God will give thee to exercise any vertue to do him any service or thy self any advantage be careful that thou losest not this for to eternal ages this never shall return again 9. Or if thou peradventure shalt be restored to health be carefull that in the day of thy thanksgiving thou mayest not be ashamed of thy self for having behaved thy self poorly and weakly upon thy bed it will be a sensible and excellent comfort to thee and double upon thy spirit if when thou shalt worship God for restoring thee thou shalt also remember that thou didst do him service in thy suffering and tell that God was hugely gracious to thee in giving thee the opportunity of a vertue at so easie a rate as a sicknesse from which thou didst recover 10. Few men are so sick but they believe that they may recover and we shal seldom see a man lie down with a perfect persuasion that it is his last hour for many men have been sicker and yet have recovered but whether thou doest or no thou hast a vertue to exerâ—ise which may be a handmaid to thy patience Epaphroditus was sick sick unto death and yet God had mercy upon him and he hath done so to thousands to whom he found it useful in the great order of things and the events of universal providence If therefore thou desirest to recover here is cause enough of hope and hope is designed in the arts of God and of the Spirit to support patience But if thou recoverest not yet there is something that is matter of joy naturally and very much Spiritually if thou belongest to God and joy is as certain a support to patience as hope and it is no small cause of being pleased when we remember that if we recover not our sicknesse shall the sooner sit down in rest and joy For recovery by death as it is easier and better then the recovery by a sickly health so it is not so long in doing it suffers not the tediousnesse of a creeping restitution nor the inconvenience of Surgeons and Physitians watchfulnesse and care keepings in and suffering trouble fears of relapse and the little reliques of a storm 11. While we hear or use or think of these remedies part of the sicknesse is gone away and all of it is passing And if by such instruments we stand armed and ready dressed before hand we shall avoid the mischiefs of amazements and surprize while the accidents of sicknesse are such as were expected and against which we stood in readinesse with our spirits contracted instructed and put upon the defensive 12 But our patience will be the better secured if we consider that it is not violently tempted by the usual arrests of sicknesse for patience is with reason demanded while the sicknesse is tolerable that is so long as the evil is not too great but if it be also eligible and have in it some degrees of good our patience will have in it the lesse difficulty and the greater necessity This therefore will be a new stock of consideration Sicknesse is in many degrees eligible to many men and to many purposes SECT VI. Advantages of Sicknesse 1. I Consider one of the great felicities of heaven consists in an immunity from sin then we shall love God without mixtures of malice then we shall enjoy without envy then we shall see fuller vessels running over with glory and crowned with bigger circles and this we shall behold without spilling from our eyes those vessels of joy and grief any signe of anger trouble or a repining spirit our passions shall be pure our charity without fear our desire without lust our possessions all our own and all in the inheritance of Jesus in the richest soil of Gods eternall kingdom Now half of this reason which makes heaven so happy by being innocent is also in the state of sicknesse making the furrows of old age smooth and the groans of a sick heart apt to be joyned to the musick of Angels and though they sound harsh to our untuned ears and discomposed Organs yet those accents must needs be in themselves excellent which God loves to hear and esteems them as prayers and arguments of pity instruments of mercie and grace and preparatives to glory In sicknesse the soul begins to dresse her self for immortality and first she unties the strings of vanity that made her upper garment cleave to the world and sit uneasily First she puts off the light and phantastic summer robe of lust and wanton appetite and as soon as that Cestus that lascivious girdle is thrown away then the reins chasten us and give us warning in the night then that which called us formerly to serve the manlinesse of the body and the childishnesse of the soul keeps us waking to divide the hours with the intervals of prayer and to number the minutes with our penitential groans Then the flesh sits uneasily and dwells in sorrow and then the spirit feels it self at ease freed from the petulant sollicitations of those passions which in health were as buisie and as restlesse as atomes in the sun alwayes dancing and alwayes busie and never sitting down till a sad night of grief and uneasinesse draws the vail and lets them dye alone in seâ—ret dishonour 2. Next to this the soul by the help of sicknesse knocks off the fetters of pride and vainer complacencies Then she drawes the curtains and stops the lights from coming in and takes the pictures down those phantastic images of self-love and gay remembrances of vain opinion and popular noises Then the Spirit stoops into the sobrieties of humble thoughts and feels corruption chiding the forwardnesse of fancy and allaying the vapours of conceit and factious opinions For humility is the souls grave into which he enters not to die but to meditate and iâ— terre some of its troublesome appendages There she sees the dust and feels the dishonours of the body and reads the Register of all its sad adherencies and then she layes by all her vain reflexions beating upon her Chrystall and pure mirrour from the fancies of strength and beauty little decayed prettinesses of the body And when in sicknesse we forget all our knotty discourses of Philosophy and a Syllogisme makes our head ake and we feel our many and loud talkings served no lasting end of the soul no purpose that now we must abide by and that the body is like to descend to the land where all things are forgotten then she layes aside all her remembrances of applauses all her ignorant confidences and cares onely to know Christ Iesus and him crucified to know him plainly and with much heartinesse and simplicity And I cannot think this to be a contemptible advantage for ever since man tempted himself by his impatient desires of knowing and being as God Man thinks it the finest thing in the world to know much and therefore is hugely apt to esteem himself better then his brethren if he knowes some
his repentance by a patient submission to the rod of sicknesse For sicknesse does the work of penances or sharp afflictions and dry diet perfectly well to which if we also put our wills and make it our act by an after election by confessing the justice of God by bearing if sweetly by begging it may be medicinal there is nothing wanting to the perfection of this part but that God confirme our patience and hear our prayers When the guilty man runs to punishment the injured person is prevented and hath no whither to go but to forgivenesse 10. I have learned but of one suppletory more for the perfection and proper exercise of a sick mans repentance but it is such a one as will go a great way in the abolition of our past sinnes and making our peace with God even after a lesse severe life and that is that the sick man do some heroical actions in the matter of charity or religion of justice or severity There is a story of an infamous thief who having begged his pardon of the Emperor Mauritius was yet put into the Hospital of S. Sampson where he so plentifully bewailed his sins in the last agonies of his death that the Physitian who attended found him unexpectedly dead and over his face a handkerchief bathed in tears and soon after some body or other pretended to a revelation of this mans beatitude It was a rare grief that was noted in this man which begat in that age a confidence of his being saved and that confidence as things then went was quickly called a revelation But it was a stranger severity which is related by Thomas Cantipratanus concerning a young Gentleman condemned for robbery and violence who had so deep a sense of his sin that he was not content with a single death but begged to be tormented and cut in pieces joynt by joynt with intermedial senses that he might by such a smart signifie a greater sorrow Some have given great estates to the poor and to religion some have built colledges for holy persons many have suffered martyrdom and though those that died under the conduct of the Maccabees in defence of their countrey and religion had pendants on their breasts consecrated to the idols of the Iamnenses yet that they gave their lives in such a cause with so great a duty the biggest things they could do or give it was esteemed to prevail hugely towards the pardon and acceptation of their persons An heroic action of uertue is a huge compendium of religion for if it be attained to by the usual measures and progresse of a Christian from inclination to act from act to habit from habit to abode from abode to reigning from reigning to perfect possession from possession to extraordinary emanations that is to heroick actions then it must needs do the work of man by being so great towards the work of God but if a man comes thither per saltum or on a sudden which is seldome seen then it supposes the man alwayes well inclined but abused by accident or hope by confidence or ignorance taen it supposes the man for the present in a great fear of evil and a passionate desire of pardon it supposes his apprehensions great and his time little and what the event of that will be no man can tell but it is certain that to some purposes God will account for our religion on our death bed not by the measures of our time but the eminency of affection as said Celestin the first that is supposing the man in the state of grace or in the revealed possibility of salvation then an heroical act hath the reward of a longer series of good actions in an even and ordinary course of vertue 11. In what can remain for the perfecting a sick mans repentance he is to be helped by the ministeries of a spiritual Guide SECT VII Acts of repentance by way of prayer and ejaculation to be used especially by old men in their age and by all men in their sicknesse LEt us search and try our wayes and turne again to the Lord let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens We have transgressed and rebelled and thou hast not pardoned Thou hast covered with anger and persecured us thou hast slain thou hast not pitied O cover not thy self with a cloud but let our prayer passe thorough I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men why hast thou set me as a mark against thee so that I am a burden to my self and why doest not thou pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity for now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shalt seek me in the morning but I shall not be The Lord is righteous for I have rebelled against his commandments Hear I pray all ye people behold my sorrow behold O Lord I am in distresse my bowels are troubled my heart is turned within me for I have grievously rebelled Thou O Lord remainest for ever thy throne from generation to generation wherefore doest thou forget us for ever and forsake us so long time turn thou us unto thee O Lord and so shall we be turned renew our dayes as of old O reject me not utterly and be not exceeding wroth against thy servant O remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions but according to thy mercies remember thou me for thy goodnesse sake O Lord Do thou for me O God the Lord for thy Names sake because thy mercy is good deliver thou me for I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me I am gone like the shadow that declineth I am tossed up and down as the locust Then Zacheus stood forth and said Behold Lord half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have wronged any man I restore him fourfold Hear my prayer O Lord and consider my desire let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice And enter not into judgement with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth thee for thou art my God let thy loving spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousnesse I will speak of mercy and judgement unto thee O Lord will I make my prayer I will behave my self wisely in a perfect way O when wilt thou come unto me I will walk in my house with a perfect heart I will set no wicked thing before my eyes I hate the work of them that turn aside it shall not cleave to me Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Deliver me from blood guiltinesse O God from malice envy the follies of lust and violences of passion c. thou God of my salvation and my
it he never stirred up the holy fire among the Magi nor touched his God with the sacred rod according to the Laws he never offered sacrifice nor worshipped the Deity nor administred justice nor spake to his people nor numbred them but he was most valiant to eat and drink and having mingled his wines he threw the rest upon the stones This man is dead Behold his Sepulchre and now hear where Ninus is Some times I was Ninus and drew the breath of a living man but now am nothing but clay I have nothing but what I did eat and what I served to my self in lust that was and is all my portion the wealth with which I was esteemed blessed my enemies meeting together shall bear away as the mad Thyades carry a raw Goat I am gone to Hell and when I went thither I neither carried Gold nor Horse nor silver Chariot I that wore a Miter am now a little heap of dust I know not any thing that can better represent the evil condition of a wicked man or a changing greatnesse From the greatest secular dignity to dust and ashes his nature bears him and from thence to Hell his sins carry him and there he shall be for ever under the dominion of chains and devils wrath and an intollerable calamity This is the reward of an unsanctified condition and a greatnesse ill gotten or ill administred 2. Let no man extend his thoughts or let his hopes wander towards future and far distant events and accidental contingencies This day is mine and yours but ye know not what shall be on the morrow and every morning creeps out of a dark cloud leaving behinde it an ignorance and silence deep as midnight and undiscerned as are the phantasms that make a Chrysome childe to smile so that we cannot discern what comes hereafter unlesse we had a light from Heaven brighter then the vision of an Angel even the Spirit of Prophesie Without revelation we cannnot tell whether we shal eat to morrow or whether a Squinzy shall choak us and it is written in the unrevealed folds of Divine Predestination that many who are this day alive shall to morrow be laid upon the cold earth and the women shall weep over their shrowd and dresse them for their funeral S. Iames in his Epistle notes the solly of some men his contemporaries who were so impatient of the event of to morrow or the accidents of next year or the good or evils of old age that they would consult Astrologers and witches Oracles and Devils what should befall them the next Calends what should be the event of such a voyage what God had written in his book concerning the successe of battels the Election of Emperors the Heir of families the price of Merchandise the return of the Tyrian fleer the rate of Sidonian Carpets and as they were taught by the crafty and lying Daemons so they would expect the issue and oftentimes by disposing their affairs in order toward such events really did produce some litle accidents according to their expectation and that made them trust the Oracles in greater things and in all Against this he opposes his Counsel that we should not search after forbidden records much lesse by uncertain significations for whatsoever is disposed to happen by the order of natural causes or civil counsels may be rescinded by a peculiar decree of providence or be prevented by the death of the interested persons who while their hopes are full and their causes conjoyned and the work brought forward and the sickle put into the harvest and the first fruits offered and ready to be eaten even then if they put forth their hand to an event that stands but at the door at that door their body may be carried forth to burial before the expectation shall enter into fruition When Richilda the Widow of Albert Earl of Ebersberg had feasted the Emperour Henry III. and petitioned in behalf of her Nephew Welpho for some lands formerly possessed by the Earl her Husband just as the Emperour held out his hand to signifie his consent the chamber-floor suddenly fell under them and Richilda falling upon the edge of a bathing vessel was bruised to death and stayed not to see her Nephew sleep in those lands which the Emperour was reaching forth to her and placed at the door of restitution 3. As our hopes must be confined so must our designes let us not project long designes crafty plots and diggings so deep that the intrigues of a designe shall never be unfolded till our Grand children have forgotten our vertues or our vices The work of our soul is cut short facile sweet and plain and fitted to the small portions of our shorter life and as we must not trouble our inquiry so neither must we intricate our labour and purposes with what we shall never enjoy This rule does not forbid us to plant Orchards which shall feed our Nephews with their fruit for by such provisions they do something towards an imaginary immortality and do charity to their Relatives But such projects are reproved which discompose our present duty by long and future designes such which by casting our labours to events at distance make us lesse to remember our death standing at the door It is fit for a Man to work for his dayes wages or to contrive for the hire of a week or to lay a train to make provisions for such a time as is within our eye and in our duty and within the usual periods of Mans life for whatsoever is made necessary is also made prudent but while we plot and buisy our selves in the toils of an ambitious war or the levies of a great estate Night enters in upon us and tells all the world how like fools we lived and how deceived and miserably we dyed Seneca tells of Senecio Cornelius a man crafty in getting and tenacious in holding a great estate and one who was as diligent in the care of his body as of his money curious of his health as of his possessions that he all day long attended upon his sick and dying friend but when he went away was quickly comforted supped merrily went to bed cheerfully and on a sudden being surprized by a Squinzy scarce drew his breath until the Morning but by that time dyed being snatched from the torrent of his fortune and the swelling tide of wealth and a likely hope bigger then the necessities of ten men This accident was much noted then in Rome because it happened in so great a fortune and in the midst of wealthy designes and presently it made wise men to consider how imprudent a person he is who disposes of ten years to come when he is not Lord of to morrow 4. Though we must not look so far ofâ— and prey abroad yet we must be buisie neer at hand we must with all arts of the Spirit seize upon the present because it passes from us while we
so and that is that God doth minister proper aids and supports to every of his servants whom he visits with his rod. He knows our needs he pities our sorrows he relieves our miseries he supports our weaknesse he bids us ask for help and he promises to give us all that and he usually gives us more and indeed it is observable that no story tells of any godly man who living in the fear of God fell into a violent and unpardoned impatience in his naturall sicknesse if he used those means which God and his holy Church have appointed We see almost all men bear their last sicknesse with sorrowes indeed but without violent passions and unlesse they fear death violently they suffer the sicknesse with some indifferency and it is a rare thing to see a man who enjoyes his reason in his sicknesse to expresse the proper signes of a direct and solemne impatience For when God layes a sicknesse upon us he seizes commonly on a mans spirits which are the instruments of action and businesse and when they are secured from being tumultuous the sufferance is much the easier and therefore sicknesse secures all that which can do the man mischief It makes him tame and passive apt for suffering and confines him to an unactive condition To which if we adde that God then commonly produces fear and all those passions which naturally tend to humility and poverty of spirit we shall soon perceive by what instruments God verifies his promise to us which is the great security for our patience and the easinesse of our condition that God will lay no more upon us then he will make us able to â—ear but together with the affliction he will finde a way to escape Nay if any thing can be more then this we have two or three promises in which we may safely lodge our selves and roul from off our thorns and finde ease and rest God hath promised to be with us in our trouble and to be with us in our prayers and to be with us in our hope and conâ—idence 2. Prevent the violence and trouble of thy spirit by an act of thanksgiving for which in the worst of sicknesses thou canst not want cause especially if thou remembrest that this pain is not an eternall pain Blesse God for that But take heed also lest you so order your affairs that you passe from hence to an eternall soâ—râ—w If that be hard this will be intolerable But as for the present evil a few dayes will end it 3. Remember that thou art a man and a Christian as the Covenant of nature hath made it necessary so the covenant of grace hath made it to be chosen by thee to be a suffering person either you must renounce your religion or submit to the impositions of God and thy portion of sufferings So that here we see our advantages and let us use them accordingly The barbarous and warlike nations of old could fight well and willingly but could not bear sicknesse manfully The Greeks were cowardly in their fights as most wise men are but because they were learned and well taught they bore their sicknesse with patience and severity The Cimbrians and Celtiberians rejoyce in battail like Gyants but in their diseases they weep like Women These according to their institution and designes had unequal courages and accidental fortitude but since our Religion hath made a covenant of sufferings and the great businesse of our lives is sufferings and most of the vertues of a Christian are passive graces and all the promises of the Gospel are passed upon us through Christs crosse we have a necessity upon us to have an equal courage in all the variety of our sufferings for without an universal fortitude we can do nothing of our dutie 4. Resolve to do as much as you can for certain it is we can suffer very much if we list and many men have afflicted themselves unreasonably by not being skilful to consider how much their strength and state could permit and our flesh is nice and imperious crafty to perswade reason that she hath more necessities thâ—n indeed belong to her and that she demands nothing superfluous suffer as much in obedience to God as you can suffer for necessity or passion fear or desire And if you can for one thing you can for another and there is nothing wanting but the minde Never say I can do no more I cannot endure this For God would not have sent it if he had not known thee strong enough to abide it onely he that knows thee well already would also take this occasion to make thee know thy self But it will be fit that you pray to God to give you a discerning spirit that you may rightly distinguish just necessity from the flattery and fondnesses of flesh and blood 5. Propound to your eyes and heart the example of the holy Jesus upon the crosse he endured more for thee then thou canst either for thy self or him and remember that if we be put to suffer and do suffer in a good cause or in a good manner so that in any sense your sufferings be conformable to his sufferings or can be capable of being united to his we shall reign together with him The high way of the Crosse which the King of sufferings hath troden before us is the way to ease to a kingdom and to felicity 6. The very suffering is a title to an excellent inheritance for God chastens every son whom he receives and if we be not chastised we are bastards and not sons and be confident that although God often sends pardon without correction yet he never sends correction without pardon unless it be thy fault and therefore take every or any affliction as an earnest peny of thy pardon and upon condition there may be peace with God let any thing be welcome that he can send as its instrument or condition Suffer therefore God to choose his own circumstances of adopting thee and be content to be under discipline when the reward of that is to become the son of God and by such inflictions he hewes and breaks thy body first dressing it to funeral and then preparing it for immortality and if this be the effect or the designe of Gods love to thee let it be occasion of thy love to him and remember that the truth of love is hardly known but by somewhat that puts us to pain 7. Use this as a punishment for thy sins and so God intends it most commonly that is certain if therefore thou submittest to it thou approvest of the divine judgement and no man can have cause to complain of any thing but of himself if either he believes God to be just or himself to be a sinner if he either thinks he hath deserved Hell or that this little may be a means to prevent the greater and bring him to Heaven 8. It may be that this may be the last instance and the last opportunity that ever
of mercy to preserve their innocence to overcome temptation to try their vertue to fit them for rewards it is certain that sicknesse never is an evil but by our own faults and if we will do our duty we shall be sure to turn it into a blessing If the sicknesse be great it may end in death and the greater it is the sooner and if it be very little it hath great intervalls of rest if it be between both we may be Masters of it and by serving the ends of Providence serve also the perfective end of humane nature and enter into the possession of everlasting mercies The summe is this He that is afraid of pain is afraid of his own nature and if his fear be violent it is a signe his patience is none at all and an impatient person is not ready dressed for heaven None but suffering humble and patient persons can go to heaven and when God hath given us the whole stage of our life to exercise all the active vertues of religion it is necessary in the state of vertues that some portion and period of our lives be assigned to passive graces for patience for Christian fortitude for resignation or conformity to the Divine will But as the violent fear of sicknesse makes us impatient so it will make our death without comfort and without religion and we shall go off from our stage of actions and sufferings with an unhandsome exit because we were willing to receive the Kindnesse of God when he expressed it as we listed But we would not suffer him to be kinde and gracious to us in his own method nor were willing to exercise and improve our vertues at the charge of a sharp Feaver or a lingring consumption Woe be to the man that hath lost patience for what will he do when the Lord shall visit him SECT VII The second temptation proper to the state of sicknesse Fear of death with its remedies THere is nothing which can make sicknesse unsanctified but the same also will give us cause to fear death If therefore we so order our affairs and spirits that we do noâ— fear death our sickness may easily become our advantage and we can then receive counsel and consider and do those acts of vertue which are in that state the proper services of God and such which men in bondage and fear are not capable of doing or of advices how they should when they come to the appointed dayes of mourning And indeed if men would but place their designe of being happy in the noblenesse courage and perfect resolutions of doing handsome things and passing thorough our unavoidable necessities in the contempt and despite of the things of this world and in holy living and the perfective desires of our natures the longings and pursuances after Heaven it is certain they could not be made miserable by chance and change by sicknesse and death But we are so softned and made effeminate with delicate thoughts and meditations of ease and brutish satisfactions that if our death comes before we have seized upon a great-fortune or enjoy the promises of the fortune tellers we esteem our selves to be robbed of our goods to be mocked and miserable Hence it comes that men are impatient of the thoughts of death hence comes those arts of protraction and delaying the significations of old age thinking to deceive the world men cosen themselves and by representing themselves youthfull they certainly continue their vanity till Proserpina pull the perruke from their heads We cannot deceive God and nature for a coffin is a coffin though it be covered with a pompous veil and the minutes of our time strike on and are counted by Angels till the period comes which must cause the passing bell to give warning to all the neighbours that thou art dead and they must be so and nothing can excuse or retard this and if our death could be put off a little longer what advantage can it be in thy accounts of nature or felicity They that 3000 years agone dyed unwillingly and stopped death two dayes or staid it a week what is their gain where is that week and poor spirited men use arts of protraction and make their persons pitiable but their condition contemptible beeing like the poor sinners at Noahs flood the waters drove them out of their lower rooms then they crept up to the roof having lasted half a day longer and then they knew not how to get down some crept upon the top branch of a tree and some climbed up to a mountain and staid it may be three dayes longer but all that while they endured a worse torment then death they lived with amazement and were distracted with the ruines of mankinde and the horrour of an universal deluge Remedies against the fear of death by way of consideration 1. God having in this world placed us in a sea and troubled the sea with a continual storm hath appointed the Church for a ship and religion to be the sterne but there is no haven or port but death Death is that harbour whither God hath designed every one that there he may finde rest from the troubles of the world How many of the noblest Romans have taken death for sanctuary and have esteemed it less then shame or a mean dishonour And Caesar was cruel to Domitius Captain of Corfinium when he had taken the town from him that he refused to signe his petition of death Death would have hid his head with honour but that cruel mercy reserved him to the shame of surviving his disgrace The Holy Scripture giving an account of the reasons of the divine providence taking Godly men from this world and shutting them up in a hasty grave sayes that they are taken from the evils to come and concerning our selves it is certain if we had ten years agone taken seizure of our portion of dust death had not taken us from good things but from infinite evils such which the sun hath seldom seen Did not Priamus weep oftner then Troilus and happy had he been if he had died when his sons were living and his kingdom safe and houses full and his citie unburnt It was a long life that made him miserable and an early death onely could have secured his fortune and it hath happened many times that persons of a faâ—r life and a clear reputation of a good fortune and an honourable name have been tempted in their age to folly and vanity have fallen under the disgrace of dotage or into an infortunate marriage or have besottted themselves with drinking or outlived their fortunes or become tedious to their friends or are afflicted with lingring and vexatious diseases or lived to see their excellent parts buried and cannot understand the wise discourses and productions of their younger years In all these cases and infinite more do not all the world say but it had been better this man had died sooner But
took so goodly a revenge upon the river Cyndus for his hard passage over it or did not deride or pity the Thracians for shooting arrowes against heaven when it thunders To be angry with God to quarrell with the Divine providence by repining against an unalterable a naturall an easie sentence is an argument of a huge folly and the parent of a great trouble as man is base and foolish to no purpose he throwes away a vice to his own misery and to no advantages of ease and pleasure Fear keeps men in bondage all their life saith Saint Paul and patience makes him his own man and lord of his own interest and person Therefore possesse your selves in patience with reason and religion and you shall die with ease If all the parts of this discourse be true if they be better then dreams and unlesse vertue be nothing but words as a grove is a heap of trees if they be not the Phantasmes of hypochondriacall persons and designes upon the interest of men and their perswasions to evil purposes then there is no reason but that we should really desire death and account it among the good things of God and the sowre and laborious felicities of man S. Paul understood it well when he desired to be dissolved he well enough knew his own advantages and pursued them accordingly But it is certain that he that is afraid of death I mean with a violent and transporting fear with a fear apt to discompose his duty or his patience that man either loves this world too much or dares not trust God for the next SECT IX General rules and exercises whereby our sicknesse may become safe and sanctified 1. TAke care that the cause of thy sicknesse be such as may not sowre it in the principle and original causes of it It a sad calamity to passe into the house of mourning through the gates of intemperance by a drunken meeting or the surfets of a loathed and luxurious Table for then a man suffers the pain of his own â—olly and he is like a fool smarting under the whip which his own vitiousnesse twisted for his back then a man payes the price of his sin and hath a pure and an unmingled sorrow in his suffering and it cannot be alleviated by any circumstances for the whole affair is a meere processe of death and sorrow Sin is in the head sicknesse is in the body and death and an eternity of pains in the tail and nothing can make this condition intolerable unlesse the miracles of the Divine mercy will be pleased to exchange the eternal anger for the temporal True it is that in all sufferings the cause of it makes it noble or ignoble honour or shame tolerable or intolerable For when patience is assaulted by a ruder violence and by a blow from heaven or earth from a gracious God or an unjust man patience looks forth to the doors which way she may escape and if innocence or a cause of religion keep the first entrance then whether she escapes at the gates of life or death there is a good to be received greater then the evils of a sicknesse but if sin thrust in that sicknesse and that hell stands at the door then patience turns into fury and seeing it impossible to go forth with safety rouls up and down with a circular and infinite revolution making its motion not from but upon its own centre it doubles the pain and increases the sorrow till by its weight it breaks the spirit and bursts into the agonies of infinite and eternal ages If we had seen S. Policarp burning to death or S. Laurence rosted upon his gridiron or S. Ignatius exposed to lions or S. Sebastion pierced with arrowes or S. Attalus carried about the theatre with scorn unto his death for the cause of Jesus for religion for God and a holy conscience we should have been in love with flames and have thought the gridiron fairer then the spondae the ribs of a maritall bed and we should have chosen to converse with those beasts rather then those men that brought those beasts forth and estimated the arrows to be the rayes of light brighter then the moon and that disgrace and mistaken pageantry were a solemnity richer and more magficent then Mordecai's procession upon the Kings horse and in the robes of majesty for so did these holy men account them they kissed their stakes and hugged their deaths and ran violently to torments and counted whippings and secular disgraces to be the enamel of their persons and the ointment of their heads and the embalming their names and securing them for immortality But to see Sejanus torne in pieces by the people or Nero crying or creeping timorously to his death when he was condemned to dye more majorum to see Iudas pale and trembling full of anguish sorrow and despair to observe the groanings and intolerable agonies of Herod and Antiochus will tell and demonstrate the causes of patience and impatience to proceed from the causes of the suffering and it is sin onely that makes the cup bitter and deadly when men by vomiting measure up the drink they took in and sick and sad do again taste their meat turned into choler by intemperance the sin and its punishment are mingled so that shame covers the face and sorrow puts a veil of darknesse upon the heart and we scarce pity a vile person that is haled to execution for murder or for treason but we say he deserves it and that every man is concerned in it that he should dye If lust brought the sicknesse or the shame if we truly suffer the reward of our evil deeds we must thank our selves that is we are fallen into an evil condition and are the sacrifice of the Divine justice But if we live holy lives and if we enter well in we are sure to passe on safe and to goe forth with advantage if we list our selves 2. To this relates that we should not counterfeit sicknesse For he that is to be carefull of his passage into a sicknesse will think himself concerned that he fall not into it through a trap door for so it hath sometimes happened that such counterfeiting to light and evil purposes hath ended in a real sufferance Appian tells of a Roman Gentleman who to escape the proscription of the Triumvirate fled and to secure his privacy counterfeited himself blinde on one eye and wore a plaister upon it till beginning to be free from the malice of the three prevailing princes he opened his hood but could not open his eye but for ever lost the use of it and with his eye paid for his libertie and hypocrisie And Celius counterfeited the gout and all its circumstances and pains its dressings and arts of remedy and complaint till at last the gout really entred and spoiled the pageantry His arts of dissimulation were so witty that they put life and motion into the very
image of the disease he made the very picture to sigh and groan It is easie to tell upon the interest of what vertue such counterfeiting is to be reproved But it will be harder to snatch the politicks of the world from following that which they call a canonized and authentick precedentâ— and Davids counterfeiting himself mad before the King of Gath to save his life and liberty wil be sufficient to entice men to serve an end upon the stock charges of so small an irregularity not in the matter of manners but in the rules and decencies of natural or civil deportment I cannot certainly tell what degrees of excuse Davids action might put on This onely besides his present necessity the Laws whose coercitive or directive power David lived under had lesse of severity and more of liberty and towards enemies had so little of restraint and so great a power that what amongst them was a direct sin if used to their brethren the sons of Iacob was lawfull and permitted to be acted against enemies To which also I adde this general caution that the actions of holy persons in Scripture are not alwayes good precedents to us Christians who are to walk by a rule and a greater strictnesse with more simplicity and heartinesse of pursuit And amongst them sanctity and holy living did in very many of its instances increase in new particulars of duty and the prophets reproved many things which the law forbad not and taught many duties which Moses prescribed not and as the time of Christs approach came so the sermons and revelations too were more evangelical and like the patterns which were â—ully to be exhibited by the Son of God Amongst which it is certain that Christian simplicity and godly sincerity is to be accounted * and counterfeiting of sicknesse is a huge enemy to this * it is an upbraiding the Divine providence * a jesting with fire * a playing with a thunderbolt * a making the decrees of God to serve the vitious or secular ends of men * it is a tempting of a judgement * a falâ—e accusation of God * a forestalling and antidating his anger * it is a cousening of men by making a God party in the fraud and therefore if the cousenage returns upon the mans own head he enters like a fox into his sicknesse and perceives himself catched in a trap or earthed in the intolerable dangers of the grave 3. Although we must be infinitely careful to prevent it that sin does not thrust us into a sicknesse yet when we are in the house of sorrow we should do well to take Physick against sin and suppose that it is the cause of the evil if not by way of natural causality and proper effect yet by a moral influence and by a just demerit We can easily see when a man hath got a surfet intemperance is as plain as the hand writing upon the wall and easier to be read but covetousness may cause a Feaver as well as drunkennesse and pride can produce a falling sickness as well as long washings and dilutions of the brain and intemperate lust and we finde it recorded in Scripture that the contemptuous and unprepared manner of reception of the Holy Sacraments caused sicknesse and death and Sacriledge and Vow-breach in Ananias and Saphira made them to descend quick into their graves Therefore when sicknesse is upon us let us cast about and if we can let us finde out the cause of Gods displeasure that it being removed we may return into the health and securities of Gods loving kindnesse Thus in the three years famine David enquired of the Lord what was the matter and God answered it is for Saul and his bloody house and then David expiated the guilt and the people were full again of food and blessing and when Israel was smitten by the Amorites Ioshuah cast about and found out the accursed thing and cast it out and the people after that fought prosperously And what God in that case said to Ioshua he will also verifie to us I will not be with you any more unlesse you destroy the accursed thing from among you But in pursuance of this we are to observe that although in case of loud and clamorous sins the discovery is easy and the remedie not diâ—ficult yet because Christianity is a nice thing and religion is as pure as the sun and the soul of man is apt to be troubled from more principles then the inâ—ricate and curiosluy composed bodie in its innumâ—rable parts it will often happen that if we go to enquire into the particular we shall never finde it out and we may suspect drunkennesse when it may be also a morose delectation in unclean thoughts or covetousnesse or oppression or a crafty invasion of my neighbours rights or my want of charity or my judging unjustly in my own cause or my censuring my neighbours or a secret pride or a base hypocrisie or the pursuance of little ends with violence and passion that may have procured the present messenger of death Therefore ask no more after any one but heartily endeavour to reform all sin no more lest a worse thing happen for a single search or accusation may be the designe of an imperfect repentance but no man does heartily return to God but he that decrees against every irregularity and then onely we can be restored to health or life when we have taken away the causes of sicknesse and a cursed death 4. He that means to have his sicknesse turn into safety and life into health and vertue must make religion the imployment of his sicknesse and prayer the imployment of his religion For there are certain compendiums or abbreviatures and shortnings of religion fitted to several states They that first gave up their names to Christ and that turned from Paganism to Christianity had an abbreviature fitted for them they were to renounce their false worshippings and give up their belief and vow their obedience unto Christ and in the very profession of this they were forgiven in Baptism For God hastens to snatch them from the power of the Devil and therefore shortens the passage and secures the estate In the case of poverty God hath reduced this dutie of man to an abbreviature of those few graces which they can exercise such as are patience contentednesse truth and diligence and the rest he accepts in good will and the charities of the soul in prayers and the actions of a cheap religion And to most men charity is also an abbreviature And as the love of God shortens the way to the purchase of all vertues so the expression of this to the poor goes a huge way in the requisites and towards the consummation of an excellent religion and Martyrdom is another abbreviature and so is every act of an excellent and heroical vertue But when we are fallen into the state of sicknesse and that our understanding is weak and troubled our bodies sick and uselesse
us from that but our own uncharitablenesse 7. Be obedient unto thy Physitian in those things that concern him if he be a person fit to minister unto thee God is he onely that needs no help and God hath created the Physitian for thine therefore use him temperately without violent confidences and sweetly without uncivil distrustings or refusing his prescriptions upon humors or impotent fear A man may refuse to have his arme or leg cut off or to suffer the pains of Marius his incision and if he believes that to dye is the lesse evil he may compose himself to it without hazarding his patience or introducing that which he thinks a worse evil but that which in this article is to be reproved and avoided is that some men will choose to die out of fear of death and send for Physitians and do what themselves list and call for counsel and follow none When there is reason they should decline him it is not to be accounted to the stock of a sin but where there is no just cause there is a direct impatience Hither is to be reduced that we be not too confident of the Physitian or drain our hopes of recovery from the â—ountain through so imperfect chanels laying the wells of God dry and digging to our selves broken cisterns Physitians are the Ministers of Gods mercies and providence in the matter of health and ease of restitution or death and when God shall enable their judgements and direct their counsels and prosper their medicines they shall do thee good for which you must give God thanks and to the Physitian the honour of a blessed instrument But this cannot alwayes be done and Lucius Cornelius the Lieutenant in Portugal under Fabius the Consul boasted in the inscription of his monument that he had lived a healthful and vegete age till his last sicknesse but then complained he was forsaken by his Physitian and railed upon Esculapius for not accepting his vow and passionate desire of preserving his life longer and all the effect of that impatience and the folly was that it is recorded to following ages that he died without reason and without religion But it was a sad sight to see the favour of all France confined to a Physitian and a Barber and the King Lewis the XI to be so much their servant that he should acknowledge and own his life from them and all his ease to their gentle dressing of his gout and friendly ministeries for the King thought himself undone and robbed if he should die his portion here was fair and he was loth to exchange his possession for the interest of a bigger hope 8. Treat thy nurses and servants sweetly and as it becomes an obliged and a necessitous person remember that thou art very troublesome to them that they trouble not thee willingly that they strive to do thee ease and benefit that they wish it and sigh and pray for it and are glad if thou likest their attendance that whatsoever is amisse is thy disease and the uneasinesse of thy head or thy side thy distemper or thy disaffections and it will be an unhandsome injustice to be troublesome to them because thou art so to thy self to make them feel a part of thy sorrowes that thou mayest not bear them alone evilly to requite their care by thy too curious and impatient wrangling and fretful spirit That tendernesse is vitious and unnatural that shrikes out under the weight of a gentle cataplasm and he will ill comply with Gods rod that cannot endure his friends greatest kindnesse And he will be very angry if he durst with Gods smiting him that is peevish with his servants that go about to ease him 9. Let not the smart of your sicknesse make you to call violently for death you are not patient unlesse you be content to live God hath wisely ordered that we may be the better reconciled with death because it is the period of many calamities But where ever the General hath placed thee stirre not from thy station until thou beest called off but abide so that death may come to thee by the designe of him who intends it to be thy advantage God hath made sufferance to be thy work and do not impatiently long for evening lest at night thou findest the reward of him that was weary of his work for he that is weary before his time is an unprofitable servant and is either idle or diseased 10 That which remains in the practise of this grace is that the sick man should do acts of patience by way of prayer and ejaculations In which he may serve himself of the following collection SECT II. Acts of patience by way of prayer and ejaculation I Will seek unto God unto God will I commit my cause which doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number To set upon high those that be low that those which mourn may be exalted to safety So the poor have hope and iniquity stoppeth her mouth Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty For he maketh sore and bindeth up he woundeth and his hands make whole He shall deliver thee in six troubles yea in seven there shall no evil touch thee Thou shalt come to thy grave in a just age like as a shock of corn cometh in his season I remember thee upon my bed and meditate upon thee in the night watches Because thou hast been my help therefore under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce My soul followeth hard after thee for thy right hand hath upholden me God restoreth my soul he leadeth me in the path of righteousnesse for his names sake Yea though I walk thorough the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff they comfort me In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion in the secret of his tabernacle shal he hide me he shal set me up upon a rock The Lord hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary from the heaven did the Lord behold the earth To hear the groaning of his prisoners to loose those that are appointed to death I cryed unto God with my voice even unto God with my voice and he gave ear unto me In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord my sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted * I remember God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak will the Lord cast me off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his promise clean gone for ever doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies And I said this my infirmity but I will remember the years of the right
but gave command that his body should be interred not laid in a coffin of gold or silver but just into the earth from whence all living creatures receive birâ—h and nourishment and whether they must return Among Christians the honour which is valued in the behalf of the dead is that they be buried in holy ground that is in appointed coemitaries in places of religion there where the field of God is sowen with the seeds of the resurrection that their bodies also may be among the Christians with whom their hope and their portion is and shall be for ever Quicquid feceris omnia haec eodem ventura sunt That we are sure of our bodies shall all be restored to our souls hereafter and in the intervall they shall all be turned into dust by what way soever you or your chance shall dresse them Licinus the freed man slept in a Marble Tombe but Cato in a little one Pompey in none and yet they had the best fate among the Romans and a memory of the biggest honour And it may happen that to want a Monument may best preserve their memories while the succeeding ages shall by their instances remember the changes of the world and the dishonours of death and the equality of the dead and Iames the fourth K of the Scotâ— obtained an Epitaph for wanting of a Tombe and K. Stephen is remembred with a sad story because 400. years after his death his bones were thrown into a river that evil men might sell the leaden coffin It is all one in the finall event of things Ninus the Assyrian had a Monument erected whose height was nine furlongs and the bredth ten saith Diodorus but Iohn the Baptist had more honor when he was humbly laid in the earth between the bodies of Abdias and Elizeus And S. Ignatius who was buried in the bodies of Lions and S. Polycarpe who was burned to ashes shall have their bones and their flesh again with greater comfort then those violent persons who slept amongst kings having usurped their throns when they were alive and their sepulchres when they were dead Concerning doing honor to the dead the consideration is not long Anciently the friends of the dead used to make their funeral Orations and what they spake of greater commendation was pardoned upon the accounts of friendship but when Christianity seized upon the possession of the world this charge was devolved upon Priests and Bishops and they first kept the customs of the world and adorned it with the piety of truth and of religion but they also so ordered it that it should not be cheap for they made funerall Sermons onely at the death of Princes or of such holy persons who shall judge the Angels the custome descended and in the channels mingled with the veins of earth thorow which is passed and now adayes men that die are commended at a price and the measure of their Legacy is the degree of their vertue but these things ought not so to be The reward of the greatest vertue ought not to be prostitute to the doles of common persons but preserved like Laurell and Coronets to remark and encourage the noblest things Persons of an ordinary life should neither be praised publikely nor reproached in private for it is an office and charge of humanity to speak no evil of the dead which I suppose is meant concerning things not publike and evident but then neither should our charity to them teach us to tell a lie or to make a great flame from a heap of rushes and mushrooms and make Orations crammed with the narrative of little observances and acts of civil and necessary and externall religion But that which is most considerable is that we should do something for the dead something that is reall and of proper advantage That we performe their will the lawes oblige us and will see to it but that we do all those parts of personall duty which our dead left unperformed and to which the lawes do not oblige us is an act of great charity and perfect kindnesse and it may redound to the advantage of our friends also that their debts be payed even beyond the Inventary of their moveables Besides this let us right their causes and assert their honour When Marcus Regulus had injured the memory of Herennius Senecio Metius Carus asked him What he had to do with his dead and became his advocate after death of whose cause he was Patron when he was alive And David added this also that he did kindnesse to Mephibosheth for Ionathans sake and Solomon pleaded his Fathers cause by the sword against Ioab and Shimei And certainly it is the noblest thing in the world to do an act of kindnesse to him whom we shall never see but yet hath deserved it of us and to whom we would do it if he were present and unlesse we do so our charity is mercenary and our friendships are direct merchandize and our gifts are brokage but what we do to the dead or to the living for their sakes is gratitude and vertue for vertues sake and the noblest portion of humanitie And yet I remember that the most excellent Prince Cyrus in his last exhortation to his sons upon his death bed charms them into peace and union of hearts and designes by telling them that his soul would be still alive and therefore fit to be revered and accounted as awful and venerable as when he was alive and what we do to our dead friends is not done to persons undiscerning as a fallen tree but to such who better attend to their relatives and to greater purposes though in other manner then they did here below And therefore those wise persons who in their funeral orations made their doubt with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If the dead have any perception of what is done below which are the words of Isocrates in the funeral encomium of Evagoras did it upon the uncertain opinion of the souls immortality but made no question if they were living they did also understand what could concern them The same words Nazianzen uses at the exequies of his sister Gorgonia and in the former invective against Iulian but this was upon another reason even because it was uncertain what the state of separation was and whether our dead perceive any thing of us till we shall meet in the day of judgement If it was uncertain then it is certain since that time we have had no new revelation concerning it but it is ten to one but when we dye we shall find the state of affairs wholly differing from all our opinions here and that no man of sect hath guessed any thing at all of it as it is Here I intend not to dispute but to perswade and therefore in the general if it be probable that they know or feel the benefits done to them though but by a reflex revelation from God or some under