may naturally be said to Die daily mouldering away by piece-meal The forbidden Fruit hath produced a Worm that eats our Lives away The malicious Serpent hath bruised our heel as is observed in the Jerusalem Targum supposed to be said to the Serpent by Almighty God viz. When the Children of the Woman shall forsake the Commandments of the Law thou shalt be strong and shalt strike them on the Heel and inflict Diseases on them We are like men going from Jerusalem to Jericho half dead the Sick and the Aged being but half alive as some Criticks observe senex quasi seminex With the same Motion of our Lungs we draw in Air we throw away Breath Some parcels of our selves steam away continually and we live a dying Life or a living Death Men have shortned their dayes by increasing their Vices Some men do that by Intemperance which the very Devils desire to shun viz. Torment themselves before their time No impious Person was ever said in Scripture to be full of Dayes none being full of time but they that are prepared for Eternity And we never Read in the Holy Book of any impenitent person that was ever raised from the dead to trye a second time for a Crown Lazarus Tabitha and the Saints at Jerusalem came into the World only to make a Visit and declare a Glory and to them it happened literally to have their part in the first Resurrection upon whom the Second death shall have no power Julian's Motto may fit every Man An Eagle shot through with a Dart feather'd with a Quill from its own Wing The Life of Man is swifter than a Weavers Shuttle especially if wickedness be interwoven then divine Justice cuts the thread excellently shadowed by the Poets Fiction of the three fatal Sisters The one holding the Distaff the other drawing the Thread the third cutting it off Mens Impieties like Hazaels wet Cloath prove fatal unto their Lives and Healths in spite of the most proper Remedies When Sin and Sickness is mingled together no marvel to see Mens Bodies moulder being like the feet of Nebuchadnezzar's Image made of Clay It 's no wonder to see a strange punishment to happen unto the workers of Iniquity The Jews are very often threatned with fore Sicknesses and wonderful Plagues if they did not hearken unto the divine Law That a wicked Life procures a short one we find plainly exemplified in most of the Bad Kings of Judah and Israel as Aâ—ijam Athaliah Ahaziah Nadab Elah Omri and many others who reigned but two three or four years apiece and the reasons are sometimes recorded that it was for their sins which they sinned they shortned their Lives with their Kingdoms in them sin and a sudden death reigned together When mens Lusts have conceived they bring forth Sin and Sin when it is finished brings forth Death Pharaoh's bloody Persecution drowned him in the Red Sea Ahab's cruelty proved fatal to his own Life The Samaritan Lords infidelity pressed his Soul out of his Body Hananiah's false Prophesie did but predict his own death Ahaziah's evil Consultation with the God of Ekron to know whether he should recover of his Sickness made his Disease prove incurable The calumniating rage of the Children against the good old Prophet excited the rage of Bears to devour their Bodies Herod's vain-glorious Ostentation brought such a Disease upon his Body whereof he had no reason to boast Saphira's Perjury summoned the feet of those who had carried her Husband to his Grave to carry her unto the same place Benhadad's Curiosity proved the fatal Messenger of his death the Prophet returning Answer that he might recover but should surely dye Jeroboam's Idolatry in praying unto false gods provoked the true God to stop his breath Saul's disobedience unto the King of Kings brought the King of terrors Belshazzer for his riotous Revelling by a Hand-writing on the Wall had the end of his Life and Kingdom denounced against him Nadab and Abihu offering strange Fire had a stranger fire sent to devour them The Pride of the Daughters of Sion changed their sweet Smells into a Stink and their well-set Hair into Baldness The Candle of the Wicked is often put out and the Number of his Months cut off in the Middle But Sir that no Cloud may have power to discompose the Serenity of your dayes but that you may enjoy a Spring of Happiness in the Winter of Age and may want nothing but Want it self shall never be left out of the Prayers and Wishes of Your true Friend J. M. LETTER VI. SIR I Received your dated the sixth instant wherein you seem to wonder that the Cause of your disease is not long since removed and you restored unto a state of health I beseech you give me leave to deal plainly and to tell you that there are Moral as well as Natural Causes of diseases and unless both be removed Remedies very often prove ineffectual And the sincere belief of this conduceh very much towards the success of Medicines Many of the Church of Corinth were sick and weak and lost their Lives for their unworthy reception of the Holy Supper If men contemn the Sacred Body of the Son of God how can they expect the Almighty goodness should take care of their bodies and if they neglect to commemorate his Death they have little reason to expect he should regard their Lives although precious in his sight is the Death of his Saints Miriam's Sedition raised a tumultous disturbance in the harmony of her health The dissimulation of Gehaza's Tongue procured the Leprosie upon his Skin Uzziah's invadeing the Priests office and Burning Incense caused the divine displeasure to smoke against him Abimelech was restored to his health when he restored Abrahams Wife but not before When our blessed Saviour cured the man sick of a Palsie he forgave him his sins to shew him they were the cause of his sickness We may observe in our Saviours dayes that Infidelity did as it were tye up the hands of Omnipotence and set bounds to the operation of his mighty Works on mens bodies St. Anselm observes that the reason why diseases did so much abound in his time was because the holy Eucharist was irreverently received at Easter Jezabel for her Impenitence is threatned to be cast into a bed and her Children to be killed with Death Good men may dye but they cannot be killed with Death The Prophets are frequently Menaced with Death and Sickness that shall presume to speak without a Mission from Heaven In vain are external Remedies applyed when the Cause is internal The Fable of the Kite when sick imploring help and recovery but being denyed by reason of her rapine and violence it affords an excellent Moral The sickness of the Body is sometimes designed to promote the Health of the Soul and the Leprosie on Naamans Flesh may conduce towards the whitening of his Mind They are sent as tryals of Grace and are Declarative of Divine mercy When
dye under their hands and yet we frequently find friendly Visitants crying up such when they might better spend their time in serious counsels and Christian advices to bear their visitations with patient submission to the Divine Will untill they find ease and relief from the hand of Heaven and also in timely intimations to set their Houses in order and prudently dispose of their temporal concerns by making their Wills In a sick Friends Chamber Friends have an Excellent opportunity both to do and to receive good by being put in mind of the Vanity of man in this mortal state causing them to be more industrious in the faithful improvement of their own health and in a Christian Preparation for Death Now Sir that you may be strengthen'd upon your bed of languishing and visited with the Divine saving health that so your most mortal sickness may not be unto death Eternal but for your Glory and passage into endless bliss shall be the Prayer of Your True Friend J. M. LETTER XX. SIR I Am sorry you meet with so many cross Winds in your Voyage to the Haven of health particularly that the carelesness of an Attendant I mean a Nurse should blow you back again into the wide Ocean and threaten a Shipwrack when you seemed to be gotten within Ken of harbour Great care ought to be used in choosing honest and careful Persons to attend sick Patients whose Office it is to administer Remedies prescribed by the Physitian and prepared by the Apothecary Every of these ought to know their peculiar province for the skilful Nurse as well as the ignorant Physitian makes a fat Church-yard and we find that in many Distempers careful attendance is half the cure But when the Ignorant Nurse shall usurp the Learned Physicians imployment and prescribe as well as administer it 's intollerable presumption care and watchfulness are their most commendable qualities but when they are Drowsic and careless it 's very prejudicial to the Patient when like the first woman they tempt to that dyet which is Destructive both to the Patients health and the Physicians credit Eating forbidden Fruit was at first our sin when it was contrary to a Divine command and it now causeth sickness when it 's contrary to the Physitians advice I have sometimes known a Nurse perswade the Patient to eat that which she her self loved when it was contrary to the patients Distemper and sometimes the Physitian must be forbid to prescribe Gascoin Powder because she hath known one to dye after it and sometimes the Physitians prescriptions must be all set behind the Window curtain because she doth not approve of them and in the mean time she gives her Diascaudle and what call 'um Water A Child once dying of the Small-Pox yet under the Care of an able Physitian the Nurse threw away all his Medicines privately and when it could not sleep sent to the Apothecary for Syrup of Lettuce and when it was costive for Syrup of Roses which was discovered a while after in the Apothecaries Bills who knew not what use it was put to untill she confest it to her Shame and Ruine Sir I hope you will survive this unhappy accident of your Nurse and live to see her repent The smell of a Violet I hope will be restorative and believe it you shall never want health if it be in my Power to contribute towards it who am Your Loving Friend J. M. LETTER XXI SIR I Understand by the Physician that your Distemper requires Bleeding and I also perceive you have a very great aversation to it Good Sir I beseech you why is it not better to part with your Blood than your Life but you say the Blood is the Life and I 'll say the Blood is the cause of Death also when there 's too much of it or when it 's naught as I am perswaded yours is because your learned Doctor judgeth so Are not all Creatures relieved with bleeding and is it not practised by all wise Nations The French and Spaniards use it two or three times in a day and our forefathers shed their Blood by pounds to save their Lives and shall not we do it by Ounces Indeed Sir you had better sleep with a healthful body than in a whole skin Some learned Jewish Doctors will tell you that Circumcision was a means of health as well as a Tipifick Institution But Sir if you do open a Vein make use of a skilful Chyrurgeon that may not make you lame to make you sound and open a Door with a Lance to let out your Soul with your Blood for some such there are in the World that want both skill and care and pour Gaul and Vinegar instead of Wine and Oyl into their Patients wounds Choose a man of honesty and reputed skill in his profession and one whose particular imployment it is venture not your Life in the hand of one whose covetousness prompts him to venture out of his own Calling neither he nor you can so rationally expect the Divine Blessing upon your bleeding which will promote the Circulation of the remaining mass of Blood whereby it will the better purifie it self and the Blood being clarified the Spirits will become more lively and vigorous to push off your Distemper which good news will as it were kindle Bonfires of Joy in the Breasts of all your cordial Friends In which catalogue you may safely number J. M. LETTER XXII SIR I Cannot but wonder that you should wonder at the unsuccesfulness of the last Prescriptions when I hear you perplex your Thoughts with melancholy Contemplations A man may muse himself into his Grave and think himself to Death To be careful for nothing but to please our Maker and to save our Souls will very much promote the Health of our Bodies The Effects of Love and Hope cherish the natural Heat and radical Moysture beget gentle and vigorous Spirits which makes the vital Powers more brisk and lively On the contrary tedious and perplext Studies restless Impatience fretful Murmurings and discontented Thoughts they stop the regular motion of the Blood damp the Spirits and hinder the faculties of the Mind When the Briskness of the vital Heat is suffocated and the Contraction of the Heart weakned and the Blood grown thick and cold in the extremities of the Vessels and is not able to thrust it self into the remoter branches of the Arteries and Fibres of the Veins but stagnates in the narrow passages of the Body and Brain from thence is laid a foundation for Pains Palsies and all Scorbutick Distempers and then we sigh and groan and live a dying Life or a living Death which is very burthensom to humane Nature Spiritual pleasure is an excellent Medicine against bodily pains and true Piety is the best Cure of Melancholly in the whole World When the Soul is filled with light and vigor it infuseth a strange kind of Alacrity into the Humors by a physical Efficiency Internal Joy grounded upon the
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