consecrated to God and himselfe rapt vp as it were into the third heauens where he seeth and heareth those things which he neuer saw nor heard aforetime There are that are able to report his Swans songs the last before his death for ought appeared to the contrary how he behaued himselfe towards God and man and acted both King and Priest and setting himselfe in articulo mortis in the very ioynt and poynt of dying Looking backwards to his life past and forwards to the life to come neglected not any thing neither of his priuate nor of the publicke State with many diuine meditations holy professions religious promises prudent instructions which for my part I wish they were scriptura Hezekiae regis brought to the light of the world that all might vnderstand them But what becometh of this sicknesse remaineth it still No. For the sweet wood of the mercies of God was cast into the waters of Marah and altered their bitternesse And so must I alter my text Iordan is now gone backward Behold in my peace bitternesse bitternesse said Hezekiah Behold in our bitternesse bitternesse peace must I say Ecce euangelizo vobis gaudium magnum quod erit omni ciuitati as the Angel in the Gospel behold I bring you tidings of great ioy which shall be to the whole Land and God say Amen to it that I may euer be as Ahimaaz 2. Sam. 18. to bring you good tidings of such things His soule is deliuered from the pit of corruption And we trust that God hath added to his yeares as he did to the yeares of Hezekiah we pray that it may be and likely it is if we adde to our prayers that God will adde to his yeares If we aske life for him God shall giue him a long life and after that long life ended A life for euer and euer Psalme 21. But of all other things you will aske the meanes how he was deliuered He wanted not any thing that the earth could minister vnto him neither the helpe of learned and painfull Physicians benedictio Domini super eos c. Psal. 129. the Lord prosper them we wish them good lucke in the name of the Lord nor the intercessions of his faithfull Subiects that haue bowed the knees both of their bodies and hearts and with their prayers as an incense in the morning and the lifting vp of their hands as an euening sacrifice they haue pierced through the clouds and knocked at the gate of his mercy at midnight and giuen him no rest on behalfe of their King Our father our father the Chariots and horsemen of Israel is going from vs O Lord spare him Ariston was a good King but wanted Issue and the people desirous to haue one of his race to gouerne after him begged him Issue of their gods That sonne so obtained they named Demaratus because the people had gained him by their prayers I doubt not but our King was another Demaratus begged by his people at the hands of God or rather according to his owne name that our Iacob was another Israel and that he and his people wrestled with God by their earnest supplications to gaine a blessing of health from him and although as to Israel a sinew of his thigh be yet shrunke that is the ability strength of his body somwhat abated we trust that in time God wil also restore that But whatsoeuer I haue yet named is but a second and subordinate meanes and vaine we know is the helpe of man our helpe must stand in the name of the Lord which hath made heauen and earth or we shall neuer be holpen therefore the prime predominant and supreme cause that our King was deliuered was the same that Hezekiah found Placuit tibi dilexisti c. the good pleasure and loue of God Now the good will of him that dwelt in the bush euer dwell with our King and marrie him vnto him with euerlasting mercy and compassion The couenant of day and night be broken but the couenant of his peace with our King and his kingdomes be neuer broken Fathers forget their sonnes and nurses their sucking babes and mothers the fruite of their wombes The Lord neuer forget our King nor his seed after him nor the people committed to their charge By this time you may ghesse at the reason of our meeting so many thousand of soules together in one place though not in the house of the Lord I grant yet in the courts of the Lords house euen in the midst of thee ô Ierusalem in the fairest and fittest theatre we haue for such purposes to make it like Araunah his threshing floore a place for an altar of our thankfulnesse whereon we are to offer the Calues of our lips our reasonable seruice an Eucharisticall sacrifice for the life of our King whom God hath so lately rescued from the fangs and throte of destruction that as when the tidings came to Rome of Germanicus his better amendment they had newes before of his desperate sicknesse which strucke them all to the heart and Germanicus was an excellent Prince beloued of the people and one that said of himselfe afterwards at the time of his death Flebunt Germanicum etiam ignoti Strangers will misse and bewaile Germanicus they ran into their Capitoll men women and children and rent open the doores thereof and offered their votes and filled the whole Citie with the noise of their congratulation Salua Ciuitas salua Patria saluus Germanicus the City is safe the country safe Germanicus safe So come we into this our Capitoll our greatest Panegyris inured with the like meetings hither came that Lady of euer-blessed memory to giue thankes vnto God for her victorie ouer the Spaniard with such frequency of people as you see with such feruencie of heart to blesse the name of our God and congratulate our selues because Salua Ciuitas salua Patria saluus Iacobus the City is safe the kingdome safe our King safe And as before that whē Augustus was likewise recouered whom they styled Patrem patriae the Father of the countrey to shew their loue to their Emperour they layd their purses together and set vp a Statue to Antonius Musas the Physician that recouered him and placed it by the Image of Aesculapius So we in affection and loue to our King though we giue not titles to men and honour the Physician but with that honour that is due vnto him yet Aere collato ioyning our hearts and soules together as if we were all but one man we set vp our Statue and if it be possible raise our Colossus of thankfulnesse that may reach vp to the heauen of heauens vnto that great God that hath created the Physician and taught him his wisdom and made the medicines of the earth to take away the paines of men Ecclesiasticus 38. There is but one word more in my text and so an end But as it standeth in
First you haue Peace that leadeth to all the rest but Peace had an ill neighbour that troubled it Sinne in the hindmost part of my Text. Sinne bringeth forth bitternesse and not onely so but bitternesse added to bitternesse Bitternesse thus accumulated must needs haue brought to the pit and the pit in the end would haue turned to corruption or consumption Thus farre goeth the blacke line of my text the shadow of sorrow and death But then cometh the other Hemisphaere of comfort and light wherein you haue first the loue and good pleasure of God secondly Redemption from the pit of corruption as touching the body thirdly Remission of sins as concerning the soule So it is not here as in the 68. Psalme where the singers go before and the minstrels follow after c. here the mourners go first like the captiues in their ancient Triumphs sinne and sicknesse and the pit and corruption then come the minstrels and singers I meane the mercies of God as in a triumphant chariot curing both the body from sicknesse and the soule from sins The three parts and roomes of my text wherein this whole matter is lodged and disposed are as clearely distinguished as the three tabernacles of Peter Matth. 17. The first is In my peace I had great bitternesse The second But thou in loue to my soule hast deliuered it from the pit of corruption The third For thou hast cast all my sins behind thy backe Let these parts be as those three tabernacles Me thinketh I see Moses in the first of a fearefull visage that hath need to be veiled Bitternesse Bitternesse Elias in the second when he is raising the widowes sonne at Zareptha 1. Reg. 17. Thou hast deliuered my soule from the pit CHRIST in the third full of grace and truth casting my sinnes behind his backe Or if you please let my text be as the Arke of testimonie wherein there were kept for store the tables of the Law the pot of Manna Aarons rod Heb. 9. They conceipt it well that the Arke is the Church the Tables the word the Manna the Sacraments and the Rod the discipline I am sure in the Arke of my text there is first a rod of bitternesse bitternesse and secondly the manna of deliuerance from the consuming pit and thirdly the tables not of the Law but of the Gospell not of the Old but the New couenant of the Law not of facts but of faith the tender mercies of God in absoluing from sinne In three words Hezekiah is sicke in the first tabernacle sound in the second sanus or sanabilis onward to his health as touching his body safe and secure in the third as concerning his soule And in euery of these three are two remarkable things In the first 1. sicknesse with the qualitie bitternes extremity and degree bitternesse bitternesse 2. the time and aduantage that the sicknesse tooke In my peace In the second 1. deliuerance Eruisti animam meam 2. the motiue that induced God thou in thy loue c. In the third 1. the cause of the sicknesse Sinnes 2. the remoue of that cause Thou hast cast c. I began at the first tabernacle and therein first with the rod his sicknesse In my peace I had great bitternesse The kind of this sicknesse is not mentioned till the 21 verse there it is called vlcus a botch it is thought to haue bene a plague-sore I dispute it not I am sure it was somewhat neere I will but drinke of the brooke in my way and giue you a short note Wee haue knowne by bitter bitter experience what a plague is but God tooke a plaister of figges of his sweete mercies in Christ well-nigh fifteene yeares sithence and applied to the botch and healed the sores of this land in the vertue and strength whereof we haue walked to this present day and we for the figges of his mercies haue returned him the thistles of our sinnes the clusters of Sodome and the wine of Dragons and yet Ecce in pace we heale our hurts with sweet words crying peace peace all is well and so shall be To morrow shall be as this day and much better and this yeare as the last and freer Deceiue not your selues you haue a great and populous Citie sowne with the seede of man as the Prophet speaketh I may say with the seed rather the weed of building I say not that your Citie may go out at your gates surely it may go out at your Suburbes the hemme of your garment is more then the garment it selfe the lop and burthen of the tree more then the stemme can beare and threatneth the ruine of the whole body To speake plainely the regions are white and drie to the haruest there is matter enough within in respect of your sinne without in respect of your building for a pestilence to worke vpon vnlesse as the antidote of the blessed goodnesse of God then cured so the preseruatiue of his sauing grace now keepe you from it I go on Whatsoeuer were the species manifest it is what the qualitie of the sicknesse was bitternesse what the quantitie bitternesse bitternesse some sharpe and wringing disease as when the Prophet cried out My bellie My bellie the very doubling of the word expressed what his paine was We are alwayes ill when we are in our best health Longum languorem trahimus we liue in a long and languishing sicknesse our wearinesse after labour and trauell is a sicknesse and sitting or lying is physicke to cure it sitting and lying is a sicknesse wee cannot continue therein rising and walking is the cure of it hunger and thirst is sicknesse eating and drinking is the helpe to that Eating and drinking sicknesse fasting and abstinencie physicke to it Quotidianus defectus quid aliud est quà m prolixitas mortis Our daily decay in nature what is it else but a lengthning of death I will say briefly triplici morbo laboramus principio medio fine We are sicke of a threefold sicknesse our beginning midst and ending As Saint Augustine told the Manichees of their idle and impious writings principium truncum medium putridum finis ruinosus their beginning was naught their proceeding naught their ending naught So is it with vs Ingressus flebilis progressus debilis egressus horribilis a mournfull natiuity wofull life dreadfull death Morbi citatio ad mortem sicknesse is a summons to death he that is least sicke may and in the end must die Death hath euer her arrow in her bow though in the prime ages of the world she was sometimes nine hundred yeares before she sped yet now she hitteth quickly and when God saith shoote she shooteth and so long as God saith spare she spareth For what is thy life Breue suspirium a short panting Canst thou measure the blast of winde said the Angell to Esdras canst thou measure say I the blast of thine owne winde the breath within thy nostrels spiras
not onely set or left for then Clamabunt post nos they will follow God againe but throwne as stones from a sling and with violence offered to his iustice banished in such sort as that they may neuer returne againe so speaketh he in effect Psal. 103. Quantum distat ortus ab occasu Looke how farre the East is from the West so farre hath he set our sinnes from vs so Mich. 7. proijcit in profundum mare he taketh our sins and throweth them into the bottome of the sea You haue heard of Hezekiah the good King of Iudah and his double condition the one which nature and sinne brought vpon him sicknesse and approch to death the other what grace and indulgence did for him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had I almost said with the Apostle Galat. 4. these things were spoken in an allegorie sure I am they were spoken propter aliud for another purpose not for Hezekiah's sake But as Ezekiel Ezech. 4. lieth and sleepeth vpon his left and right side and maketh him bread of moulter corne and baketh it in bullockes dung c. to shew the siege and famine to come So haue I chosen this storie of Hezekiah to be but a modell and patterne of those things which hapned to our gracious KING Hezekiah our King our religious King who though he restored not religion as Hezekiah did which he found restored to his hand yet he maintaineth and propugneth religion and spared not the high places no more then Hezekiah did I meane the throne of Antichrist himselfe not that brasen Serpent pearched vpon his pole of supremacie aboue all the Kings of the earth and the whole Church of God And as famous to the world he will be in succeeding ages for his miraculous deliuerance from that generall gunpowder-massacre as euer Hezekiah was for his miraculous deliuerance from Zenacherib the King of Assur in a night was that host discomfited and in a night the labours and hopes of many moneths defeated I am sure as renowned as euer Hezekiah was propter scripturam for his bookes written and published to the world in defence of the Gospell and Church of God Not to recede from the tearmes of my text I am sure he is a King of peace And here you may stand as at a pillar or moniment by the high-way side and take a view of it Ecce in pace it is worthy admiration that for sixteene yeares space to keepe the phrase of this Story 2. Reg. 19. there hath not an enemy shot an arrow nor come with a shield nor raised vp a rampart against any Citie or towne of his kingdome in an happie houre be it spoken Hath your Manna the meane time bred wormes or do the Quailes come out of your nostrels or are you offended with your peace Hath it made you proud and petulant and lasciuious and improuident and vnprouided against your Enemies Where is the fault I must answer with Christ Duritia malitia cordium vestorum the hardnesse the badnes of your own hearts The Manna was good the Quailes good the peace good both in him that bestowed it and in him that procured it your selues naught that vsed it not aright Cast but your eyes backe to the latter part of the reigne of that Mayden Queene the maiden-head and honour of whose gouernment was neuer stained whose bones are in peace her soule in blisse and her name in eternall remembrance thinke vpon one poore and beggerly warre as the Apostle named poore and beggerly elements vile seruile bellum rather rebellion then warre with beasts rather then men or men after the manner of beasts earthed in their thickets and bogges as Foxes in their holes to speake nothing of the treasure it wasted how much of our English bloud of the very flower and prime of our gentrie that one warre suckt out and then tell me if peace for her owne sake without the weedes that grow vp with it be to be disliked All this while I haue bene vpon the subiect of my text alone Hezekiah our King without adding any attribute or telling you what he hath suffered Now it followeth Hezekiah our King was sicke and sicke as Hezekiah was vsque ad mortem euen vnto the death his sicknesse was bitternesse bitternesse downe to the very side and mouth of the pit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Iairus his daughter he was at the last cast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Paul spake of Epaphroditus Philip. 2. at the next doore the nearest neighbor to death I may now by the blessing of God speake home Habet praeteritarum calamitatum secura recordatio delectationem quandam when a danger is gone and past it is pleasure to repeate it Libet sinistras res meas percurrere I go forward with that text the prouidence of God hath euen fitted it to my mouth I say he was sicke to the death but God had mercy vpon him and not vpon him alone but also vpon vs and the whole kingdome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lest we should haue sorrow vpon sorrow sorrow for the losse of our Queene like the losse of our eyes our bowels his Ladie and Consort as his rib pluckt from his side the halfe of his soule torne from him and sorrow for the losse of himselfe I am yet in the sicknesse It was bitternesse bitternesse and yet to the children of God in the fruite and effect of it dulcedo dulcedo sweetnesse aboue the hony and hony comb It is a paradoxe in nature what I shall deliuer Would you looke for grapes from thornes or water from a rocke or oyle from a stone or good out of euill or sweetnesse out of bitternesse that is comfort out of sicknesse Yet so it is Morbo crucior gaudeo non quia crucior sed vt alijs patientiae sim magister I am sicke and tortured with sicknesse yet am I glad not for the torture but for being a patterne of patience to others Antigonus made the like vse of his sicknesse Nihilo peiùs fuit hic morbus submonuit nè animo efferamur cum simus mortales I am not the worse for it my sicknesse putteth me in mind not to be proud seeing I am mortall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was the saying of Croesus another king in Herodotus rich euen to a Prouerb My sufferings grieuous though they are are my lessonings which Lipsius well rendred nocumenta documenta and Gregory not worse then he detrimenta corporum incrementa virtutum paine to the body gaine to the soule The bed of a sicke man is as a schoole a doctorall chaire of learning and discipline then are his words written with an adamant claw and go deepe into the minds of them that heare them then is his tongue the tongue of the learned as touched with a cole from the altar and his mouth the veine and fountaine of life when the soule is weaned from the world the flesh mortified the spirit