or less exquisite temperament of body assigned to each single person by the free dispensation of the divine will It followeth that the continuance of every individual in this natural life dependeth upon the pleasure of the first cause as Holy Job intimates when he saith our dayes are determined and the number of our Months are with him who hath set bounds to humane nature so that no man can live beyond the durability of his specificall temperament the principles of his vitality and permissions of providence CHAP. XXXV THe only wise God hath composed our bodies like a lamp of heat and moysture hath given appetites of hunger and thirst to feed this lamp and so supply the expences of the moysture by the heat he hath given us reason and understanding to govern our appetites and the revelation of his will to guide our reason now if we through the depravation of our natures and the predominancy of temptation do suffer our appetite to dethrone our reason and give way to Ebriety Gluttoners salacity other immoralities which have a natural tendency to extinguish the lamp of life we may justly exspect to be cut off in the midst of our dayes and to dye before our time by being wicked over much as Solomon expresseth it Whereas piety and obedience like the Tree of life in paradise not only sacramentally but really conduceth to health and long life so far as it is a blessing and this it doth by impregnating our elements with the tincture of a divine benediction by meliorating our temperaments and constitutions by infusing salutiferous dispositions in the air propitious influences in the host of heaven which many times impress the seminalities of diseases upon the blood and spirits so that the period of our days and all the second causes conducing thereunto are circumscribed within the circle of a divine prenotion and limitation CHAP. XXXVI A
Leper Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me whole and Christ did it I will Be thou clean Thou art my King command deliverances for Jacob said David when the water-spouts came pouring upon him Vnto God the Lord belong the issues from Death CHAP. LXXII WHat a great impiety is it to go to Witches or Wizzards or such as have familiar Spirits nay to the Devils for cure A thing absolutely forbidden in Scripture A sad thing for a man to procure the Devils blessing with Gods curse It is called Idolatry and Whoredom It is a violation of our Baptismal Covenant Shall not a Nation seek to their God in Covenant Our Saviour abhorred to worship them and shall his members do it They use good words the better to deceive the ignorant They use charms circles spells words and other signes which have no naturall virtue nor can we with any ground pray for a blessing upon these The Devil being herein God's Ape for As God hath made a Covenant with his people and hath appointed signs and Seales upon the faithfull use of which he is present to perform what he hath promised So the Devil makes a Covenant with Witches upon which he hath given signes and tokens that if they use the one he wil perform the other Let such as are guilty in this kind repent and pray that the thoughts of their hearts may be forgiven them as the Apostle counselled Simon Magus The power of Christ is the same now in Heaven as when on earth in his hand our breath is and all our wayes in him we live and move and have our being we live not by bread alone but by the word of blessing out of his mouth Many a man loseth his life for want of asking it We are apt to blame this means and that accident but seldom say as she did Lord if thou hadst been here My Brother or Sister had not dyed the means alone are but like Elijahs staff it will not doe unlesse he come himself By fervent prayers we should invite Omnipotence to our beds sides And call for the Elders of the Church to pray for us All second causes are but the instruments in Gods hand to lengthen or shorten as He pleaseth CHAP. LXXIII THere are three general second causes of the death of all men assigned in 1 Sam. 26.10 As some inward corrupt Humour or Disease that smites the vitals extinguisheth Nature's lamp as a Lamp goeth out when the oyle it putrefied or corrupt as Asa's Gout Jehoram's bloody-flux the plague of Leprosie the womans child's Headach and those diseases mentioned in the 28. of Deuteronomy Another second cause is some external accident as a Lamp is putout by the Wind so the unbelieving lord kil'd in a crowd Ahab slain with an arrow the Captain of fifty with Lightning Jobs children with the fall of a house the good Prophet by a Lion Absolom hanged in a tree by the hair Sodem by fire the fifty two children by the Bears The old world by water the Rebels against Moses the earth swallows up CHAP. LXXIV ANother second cause is when the naturall heat and radical moysture is consumed as in old age as Jacob when a man comes to his grave in a full age as a shock of corn comes in its season as a Lamp must go out when there is no more oyle to feed it Yet Providence hath a hand in all these second causes so that men provoke God by their impieties to cut the thred of their their lives and by Piety and Obedience they may prevaile with Him to lengthen their days if he see good CHAP. LXXV ANother means towards the procuring the concurrence of a Divine blessing with the means is To act faith and a holy confidence in God with the use of proper means one touch of faith will cure our faith will make us whole therefore trust in the Lord for ever for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength I had failed unless I had believed said David Faith is the best cordial in quietness and confidence lyeth our greatest strength why should we be cast down let us hope in him who is the health of our countenance What time we are afraid we should trust in God and beware of slavish fear and carnal confidence former experience is a good ground of confidence He hath delivered and in him we trust he will deliver us Stand still and see the salvation of God is good counsell towards recoery of health it is a sign of carnall confidence in the means when we are continually trying new experiments and run from one thing to another and leave rationall and experimental remedies CHAP. LXXVI REpentance and humiliation is another means towards recovery from sicknesse if we humble our selves under the mighty hand of God he will exalt us in due time the way to hasten the cure is to hasten repentance our desire of life should be in order to our preparations for death if we break off our sins by righteousness it may be a lengthning of our tranquillity Nineveh's repentance spared their lives if men will not reform then God resolves to make them sick with smiting them as the Prophet speaks The last means to procure a Divine blessing it is a patient waiting the good pleasure of God without murmuring and repining They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength God hath his times for deliverance It is goad for a man to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of God and not to say This evil is of the Lord why should I wait for him any longer God hath his time to an hour as our Saviour intimates Father save me from this hour The Promise is that Women shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in faith and patience and it is of force in all other dangerous distempers A meek and a quiet spirit under all Divine chastisements is a very great ornament Some make Afflictions seem amiable by a pious and a patient Deportment CHAP. LXXVII MUrmuring is a dangerous sin we have the Jews for an example who were destroyed thereby A dreadful thing when a mans body is so weak that he cannot rise up in his bed yet his corruptions are so strong as to rise into an uproar against Gods will and Authority It may be some in Sickness may let fly their discontented spirits against their children or relations but they may answer as Moses to the Israelites What are we your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord. Some men practise what Jobs wife attempted viz. curse God and dye Murmurers shall be judged at the last day as ungodly men as Jude speaks Some in sickness howl upon their beds when they should be blessing God In all sickness we should say with Naomi Truly the hand of the Lord is against me and not in a stupid senseless way cry out Indeed I am not well but I shall shake it off it is only a flight distemper I wil work