was when my youth ended in middle age which was followed by the determination of that in mine old age and yet I have no less then two deaths more to look for the departure of mine old age in death it self and the death of death in the death of Christ Who would covet such a pittiful life which the longer it lasteth the oftener it dieth nay which in truth is so far from a true lasting that it taketh up no time at all there is a time to be born and a time to die saith the Preacher but there is no time assigned to live because our whole life is but a time of dying If I had a lease of health for tearm of life I could not but look upon it at my years as near worne out When I was at my best I was but grass now that the flower of that grass is faded in this dried withered condition what am I better then meer hay and stubble O my Soul be not secure upon this recovery there is nothing that doth sooner draw on sickness then a fond presumption of health many had never been sick so soon if they had not been well too soon Health requires a good husbandry But in a special manner consider how it is possible for that body to be well long that hath but a short time to be Wouldst thou redeem this time and so extend it labour to be good Vertue is not subject to time but will out-live death it self What is the health of my body but the strength of my prison who would glory in that I read of some pious men that have lamented their recovery out of sickness as finding themselves to be worse when they were better and best when they were ill Lord look upon thy poor Prisoner of hope and in thy good time deliver me well out of my self and in the mean time make me truly thankful for any comfort or accommodation that I enjoy in my present condition Without thy Sanctifying grace thy mercies are judgements and this health will be but a killing prosperity to me Health is one of God's Talents which they unto whom it is committed are to account for and if they do not improve it to his service they might be sick better cheap That health is pestilential that makes the possessor thereof luxurious and disorderly O my God let it be my care to devote my life and particularly my health the best of my life unto thee from whom alone I derive both health and life Bed-rid oblations are but the offerings of the refuse I confess mine are little better than such at this time of mine age but my trust is in the goodness of thine eye that thou wilt not in any wise reject those that come unto thee though at the eleventh hour O my God and most gracious Father sanctifie all thy dispensations unto me and then they shall co-operate together for my good My reins shall instruct me in the night season my Gout shall make me run unto thee and my recovery shall inable me to minister unto thee as Peters wives Mother did so soon as her fever had left her Blessed be thy name that I have been ill and thy name be praised that I am well Let me never live longer than I praise and bless and glorifie thee MEDITATION X. Vpon my imprisonment WHat is there in an imprisonment that should make that condition so formidable it is not the uncouthness of it we cannot say this is new for it is common to all we are all Prisoners by Nature during life even before we were born we suffered a confinement in the womb that bear us lying for so many months as we lived there inclosed in the lowest parts of the earth in a polluted dark narrow Rome where we could not so much as be turned without hazard of our lives and when we came into the world we were but removed as by a writ to another prison or rather we were born like Snails with our prisons upon our backs Our Souls which are the man in us being captivated in our bodies and so cooped up that they are disabled thereby to act or operate further then as through a grate according to the narrow latitude of our corporeal organs What is the whole World but as it were a common Jail wherein we are all imprisoned and however some may have a larger and better accomodation therein than others yet all are within the rule I read of Nicolo Donato Duke of Venice that he was foretold by an Astrologer who had calculated his Nativity that he should die in a noble Prison which was afterwards applied to the restrained limited honour of that Dukedom wherein he ended his dayes to let the Prediction pass I may truely affirm that the greatest and most resplendent fortunes in the world are no better than commodious captivities and honourable Prisons and they that enjoy them may account themselves in the condition of that Greek Emperour Michael Balbus who took possession of his Chair of State with a pair of Shackles about his heels But what are the inconveniencies of a Prison I deny not but that there may be a just resentment of the loss of liberty He that doth not feel it wanteth sense but he that cannot bear it wanteth reason if not grace whatever the suffering be impatience doth but aggravate it When we lie like wilde Bulls in a net fretting and strugling against the providence of God we do but impester and intangle our selves the more and like those sottish Thracian Captives that Florus l. â— 1. 1â— brake their teath with biting and gnawing their chaines by our impatience we do both punish our own ferity and thereby make sport to our enemies Is the bare confinement a matter so to be startled at We may as well think the fixed Stars unhappy because they cannot wander Things are best kept when they are lockt up many men have been preserved by this meanes from greater dangers which they might have incurred if they had been at liberty and their imprisonment hath been really a safe custody unto them How ever it is for Children to cry when they may not go abroad True liberty is to be found within doores What tho my body be confined my Soul is not I may possibly be disabled by this restraint from performing good actions but that cannot hinder me from enjoying good thoughts from communing with mine own heart from having my conversation with God in Heaven Thoughts are free Let the imprisonment be never so close and straight if I be not straightend in my self I am at liberty it is not the narrowness of the roome but of the mind that makes the prison incommodious no man suffers by it but he that is unwilling to suffer for he that will do what he must do is a free man because he does what he will a free imprisonment is better then a servile liberty They are the prisoners in truth that are captivated to
may have his memory bemisted as it were and clouded by the stinking vapours of malice and envy Our Saviour himself that Sun of righteousness was no sooner set tho with so much glory that the beholders even his enemies acknowledged him to be the Son of God but the chief Priest and Pharisees endeavoured to cover his sacred name with darkness aspersing him as a deceiver and bribing the Guards to belie his Resurrection if they have done these things in the green tree what can the drie expect the disciple is not above his Master and the charities of the World are still the same It is a sad thing to have a guilty soul this Sunset which otherwise I might behold with comfort as putting me in mind of the approaching time of my rest is to me an exprobration at once remembring me of the command not to suffer the Sun to go down upon my wrath and condemning me for suffering so many Suns to go down in my passion O my God if thou shouldst deal with me according to my deserts in what a Cloud should I set But thy goodness shines in my wickedness O let the brightness thereof dispel and scatter those Clouds that are in my perverse nature and then although the days of my life have been frequently overcast by my exorbitant passions I shall hope in this evening of it to go down in the serenity of thy mercy and to set in thy love But what do I speak of rising and going down as if the Sun went higher or lower at one time then another and were subject to excentrick motions that glorious luminary however it appears unto us is constant to one and the same rode and is as high at night as it is at noon or morning It is so with a mind well trained and exercised in vertue and piety which although as to outward things it may appear subject to variations now and then abused now and then abounding yet in it self it is above all sublunary changes neither elated nor dejected and keepeth an even course in a constant equi-distance from earth and all earthly things Lord give me that mind that whatever my state and condition be I may keep still at one and the same height and in a regular motion that in all mutations I may be one and the same man So shall I be happy in my conformity to thee who art ever the same without shadow of change But the Sun is set and how soon are all things benighted with it what are all the comforts of this World when the light of Gods countenance is withdrawn when thou O Lord hidest thy face it is no marvel if we be troubled As thy light is a rejoycing to us so the privation of it is at once both uncomfortable and dangerous thou makest darkness and it is night wherein all the beasts of the forrest do creep forth in a spiritual sense when it is night within us all our lusts and corruptions are in motion and that roaring Lion that seeks to devour us is most stirring and active darkness and cruel habitations go together O thou who art the true light of the World and whom no darkness can comprehend enlighten my darkness be my Sun and I shall have no need of this Sun be my shield and I shall fear no danger I shall be at once safe and happy If the Sun when it sets should bid us goodnight for all what a sad world would there be at his departure now we are not troubled at it because we know it will rise again it should be no otherwise with us upon the departure of godly friends and relations why should we grieve so immoderately many times for them as if we had no hope when we know that they shall as surely rise again at the last day as the Sun shall arise the next morning we have the assurance of Gods own word for it that if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so those also which sleep in Jesus he will bring with him and that with this further advantage to them that they shall then appear in glory and shine like the Sun in the Kingdome of their father never to set more what would we have more Lord teach us to comfort one another with athewwords It is observed that a clear evening is for the most part a forerunner of a fair morning especially if as our Saviour himself hath told us the Skie be red O my God grant that at my last end I may leave a clear memory behind me and discern a red skie over me tinctured with his most precious blood and it shall be a prognostick to me of an everlastingly happy good morrow MEDITAT XXII Vpon my lying down to rest MEthinks I have had a long daies journey in the world and a wedrisome accompanied with blustering weather and rugged ill waies and now a bed would do well there is a time to every purpose under heaven a time to travel and a time to rest a time to wake and a time to sleep a time to be born and a time to die the longest day hath a night and the longest life a death the one is the emblem of the other those fathers before the floud Adam Jared Methusalem that made nothing of a journey of nine hundred years and upwards had their bed time as well as their rising and after their reckoning of so many Ages what do we read of them but that they died and they died and they died this is the end of all men and the living will lay it to heart It is late and I cannot but confess I am tired and my bones would gladly be at rest yet such is my infirmity that when death is ready to come in to help me to bed I am startled and more willing to sit up and keep him out of doors like Jehorams Messenger then to be troubled with such an attendance O my soul what is the matter it is for children to apprehend bull-beggers and to be afraid to lie to sleep in the dark be not frighted with a name death is no more the thing he was the King of fear is departed death is dead as to any hurt it can do thee and yet I may say so far alive as to serve thee he is thine without any more tergiversations therefore O my Soul prepare thy self for thy last rest and in order thereunto acquaint thy self with this pale complexioned Servant before hand that his face may not be strange unto thee we do not affect to have strangers about us to help us off with our cloths but such as we know well accustom thy self to entertain communion with him go down to the Potters house as God commanded the Prophet that is as some Expositors say descend to the consideration of mortality and so live to day as if thou wert to be taken from me to night so shall death never be a surprise to thee but whensoever he comes he shall find
thee ready for him That person is in a sad condition that looks for death and cannot find it but he is in a sadder whom death finds before he looks for it The way to sleep well at night is to exercise well in the day the sleep of a labouring man is sweet saith the Preacher Death is but a long sleep and if we would hereafter rest with happiness from our labours we must so labour here that our works may follow us hereafter if we so sleep we shall do well We are not troubled when we lie down to take our natural rest upon the confidence we have in Gods ordinary providence that he will raise us up again why should Christians that do or should know the Scriptures and the power of God be more anxious and doubtful of their eternal then of their natural rest this is nothing but our infidelity for upon a true account there is more uncertainty of our waking out of our beds then there is of our rising out of our graves None can tell when he lies down whether he shall see any to morrow in this World or rise no more till the Heavens be no more but as to our Resurrection we are already so far raised as Christ our head is risen who is our resurrection and our life Lord increase our faith But what is it troubles us is it the thought that we shall live no longer We may as well lament that we were born no sooner it is but a measuring cast between the time when we were not and the time when we shall â—ot be one is as inconsiderable as the other if it be a matter of sorrow to think that we are mortal it may be a just cause of rejoycing to consider that we are so near being immortal it was as some hold the mercy of God after our first Parents had eaten of the forbidden fruit and thereby made themselves and their posterity miserable to prevent them that they should not eat of the tree of life for then both they and we had been everlastingly miserable Mortality is a mercy But possibly it is not death but dying that which the Philosopher calls the pomp of death that is so much apprehended the pangs and convulsions of death have a horrid Aspect certainly in those things we do many times but fright our selves with our own fancies for when we think those agonies insupportable nature is spent and often sensless But admitting the worst as our desire to sleep makes us bear with some tossings and tumblings and disquietings before we can well settle to rest so should our desire to depart and to sleep in Jesus prevail with us to endure those sufferings which are but for a moment but are followed with a quiet happy rest in the bosome of our Saviour to all eternity But it is a dismal thing to flesh and bloud to think that after death we must lie rotting and corrupting in a dark silent grave and that when we are reduced to dust as we were grass when we lived in regard of our frailty so we may come to be grass again after we are dead in a litteral sense and so pass away into several other substances this I confess might justifie some melancholy thoughts if we had no hope But when we are taught of God that after this Life ended our spirit shall return unto God who gave it and that after this World ended our dust shall be raised again and recompacted into a glorious body cloathed with immortality and honour and reunited to our Soul both to be for ever with the Lord we may bid defiance both to death and the grave O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory But what needs all this perswasion is it in our choice whether to die or not if we must die as die we must it is a perfect folly to be unwilling to do that which of necessity we must do whether we will or not take courage then O my Soul and act thy last part handsomely it is a degree toward dying well to be willing to die But I am dead what do I talk of dying or the fear of dying my whole life is but a continued death I have more reason to be apprehensive of my living then of my dying for I can never hope to live till I die that which we call death being in truth but the dying day of our death and the birth day of our everlasting life Nay I am not only dead but in a great part buried how much of my self is already laid in the dust death hath taken three of my ribs from me and so many of my limbs as I have lost children by his stroke My dearest relations are gon to bed before me to what purpose serves this fragment this remainder of me here Lord take all to thee let me not lie half in the bed and half out thy bed is not too little nor thy coverlet too narrow but thou hast room enough for me receive me I humbly beseech thee as thine I am thine O save me Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace In thy name I lay me down to rest FINIS A DAILY DIRECTORY EVery day is a life in little in the account whereof we may reckon our growth from the womb of the morning our growth from thence to noon when we are as the Sun in his strength after which like a shaddow that declineth we hasten to the evening of our age and so to our Sun set when we come to close our eyes in sleep the Image and representative of death Our whole life is but this tale of a day told over and over I would therefore so spend every day as if it were all the dayes I had to live and in pursuance of this resolution I would by the assistance of divine grace indeavour to observe this following daily practise 1. I Would awake with God as early as I could David hath a high expression for this In the morning shall my Prayer prevent thee as if he meant to be up first But to speak in a stile that may be fit such a worme as I am whensoever I awake I would willingly have my mouth prevent mine eyes and open first to shew forth his praise that so God may awake for me and make the habitation of my righteousness prosperous To this end I would be careful to ly down the night before in the peace of God who hath promised that his commandement shall keep me when I sleep and talk with me when I awake otherwise I may justly fear that those corruptions that bid me last good night may be ready to bid me first good morrow 2. I would arise as early as I could that course being most profitable both for Soul body and estate In Summer time I would be up by five in Psal 88. 13. winter by six or soon after as my health would permit and if nothing intervene of necessity to hinder me
which being received into him must pass at last by so ignominious a way from him But for prevention of all surfeiting the witty folly of this time hath found out another way how to make costly entertainments and no bodyes belly the fuller for them an art to furnish a table with nothing but nothing with quelque choses and apparitions of meat This is perfectly to spend money for that which is not bread and it is justly punished in the dissatisfaction that followes it for as in a dream of a feast so here a man seemeth to eat and to drink but after all is done his Soul is empty and faint and craving What is this but to play with Gods blessings as little children play with their meat when they have weak and squaimish or no stomacks this nicety and wantonness is far from the plainness and simplicity of the good old world when a shoulder of mutton was set by for the special entertainment of a King in designation and a peece of veale a dish of butter a mess of milk and a few cakes baked upon the hearth was accounted a fit welcome and treatment for Angels I am not so straight laced as not to allow a convenient latitude in the use of Gods Creatures not only for necessity but for comfort and delight a due regard being had to the quality of persons and to the emergency of occasions Our ever blessed Saviour stuck not to honour diverse festival intertainments with his gracious presence But that which is a scandal to me is the sinful abuse of this liberty when plaine Maister Nabal will needs make good his name in feasting it like a King and when nothing less will serve Dives then fairing deliciously every day it is no wonder if his end were damnation whose belly was his God We are commanded to rejoyce in the lawful use of the creatures but we are forbidden to abuse them either thorough profuseness or wantonness or cruelty What an ugly sight is it to see men eat not only as to live but as if they lived only to eat to see them eat as if they were at day labour and in their vocation turning Gods curse into wantonness when with the paines they take they eat their bread in the sweat of their faces O my God what shall I say or what shall I not say of them Their throats are open Sepulchers wherein together with their graces and parts and estates they bury themselves in themselves They are no better then living vaults or sewers only of use for the conveiance of filth and ordure such beastly creatures as it is a hard matter to speak of them in cleanly terms Who can take in a Dunghill without offence In opposition to this excess there is another generation of people that run into a contrary extream affecting a shew of wisdome in humility and neglect of the body who refuse and reiect Gods blessings out of a seeming fear least they should abuse them and upon that account abstaine from meates which he hath created to be received with thanksgiving but who hath required this at their hands every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused that comes from his divine bounty Ahaz was never a wit the more tenderer conscienced for refusing to ask a signe when it was offered him We do but provoke Gods patience when we will not accept the free tenders of his goodness Lord keep thy servant in a middle condition between luxuriancy and penury feed me with food convenient for me that as on the one side I may not thorough fulness deny thee so on the other I may not thorough want be reduced to take irregular wayes Give me such a mannerly appetite as to the things of this world that considering diligently what thy providence hath set before me I may rest contented and satisfied with thy carving without reaching over the board for a better bit or rudely snatching it from my neighbours trencher so shall I in the middest of all straights enjoy a sufficiency and in that enough have as good as a feast If enough be too little too much will not be enough MEDITATION VIII Vpon a fit of the Gout LOrd when thou with rebukes doest correct man for iniquity what a moth is he in thine hands and how easily crushed Eliphaz saith he is crushed before the moth so that according to his opinion the moth should be the better man of the two I am here a lecture of mortality to my self and yet in truth I can hardly expound my self and say what I am in this condition I am an infirmity of the world rather then any part of it a living Hospital or to speak more properly the Ghost of my departed self here I dwelt once but now here I lie and am mine own monument with the figure of a man and nothing within but a dead mans bones and corruption How near nothing am I I have so much of an idol in me which is nothing as I have feet and walk not I can neither go nor stand nor hardly stir but as my pain quickens me and yet I cannot without a suffering lie still My pain is my life O my Soul when the pillars upon which the house standeth begin to faile it is high time for thee to think of removing May I say why am I thus whether should I go to enquire O my God but unto thee I know thou doest nothing but upon just grounds and for good ends Thou art righteous but I am a sinful creature I do remember my faults this day How I have loved to wander in the world My steps have turned out of thy way and mine heart hath walked after mine eyes and I have polluted and stained the garments of my profession T is therefore just with thee to punish me as a fool and a vagrant to stock and whip me to shut me up and to make me smart for it as children are shut up and corrected when they have run abroad and durtied themselves I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou Preserver of men I have borne chastisement and by thy grace I will offend no more It is no less then a signal mercy that I am not taken away at once with a suddain stroke by a dead palsie or appoplexy or some such speeding disease that I am not chased out of the world as a vision of the night and hurled out of my place as with a storme that I do not go down in a moment to the grave in mine unrepented sins but that I have time given me by this visitation to sit my self for mine appointed change Lord Sanctify this mercy to me that whilst I do live I may indevour to spend my little remnant of time here so as I would spend mine eternity hereafter in glorifying thee and then let death come never so suddainly it will come but like a friend the sooner the better wellcome But why should I be so much
moved with the sense of this weakness there is no new thing happened unto me but what is ordinarily incident to my years This and other the like infirmities are in the course of any considerable age but as the accidents of dust or durt or raine in a long journey which every rational man will expect and reckon upon before hand Lord give me a true sense of the frailty of my condition and I shall no more wonder at mine infirmities then I wonder at my life But what do I speak of infirmites I may rather justly bless God for the long continued health which for so many years I have formerly enjoyed then grudge at my present suffering I have been a young man a great while and therefore it is but reason I should be contented to be an old man a little while what shall I receive good at the hands of God and shall I not receive evil But why do I miscall my Gout shall a heathen Philosopher Possidonius be able upon the strength of a natural resolution to protest in the middest of his pain in this infirmity that no extremity should ever make him confess it to be an evil and shall not grace have so much power upon me as to make me acknowledge that it is good for me to be thus chastened shall I fly out into impatience when God corrects me for my profit they that will not lie still when God whips them do but gaine the more stripes and by their impatience make it appear that they were not corrected enough before Nay Lord I bless thee not only for thy staff but for thy rod which although it be one of thy smartest ones and by the continuance whereof I am brought thus low yet I find the end thereof to be dipt in hony tending to mine edification not to my distruction This very infirmity under which I lie hath the reputation to be of a medicinal nature as it contracteth other malignant humours into one channel and spendeth them with it self so let all thy chastisements O Lord operate upon me for the purging of mine iniquity and the taking away of my sin and I shall reckon them in the number of my blessings What though these paines be violent they are the less likely to continue either they will end themselves or end me the difference is not much either way there will be an end and that shortly The life of man is of few dayes and full of trouble And therefore when I think how short my time is I am contented because it is so full of trouble and when I consider how troublesome it is I am comforted with the thought that it is so short But now Lord what waite I for my hope my only hope is in thee Shall I say remove thy stroke away from me let me alone far be that from me deliver me O my God from that penal impunity and vouchsafe rather to continue thy gracious rod upon me so long as thou shalt see it good for so long I am sure it shall be for my good and I shall look upon it as a dear blessed gout to me Shew thy mercy to me as thou didst to thy Children of Israel in punishing mine inventions Chasten me so thou love me scourge on so thou receive me and it shall be my consolation O give me not only strength to bear these paines but thankfulness for them and wisdome to improve by them that I may neither despise thy chastening nor be weary of thy correction So shall thy rod like the rod of Aaron be productive and not only blossome but bring forth fruit unto me even the peaceable fruit of righteousness Make me such when I am well as I would be when I am sick In all conditions let thy grace be sufficient for me perfect thy strength in my weakness and imperfection and then I shall take pleasure in my paines and glory in mine infirmities and be able to say with that great Apostle when I am weak I am strong and when I am sick I am well MEDITATION IX Vpon my recovery out of the Gout IS this a recovery or a resurrection It was but a while ago that I had two feet in the grave and that I was ready to claime my last kindred with wormes and corruption and in what an Eagle condition am I now how renewed or rather resuscitated me thinkes I am as if I had outlived my death mine own surviour the posterity of my self Certainly life doth not consist in living but in well being health is the life of life and without that we have but a name that we live but we are dead There is nothing to be preferred before the health of the body but holiness which is the healâ—h of the Soul O Lord thou art the God of life and death thou killest and thou makest alive thou woundest and thou healest thou even thou art he and there is no God with thee I drew near unto destruction but upon my cry unto thee it pleased thee to send thy Soveraine word to heal me and I was healed O that I could therefore praise thee for thy goodness not only with my lips but with that life which thou hast so often re-given me The living the living he shall praise thee as I do this day and as I desire to do all my remaining dayes But am I so perfectly well I may ask my self how I do without offence and it is not an impertinent inquiry Blessed be God my house of clay is in a comfortable measure repaired and made tenantable again for a while But how is all within how doth the principal one so Job calleth the Soul it is my Soul that is my self my body is but mine old sute new mended the sheath of my Soul as it is stiled by Daniel the health and prosperity of that would signify little to me except according to the tenor of St. Johns wish unto Gains my Soul also prosper a sick Soul in a sound body is the worst constitution that can be It is written in the prophecy of Isaiah touching the restoration of Jerusalem that the inhabitants thereof shall not say I am sick for the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity O Lord I am sick till mine iniquity be forgiven Thou hast shewed mercy to my worldly part to my lay part O heal my Spiritual part which needs thy mercy most and will rellish it best Untill that be done I am sick though never so well But admitting with all humble thankfulness my present being in perfect health I have no reason to think it will continue long all things under the Sun are subject to vicissitude and change and whilst that I say so I am changed my self My very health is but a brooding of sickness and every sickness is a pang of death My whole life is no other then a gradual dying I remember the first time I died was when mine infancy expired in my youth the next