Again humbly to implore the help of that great Physician who was Typified by the Brazen Serpent would be a very effectual means to be cured both of the Sting and Pain of Sickness It well becomes the most holy Soul under Distempers to abound with an O Spare me that I may recover Strength When Men are like Moses commanded to go up into a Mount as it were of a Sick-Bed and Dye there the same Hand that Wounded must make whole many lose their Lives for want of asking it at his Hands who grants it if Invited to our Bed-sides by fervent Prayers joyned with Faith and Patience When the only wise God resolves to make Men sick with smiting them they ought to beware of Murmuring and Impatience which doth exasperate all Calamities it being far more advantageous towards recovery patiently to hope and quietly to wait for the Salvation of God for they that wait upon the Lord have a Promise they shall renew their Strength and be saved with a temporal as well as a spiritual Salvation if they continue in Faith and Patience with Sobriety The Poets have an excellent Fiction that the Image of the Goddess Augerine was with a Muffler at her Mouth placed at the Temple of Volupia signifying that Pleasure should be their Portion who bear Sicknesses with Patience Silence and Submission Good Men never question the Divine Favour so much at any time as under sickness because the Body discomposeth the Mind and hinders the free exercise of spiritual Reason besides they have not such express comfort from their Saviours Sufferings for we never read he was ever Sick yet he had Passions equivalent to Sickness as Hunger Thirst Weariness which afflicted his Body with Pain and therefore can be toucht with the feeling of our Infirmities The best way to obtain Cure is by the Power of a Divine Faith to shake off Diseases as St. Paul did the Viper from his Hand And Sir that the great Physician may make your Soul like his Body in the Gospel every whit whole shall be the Desire of Your true Friend and faithful Servant J. M. LETTER VIII SIR I Received yours dated the Second of this Month wherein you acknowledge your self a Convert unto the several Arguments of Discourse which have formerly passed between us but you seem very much to doubt whether humane Prudence Care and Art can any way contribute unto long Life And that they may be very subservient thereunto there is nothing more plain and evident Certainly King David's departing from Keylak diverted Sauls Rage and preserved his own Life for that time And our blessed Saviours own practice in preserving himself until the time he knew that his hour was come is recorded for our Imitation St. Pauls Mariners saved their Lives by abiding in the Ship who otherwise in all probability might have been Drowned The Wisdom of Joseph and Mary in observing the Angels advice and flying into Egypt with the blessed Babe in all humane probability it prevented his Death at Bethlehem The Centurion Importun'd our Saviour to cure his Servant which he would never have done if it had not conduced towards the prolongation of his Life 'T was not without cause that Naomi was foretold Obed should be a restorer of her Age. As fire dies for want of air and is extinguished when the flame is suffocated so doth our vital flame as our Spirits are repaired by Air so are our sanguine Humours by Aliments Much may be done by Art for the retarding the course of Nature as may be seen in many Insects and Animals and in Men restored from Consumptive pineing Sicknesses their flesh becoming like that of Children as in Naamans Case The efficacy of Remedies with some is so great that their Youth is as 't were renewed like the Eagle their natural strength not abating at a great Age Moreover it doth not seem probable that means should be used with good success to answer all other intentions in Nature and be used in vain in attaining that which is the most desirable thing in Nature and which renders a Man capable of perfection in all Arts and Sciences viz. Health And yet as none can speak of Death by experience because they who speak of it have not felt it and they who have felt it cannot speak of it the Case is much the same concerning Life For unless a Man live unto extream old Age he will not believe his Life hath been prolonged but rather that his hour was not yet come but yet it 's not inconsistent with reason to say that he who would Infallibly have Dyed of a Gangreen in his Leg hath had his Life prolonged when his Leg was Cured or to say that a Consumptive Body hath been saved from Death when restored to a healthful State by a Medicinal Diet which hath added Oyl to the Lamp of Life The Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets which kept their gods from growing old seems to be an Emblem of the Tree of Life which was to have been a Restorer of Nature as well as a Symbal of future things Suppose we with Pithagoras that Life is a strait line and that the accidents which disturb it and at length bring Death constitute another Line and as these two lines incline less or more one towards another Death approaches sooner or later and consequently Life is longer or shorter yet may we not suppose that Divine Providence and humane Prudence may probably conduce towards the retarding the Neighbourhood of those lines Or suppose with the Aristotelians that Life consists in the union of Heat and Moisture and Death approacheth by the Predominance of the contrary Qualities viz. Cold and Dryness why may not such means as preserves the former and keeps back the latter have a natural tendency to prolong Life Or suppose with the Chymists that Life consists in a volatile Armoniack Salt why may we not suppose that Art improved may compose such fixed Alkali as may stop the wingy motions of the former Volatility The pleasing gratifications of Sense walk Hand in Hand with Death and pursueth Mortals as the Waves of the universal Deluge did the Posterity of Cain and though they went from one story to another higher and higher yet at last they were overflowed Though Temperance doth not alwayes prove an Antidote against Sickness yet it 's a likely means Sir I pray distribute my Service where you think it 's due for it is time to come to a full point and to tell you that in Truth I am Yours in all that Power and Will can manifest J. M. LETTER IX SIR I Received yours dated the 11th instant wherein you give me an account of the great Sickness and Mortality of your Town and Countrey now Languishing under this Epidemick Feaver which indeed rageth in the City also and carrieth hundreds if not thousands unto their long Homes You may easily believe that there are greater Languors Sicknesses Weaknesses and decayes of Nature now than in former Ages
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
though thanks be to God Pestilences have not been very fatal of late years and we observe from our weekly Bills of Mortality that the numbers of the deceased are greatly augmented for in the year 1604. there dyed 4323 and 895 of the Plague but in the year 1659. there dyed 14720 and 36 of the Plague and yet we observe near the same number of persons Born and Christned both years so that the Disproportion is near nine Thousand in a year in about sixty years distance We may observe in the space of sixty years so small a spot of ground as a Church-yard swallowes up a whole Parish I knew an old Sexton in London who told me he lived to Bury his Parish almost three times over As one Generation comes on the Stage another goeth off And very evident it is that more dye now in a state of Childhood than in former Ages We lick new bodies off our Trenchers once in seven years and the very fear of a Clymacterical Year hath Killed some who have not understood how groundless such a fear is In the dayes of Ancient times it was a strange thing to hear of the death of a young Child according unto the ordinary course of Nature Some of the Jewish Doctors tell us that there was not a Son dyed of a natural death before his Father for near three thousand years after the Creation but the course of Nature was observed and he that was born first dyed first untill Terah's time who was the first that taught the People to make Images of Clay and to corrupt Divine Worship with Idolatry and as a punishment of his Sin his son Haran was snatcht away before him and Moses observes that Haran dyed before his Father Terah in the Land of his Nativity And we find it was looked upon as a great Judgment that the Male Heir of Eli's Family as soon as born dyed for many Generations so that an Old man could not be seen of his Posterity And we find the good Woman expostulating passionately with the Prophet when she saith Art thou come to call my Sins to remembrance and to slay my Son Every Age hath its peculiar diseases In the state of Infancy Life is like a Spark in a pile of Wood the Candle is so newly lighted that every breath of Air or the least shaking puts it out and it dyes Childhood is so active and unwary so subject to run into dangers that unless a Messenger be sent from Heaven to stand Sentinel and watch its playing sleeping eating and drinking it 's exposed to death every minute The Middle age is apter to lend its helping hand to the use of Remedies but when we consider how many new distempers invade us and how many old ones intermingled with collateral complications and many Diseases are not fully understood as in time they may be and many Symptoms are often alike and sometimes there are none at all as in several Impostumes and some Diseases are lodged in remote parts of the Body that oftentimes no application can be made or at least the effects of Medicines cannot reach them untill after two or three Alterations and Concoctions which change the Species of Medicines And sometimes new Methods come upon the Stage and alter old Foundations Old Age hath Diseases incurable by nature The House must fall when the Foundation is decayed Old men in Scripture account are said to be as good as dead as Abraham was In some Diseases the Patient seems Bailable yet a distemper lyeth in ambush and sets upon him with full strength when the bitterness of death seemed to be past and some men live and dye like Fools pour in Drink and let out Life and so by inconsideration pull the Monumental Stone upon their own heads Men are like Water if the Sluces be opened it runs away apace if the Current be stopt it swells and grows troublesome and spills over if it stands still then it stinks and putrifies Some Sicknesses walk in darkness and destroying Angels are wrapt up in the Curtains of Immateriality whom we cannot see but feel in some Chronick distempers men walk about and hear Passing-bells ring for stronger men There is no age of Man but hath some Posterns and Out-lets to death out of which thousands pass into the Land of Forgetfulness Every breath of wind troubles our Faces and our little Cares wrinkle our Foreheads and trifling accidents dig our Graves In Feavors men ride post to the Chambers of death they prove a Beesome of Destruction to three parts of Adam's race If all the ages of all Mankind were put together it would scarce make One and twenty to each single person It 's more natural for Youth to dye than the Aged it being more common having more natural causes as being more subject to acute Diseases which surprize men suddenly and undiscernably but to dye of Age is a very rare Thing old Age is a young Death But to speak strictly all men dye before they come to be of age every man being within an inch of Death Like a Mariner at Sea we carry our Lives in our hands Many a man in a state of health hath a secret Enemy lying hid ready to surprize Either Gods Archers cleave our Reins in sunder with the Stone or Strangury or our feet are set in the Stocks by the Gout or our Breath is corrupt by the Ptysick or our Gaul is poured on the ground by the Dissentery or our Skin cleaves to our Bones by a Hectick The Clock hath struch Twelve this night therefore take it not ill that I abruptly style my self Yours whilest I am J. M. LETTER X. SIR I Received yours Dated the 7th instant wherein you speak very slightly of old Age as if you did not look upon it as so great a blessing and also seem to Question whether the Patriarchs lived so long as some imagine To which I answer you are certainly under a great mistake for nothing is more certain than that the Antediluvian Patriarchs were very long lived and particularly Father Adam who may well be accounted above a thousand years old if we compute that time whch he might have lived had he been born as Methusalem was we may judge him at his Creation as Perfect as one of the Ancients at two hundred They out-lived all their titles of Consanguinity and yet none of them lived a compleat Thousand years which possibly might be to accomplish the threatning unto Adam That the day he eat the forbidden Fruit he should Dye computing a day for a thousand years But a more probable reason may be to Demonstrate to Man the Vanity of Life when those who lived longest could not arrive to that Period which compared to Gods Eternity is but a day As there are at this day some who exceed a hundred so there are a hundred times as many who do not arrive at that Period Had men in all Ages and Places arrived at the age of the Patriarchs the Earth
waves in the Sea by the winds and sometimes the blood grows as 't were mouldy for want of that Fan of Nature Many mens bodies and particularly yours being like a Weather-glass subject to the least alterations in the Air and easily blown into their Graves by a sharp northern wind Many by long looking out at a Window have espied the grim face of Death The Air of an open Casement being sometimes like the blow of a Cross-bow Sir I pray take this advice from one that hopes you may walk up many May hills in this World and at last arrive at the holy Hill of Sion Yours J. M. LETTER XXVI SIR I Am very well pleased to hear that you are pleased with my last Advice but I am also concerned that you should continue an ill custom so apparently injurious to your Health as your taking so much Tabacco is like to prove Indeed I am of opinion there is no Plant that ever God made for the use of Man that hath done more good and more harm than that hath done It must be confest prudently used it 's a soveraign Medicine in many Distempers but it proves no better than a Poyson to many men as it is so familiarly used and abused being in our dayes more taken as Food than Physick And there is no one practice wherein wise men more frequently play the Foll than in the immoderate use of this Indian Weed which may not improperly be called Man-bane Men spend their dayes in Smoak and shorten their dayes also by its too frequent use smothering themselves into their graves as we do Bees when we take and destroy the Hive It was a tart Reflection of a Comical Wit who being in a great Fogg said The Prince of the Air was taking a Pipe of Tabacco It 's very strange to me that such an unpleasant practice should prevail so much to the apparent prejudice of so many thousands who spit away their Lives and drein away that sweet Moysture which would keep the Blood cool and promote its regular motion That practice which was scandalous amongst our Forefathers is now become a piece of good Entertainment and he that threatned to burn his Pipes and to cut his Tabacco to pieces was thought a great Reformer about Thirty years ago but that which greatly excites our care lest we use it too freely is its palpable enmity to the Brain and Nerves disposing men to Apoplexies Palsies Convulsions and Vertigo's Many great Physicians taking notice in their Observations of many of their Patients falling into apoplectick Fits with Pipes in their Mouths it being a great Opiate It is also greatly prejudicial to the Memory and also â—â—â—…tâ— the Body of its due Nourishment by its laxative Quality thrusting the Aâ—â—â—… too soon out of the Stomach before there is a perfect Concoction especially if taken too soon after a Meal if ever it be proper it 's towards Bed-time He that can give a good reason for taking above three Pipes a Day may very safely take more I have known the Oyl of Tabacco poyson a Dog And I dare affirm the Smoak of it hath poysoned many men A Noble man in our time lost his Head by taking a Pipe of Tabacco that is to lay the being observed to burn Letters to light his Pipe was the Cause of his Apprehension and raised the suspition of his being the Person sought for whereupon he was taken and condemned and executed I wish it hath not separated many other mens Souls from their Bodies Some make it a question whether Guns or Pipes have Killed most I am sure there 's no Smoak but there 's some Fire Doubtless if men would take it at the other End it would do less hurt and it may be more good I remember one of the wisest Princes of Europe said upon an occasion It was good for nothing but to perfume a Hog-stye But in that I think he was a little too severe for there are excellent uses may be made of it And amongst many others it may serve for Contemplation to put men in mind that their Life is but a vapor and that all things under the Moon vanish into Smoak Except it be the Friendship of your faithful Servant which can never evaporate whilest he is J. M. LETTER XXVII SIR I Received yours the 12th instant wherein you complain exceedingly of the ill Effects of the Waters at Epsam this Summer I beseech you inquire whether the Cause be not from your own irregular Use of them and also take notice whether you do not drink more Wine than Water For those Symptoms you complain of give a greater suspicion of the former than the latter being used sure I am the Doctor that recommended them to you understood their fitness for your Constitution and Disease therefore if you follow his Direction in the use of them I question not but they will have their desired Effect I know there are more go thither to gratifie Curiosity than to serve the end of Health and Pleasure is more frequently propounded than Ease But let me tell you those physical Waters by the preposterous use often prove like the Waters of Jealousie they make Peoples Bodies to swell and their Thighs to rot and lay the foundations for many distempers as Dropsies Agues Gouts and the like Many long as much to drink them as King David did to drink of the Water of the Well of Bethlehem but men venture their Lives in so doing as they did in that case especially by the unreasonable quantities many men take I have larely known one come home swelled with a Dropsie another tinctured with a Jaundice and a third shaking with an Ague All immoderate Evacuations are very destructive to Nature There are hundreds that Drowned themselves in Wells that are never mentioned in the weekly Bills Nature is destroyed by all Extreams too much Food or too long Fasting too much Rest or too much Motion too much Sleep or too much Watching too much Joy or too much Sorrow too much Heat or too much Cold too much Wine or too much Water Quantities shorten Life more than Qualities Many who were only wantonly Sick become really so and that which was intended for a Cure many times becomes a Surfeit At those Waters men are served like the Impostor who fained himself Blind that the Arrian Bishop might work a Miracle in his Cure and when he would have opened his Eyes could not but was ever after really Blind People depending upon the cleansing Vertue of those Waters and neglecting the use of proper Remedies to render them Effectual do but like an improvident Laundress who thinks to wash her Linnen white and clean with Water without Soap They should be chiefly used as Posset-drink to a Purge Indiscrect Persons think to take off the Mischief of too great Quantities of Wine by drinking plentiful Draughts of Water but this is to run Nature out of one Extream into another and to render mens Bodies more subject to Diseases and Putrefaction like Timber that lyes sometimes in the wet and sometimes in the Sun more subject to Rot. There are thousands that purge their Souls out of their Bodies by immoderate Evacuations one way or other Sir I shall conclude this Discourse of Mineral Waters with a hearty wish That you may ever find them successeful untill you come to Drink of that Well of Life which makes glad the City of God Where I hope you will be accompanyed by Your true Friend J. M. LETTER XXVIII SIR I Think there are few things requisite in order to the desirable success of a Course of Physick but I judge you have had a friendly Intimation of except it be this That you would not too much indulge your self in Sleep Many shorten their dayes by sleeping in the Day and as it were turning themselves into Dormice To lye in Bed untill the Sun-beams lash men for their Drowziness is an injurious Custom The first Man lost his Rib in his Sleep and many of his Posterity lose their Health in it Sir I take this for an undoubted Truth That if Rules of Religion Moderation and Prudence were observed in the whole course of Mens Lives Gray hairs would be more in Fashion Physicians would gain more credit by their Prescriptions sick Patients would find Remedies more Effectual and a Divine Influence would more infallibly attend them all Sir I must now conclude and so may you that I am a Respecter of you and your Health J. M. FINIS