was wholly from a Divine Influence The Jews observe that though Leprosie be the Finger of God yet the Hand of man must be used in the Cure and therefore we find that the Leper whom our Saviour healed was commanded to use the Method prescribed in the Law of Moses to be sprinkled and washed The Aromatique Oyl used in extream Unction in the Apostolical times was a natural Remedy though the Cure was attributed to the Prayer of Faith Mary's supposition that the Presence of her Saviour would have kept her Brother from Dying was not improbable though she was under a Mistake with respect to that present Dispensation Many under Distempers expect to be raised as Lazarus was only by the Physitian taking them by the Hand or as Naaman who expected the good Prophet to Cure him by only striking his Hand upon the Wall But my Dear Friend Farewell and Pardon me I have made no more Scruple of exercising your Patience and take the humble Subscription of Your Constant Friend J. M. LETTER XIV SIR I Received yours of the Fifth Instant together with the strange Relation of the Person thought to be afflicted with strange Diseases by the the Power of the Devil and for that reason I observe the Cure is Despaired of but I suppose without Cause for should we grant that many Diseases are caused by a Diabolical Influence it need not therefore follow that the Cure is impossible Indeed it must be acknowledged that there have been multitudes of Cheats and Impostures of this kind but to say they are all Delusions is very Imprudent for sometimes divine Providence for reasons best known to himself may permit evil Angels to afflict the Bodies of men with distempers vulgarly called Lying under an evil Tongue or being Bewicht as having no dependance upon the Chain of natural Causes The Jews were threatned with some Diseases which should not be Cured by natural means even wonderful Plagues and of long continuance There are in Scripture many instances of Diseases Inflicted by supernatural Agents as Angels and Spirits who disturb the Humours and raise Storms and Tempests in Mens Bodies as well as in the Air Evil Angels were sent to Afflict the Jews with divers Calamities and many thousands in one Night were Slain by the destroying Sword of an Angel in a Pestilential Contagion An evil Angel visited Saul with Stupendious Melancholly and Job with painful Boils and Bowed a Daughter of Abraham eighteen Years When an Omnipotent Power gives leave the Devil can as easily possess the minds of Men with Distraction as the Swine with Rage The Excommunicate Corinthian being deliver'd up to Satan for the Destruction of the Flesh in order unto the Salvation of his Spirit may as well be understood of his being Afflicted with some corporal Distemper by the power of the Prince of Darkness as be taken in any other Sence As we know St. Paul's Thorn in the Flesh the Messenger of Satan sent to Buffet him hath by some Learned Men been Interpreted to our purpose The Lascivious Persons seeking for Lot's House to gratifie their vile Intentions were struck Blind by an Angel and those Windows were stopt up that let in wanton Glances And the several Persons possessed whom our Blessed Lord deliver'd from the power of the Prince of the Air were miserably Afflicted with Epilepsies Lunacies Convulsions and other Direful Symptoms and Distractions which threw them sometimes into the Fire and sometimes into the Water In the Primitive times Corporal Inflictions and Subjection to a Satanical Power was the sad consequence of Excommunication proportionable unto the Execrations in the Jewish Cherem which we find exemplified in Saul after his defection from God And it is observable that the Essens amongst the Jews when expelled the Congregation dyed of miserable Deaths And Ecclesiastical Writers tell us Heliodorus in his Sacrilegious attempts was Scourged by two Angels in the shape of young Men and hardly came off with his Life The Catechists in the Primitive times that prepared Persons for Baptism and Admission into the Church was wont to be called the Exorcist that cast out Satan for by the performance of our Baptismal Covenant we renounce the Devil and his Propriety and thereby the better secure our Health as well as our Peace The Jews observed that after the destruction of the Sanctuary and Sanhedrim there still continued amongst them four kinds of capital Punishments instead of the four appointed by the Law of Moses for he that deserved to be Stoned either fell from a House or was torn by Wild Beasts he that deserved to be Burnt either fell into the Fire or was stung by a Serpent therefore called fiery they that deserved to be Killed by the Sword fell into the Hands of Thieves or of the King they that deserved Suffocation or Hanging were Drowned in the Water or fell into Melancholly and were strangled thereby as Judas was But Religion very much secures men from the power of the Evil Angels and from all other misfortunes But Sir to be sure you shall alwayes be happy if it lye in his power to make you so who is Your intire Friend J. M. LETTER XV. SIR I Received your last Letter with wonder to find you entertain so strange an Opinion as to believe that Diseases are now cured in miraculous and extraordinary wayes as they were in the Apostolical times without the use and application of Rational and experimental Remedies To dream that Charms Amulets Spells c. are of any vertue in curing Diseases is vain and that because St. Pauls Handkerchief St. Peter's Shadow and the Hem of our Saviours Garment miraculously cured some in the Primitive times therefore we must use them now The reason why those Miraculous wayes of healing were used in those times was for the Confirmation of the Gospel in its first Plantation But that being now done those wayes of Cure are ceased How can men expect the Divine Blessing with such means as have no natural vertue as Words and Characters For if one Text of Scripture carried in a mans Sleeve will cure a Disease surely the Bible in a mans Pocket must cure all Diseases The Divine Oracles were given to guide our Faith not to tickle our vain Imaginations I once knew a fatal Event attend the use of such an accursed Medicine A Gentlewoman having an Ague a Begger gave her a Charm to hang about her Neck bid her not read it but when she was cured burn it The Minister of the Parish being a sober Learned and pious conformable Divine came casually to visit her she telling him the Medicine and the Cure which had attended it threw it into the fire in his presence but he catching it read it The words were Ague farewell till you and I meet in Hell Upon hearing of which she fell into her Ague again with greater violence than ever and also into deep Melancholly which occasioned her to lay Violent hands on her self So dangerous it is to
by this time had not been able to sustain the Inhabitants with Food The Egyptians calculated the bounds of mens dayes from the weight of their Hearts and judged a hundred years the utmost period taking their estimate from the weight of their Hearts which they say increaseth two Drachms every year under fifty and then decreaseth two Drachms untill a hundred But this opinion seems questionable The reason given by the Bishops of Rome for Contracting the year of Jubilee from one hundred to fifty and from fifty to five and twenty is grounded upon the Supposition that the age of man is contracted To what causes to consign the long Lives of the Ancients it need not be Difficult if we consider how necessary it was so to be for the propagation of Mankind and peopling the World with Inhabitants and also for the learning Arts and Sciences wherein it was requisite Men should have the experience of former Ages For as many Sensations breed an Experiment so many Experiments breed a Science The several motions of the Heavenly Bodies could not be known without a long time to observe their Motions and Revolutions It was an old complaint that Art was long and Life was short and therefore Almighty God proportioned mens lives accordingly We now account him wondrous Old who lives fourscore Summers to see the Resurrection of the Year fourscore times The length of mens age since Moses dwelt amongst us seems considerably abbreviated he computing Threescore and ten the ordinary period unto which men generally arrived in those times Whereas now a third part of all that are born in populous Cities dye under seven years old and the greatest part of those that are alive are between fifteen and five and thirty Few Princes either Jewish German Greek or Roman arrived at Fourscore Queen Elizabeth outlived all her Predecessors since the Conquest And I think his Majesty our present Sovereign whom God grant long to live is the eldest Crowned Head in Christendom And it 's to me observable that during the standing of the first Temple there were but eighteen High-priests but three hundred while the second stood and but ten years difference between the standing of the former and the latter Which plainly demonstrates that mens Lives have been cut and pared away in several Ages The Fathers in the primitive times had great Advantages for the Prolongation of their Lives as they had conveyed to them the Nature of Life-preserving Remedies from Adam who gave Names to all Creatures according to their particular Qualities And wonderful was their skill in all the Secrets of Nature Also the Air in the first Ages of the World might be more pure and not corrupted with terrene Exhalations as it was after the Flood had drencht it and for ought we know its Fruits might be more Nutritive Moreover Adam was the immediate Work of God and being come as it were newly from the Shop of his Creator he could not be like a House built of rotten Timber but of a far stronger Constitution than this weak Age affords Their Bodies were not wasted with fuccession of Sicknesses nor weaken'd with hereditary Diseases but were armed to resist those few things contrary to their healths The seminalities of Diseases were not so pregnantly conveyed from Parent to Child their Infants were not so tenderly brought up wastfull Ryot was a stranger to them and variety of Meats was to them unknown their Nature was not opprest with burthens and forced to stagger with her load We cannot with any shew of Reason pretend to mistake in the manner of computing the years of the Patriarchs for if you suppose them to be only Lunar years and that twelve of theirs made but one of ours then gross absurdities must follow from thence as that they were Prolifique at seven years of age Enoch being no more when he begat Methusalem At that rate the Date of their Lives must be reckoned shorter than many of ours Moreover the Scripture saith that Abraham dyed in a good Old Age and full of Dayes being one hundred seventy and five years old which Number according to that computation was but seventeen years and a half a very ridiculous old Age. But it is very manifest that Moses's computation of the year was the same with ours for mention is made of the first second and seventh Month and mention is also made of the seventeenth day of the Month. We find but one Womans Age recorded in Scripture and that is Sarah Some give this reason Because a Woman first occasioned the Shortning the Lives of men by listning to the Serpent Old Age is doubtless a very great Blessing being subservient to great and noble ends namely our better Preparation for a blessed Eternity And there are some Priviledges that holy Souls are capable of in this World which they cannot partake of in the Regions of immortal Bliss and they are the Opportunities of Doing good to others and preparing them for the Eternal Mansions and thereby Brightning their own Diadems and making their weight of Glory the Heavier by turning many to Righteousness Which that you may doe is the Wish of Your Cordial Friend J. M. LETTER XI SIR I Received yours dated the Second Instant wherein you seem to question whether the Practice of Religion on have any tendency towards Health and long life because sometimes good Men Dye suddain and Immature Deaths But nothing is more plain and evident than that the Carkasses of good Israelites may fall in the Wilderness of this World whose Souls may be entertained in the Heavenly Canaan A good Prophet for some single Act of Disobedience may be made a Prey to a devouring Lyon If an Eli neglect to Chasten his Rebellious Children he may be permitted to break his Neck When Uzzth shall touch the Ark without a Commission his Death shall immediately succeed his Rashness When a Moses shall neglect to Circumcize his Child an Angel shall threaten his Life with a drawn Sword When a Jonas shall go contrary to a Divine Command he shall be in danger of being swallowed up by Death as well as by a Whale Many times Judgment begins at the House of God and he makes good Men the examples of his Severity in this Life It 's thought that King David's numbering the People was the last Act he did before he took his Bed Evil Angels sometimes contend with good ones about the Bodies of good Men Sampson lost his natural Strength by his Disobedience and violation of his Vow rather than by the meer Cutting off his Hair it being rather a Moral than a Natural Cause of his Weakness The Righteous may sometimes be taken away from the evil to come as the good Patriarchs were before the Flood and as Abijah was laid to sleep before the Calamity of his Fathers House And sometimes the Child may derive those Distempered Humours from the Parent which may prove the occasion of its Death Though God hath Promised long Life to them
Again humbly to implore the help of that great Physician who was Typified by the Brazen Serpent would be a very effectual means to be cured both of the Sting and Pain of Sickness It well becomes the most holy Soul under Distempers to abound with an O Spare me that I may recover Strength When Men are like Moses commanded to go up into a Mount as it were of a Sick-Bed and Dye there the same Hand that Wounded must make whole many lose their Lives for want of asking it at his Hands who grants it if Invited to our Bed-sides by fervent Prayers joyned with Faith and Patience When the only wise God resolves to make Men sick with smiting them they ought to beware of Murmuring and Impatience which doth exasperate all Calamities it being far more advantageous towards recovery patiently to hope and quietly to wait for the Salvation of God for they that wait upon the Lord have a Promise they shall renew their Strength and be saved with a temporal as well as a spiritual Salvation if they continue in Faith and Patience with Sobriety The Poets have an excellent Fiction that the Image of the Goddess Augerine was with a Muffler at her Mouth placed at the Temple of Volupia signifying that Pleasure should be their Portion who bear Sicknesses with Patience Silence and Submission Good Men never question the Divine Favour so much at any time as under sickness because the Body discomposeth the Mind and hinders the free exercise of spiritual Reason besides they have not such express comfort from their Saviours Sufferings for we never read he was ever Sick yet he had Passions equivalent to Sickness as Hunger Thirst Weariness which afflicted his Body with Pain and therefore can be toucht with the feeling of our Infirmities The best way to obtain Cure is by the Power of a Divine Faith to shake off Diseases as St. Paul did the Viper from his Hand And Sir that the great Physician may make your Soul like his Body in the Gospel every whit whole shall be the Desire of Your true Friend and faithful Servant J. M. LETTER VIII SIR I Received yours dated the Second of this Month wherein you acknowledge your self a Convert unto the several Arguments of Discourse which have formerly passed between us but you seem very much to doubt whether humane Prudence Care and Art can any way contribute unto long Life And that they may be very subservient thereunto there is nothing more plain and evident Certainly King David's departing from Keylak diverted Sauls Rage and preserved his own Life for that time And our blessed Saviours own practice in preserving himself until the time he knew that his hour was come is recorded for our Imitation St. Pauls Mariners saved their Lives by abiding in the Ship who otherwise in all probability might have been Drowned The Wisdom of Joseph and Mary in observing the Angels advice and flying into Egypt with the blessed Babe in all humane probability it prevented his Death at Bethlehem The Centurion Importun'd our Saviour to cure his Servant which he would never have done if it had not conduced towards the prolongation of his Life 'T was not without cause that Naomi was foretold Obed should be a restorer of her Age. As fire dies for want of air and is extinguished when the flame is suffocated so doth our vital flame as our Spirits are repaired by Air so are our sanguine Humours by Aliments Much may be done by Art for the retarding the course of Nature as may be seen in many Insects and Animals and in Men restored from Consumptive pineing Sicknesses their flesh becoming like that of Children as in Naamans Case The efficacy of Remedies with some is so great that their Youth is as 't were renewed like the Eagle their natural strength not abating at a great Age Moreover it doth not seem probable that means should be used with good success to answer all other intentions in Nature and be used in vain in attaining that which is the most desirable thing in Nature and which renders a Man capable of perfection in all Arts and Sciences viz. Health And yet as none can speak of Death by experience because they who speak of it have not felt it and they who have felt it cannot speak of it the Case is much the same concerning Life For unless a Man live unto extream old Age he will not believe his Life hath been prolonged but rather that his hour was not yet come but yet it 's not inconsistent with reason to say that he who would Infallibly have Dyed of a Gangreen in his Leg hath had his Life prolonged when his Leg was Cured or to say that a Consumptive Body hath been saved from Death when restored to a healthful State by a Medicinal Diet which hath added Oyl to the Lamp of Life The Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets which kept their gods from growing old seems to be an Emblem of the Tree of Life which was to have been a Restorer of Nature as well as a Symbal of future things Suppose we with Pithagoras that Life is a strait line and that the accidents which disturb it and at length bring Death constitute another Line and as these two lines incline less or more one towards another Death approaches sooner or later and consequently Life is longer or shorter yet may we not suppose that Divine Providence and humane Prudence may probably conduce towards the retarding the Neighbourhood of those lines Or suppose with the Aristotelians that Life consists in the union of Heat and Moisture and Death approacheth by the Predominance of the contrary Qualities viz. Cold and Dryness why may not such means as preserves the former and keeps back the latter have a natural tendency to prolong Life Or suppose with the Chymists that Life consists in a volatile Armoniack Salt why may we not suppose that Art improved may compose such fixed Alkali as may stop the wingy motions of the former Volatility The pleasing gratifications of Sense walk Hand in Hand with Death and pursueth Mortals as the Waves of the universal Deluge did the Posterity of Cain and though they went from one story to another higher and higher yet at last they were overflowed Though Temperance doth not alwayes prove an Antidote against Sickness yet it 's a likely means Sir I pray distribute my Service where you think it 's due for it is time to come to a full point and to tell you that in Truth I am Yours in all that Power and Will can manifest J. M. LETTER IX SIR I Received yours dated the 11th instant wherein you give me an account of the great Sickness and Mortality of your Town and Countrey now Languishing under this Epidemick Feaver which indeed rageth in the City also and carrieth hundreds if not thousands unto their long Homes You may easily believe that there are greater Languors Sicknesses Weaknesses and decayes of Nature now than in former Ages