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
be in the World If Alexander the Great had been strangled in the Cradle how could the Prophesies of Daniel have been fulfilled concerning him The Jews could not prejudice the Life of the Lord of Life until that hour which was appointed to be his last hour was come For as it is appointed once to Die so also when to Die and that you may enjoy a Long and Healthful Life and at last a happy Eternity is the prayer of Your humble Servant J. M. LETTER IV. SIR I Joyfully entertained the welcome News of the good success of your last Remedies but am sorry to find you attribute all to Necessity as if because the Period of Humane Life is appointed and the success of Medicines depends upon a Supernatural Concourse therefore to inferr we cannot be accessary towards the shortning of our own Dayes Sir it is a fond Opinion and a great mistake so to think for the Jews were wickedly instrumental in taking away the Life of the Lord of Life notwithstanding they did nothing but what Divine goodness had determined before to be done The Prophet told Amaziah he knew God had Determined to destroy him and yet he also tells him that he was instrumental towards his own Death in not hearkning unto the Voyce of the Lord. Eli's Sons disobedience pronounced the Sentence of Death against them and it is rendred as the reason why God had resolved to slay them The Date of the Old Worlds Duration was fixed to one Hundred and twenty Years Yet we find it not so long-liv'd by twenty Years their wickedness contracted that which seemed to be a determined period At what time soever the Almighty be but pleased to speak concerning a Nation People or Person to pluck up to pull down or to destroy if that Nation People or Person turn from their evil way he will Repent of the intended evil whether Sickness or Mortality The flight of that Arrow which procured King Ahabs Death was guided by a Divine Hand who aimed at his Mortal Wounds yet his rash going to Battel by the advice of his false Prophets rendred him instrumental towards his own Death The Evangelical Prophet tells us of a Consumption determined upon the whole Earth occasion'd by their great Provocations The Divine determination concerning our Lives should not lessen our care to preserve our Lives King David understood that the determination concerning the Childs Death was past yet he prayed and used means to restore it It 's a Turkish Principle to dream that because the manner and moments of Mens Deaths are appointed therefore to think it Vanity and Cowardice to arm our selves or Antidote our Bodies against the injuries of War and Assaults of Diseases A Man may live out all Gods time who wickedly shortens his own and may be permitted to do those forbidden Acts which inevitably tend to his own destruction and cut the Thred of his Dayes The Israelites Murmuring anticipated their Funerals and Buried them in the Wilderness notwithstanding their Promise of seeing Canaan The Impiety of the old World brought a Deluge which possibly might have been prevented had their Repentance been as visible as that of Ninive who were Reprieved from Execution after the Sentence of Death seemed Passed upon them their Reformation prevented Ruine and Destruction The addition of fifteen Years to Hezekias's Life was the result of the Divine Favour but not without signal demonstrations of Repentance The Rabins tell us of one going to gather his Remedies prescribed by King Solomon against his peculiar Distemper was met by an Apparition of Death in the shape of a Skeleton which told him with an audible Voice it was too late for he was struck by the Angel who kept the Key of the Grave The Moral is obvious enough to a wise man unto whom a word is enough And I pray Sir excuse this unravelling my Thoughts in such a ruffled manner from Your Healths Friend J. M. LETTER V. SIR THese Medicines the Doctor hath now Prescribed I have conveyed unto you according unto your desire the Directions are given with the particular Parcels and I am of Opinion that a firm belief that men may be many wayes accessary towards the shortning their own dayes may much conduce towards the good Success of Remedies by exciting greater care and circumspection and greater Piety and Prudence in the management of our selves Sin and Wickedness doth apparently shorten Life and multiply Diseases The Life of Man seems to be much pared away but it cannot be artributed unto any Decay in Nature and its universal Frame but rather unto the great Immorality and Imprudent extravagancy of Nations and Persons indulging effeminate luxurious and pernicious Customs Sin brought Death at first and as Sin increased so Death came nearer by five hundred years After the Flood men sinned still and built Castles in the Air and then Death came nearer by three hundred years And by Moses's time a great part of that remnant is pared away and threescore and ten is the period Had offended Justice gone on still to shorten mens dayes as men encreased in Sin our Life by this time had not been a Day long and therefore he no longer destroys the Kind but punisheth the Individuals and sets it down as a standing Rule That evil shal slay the Wicked and he shall not live out half his dayes We cannot now observe one in five hundred arrive at that Age unto which they might attain by the course of Nature but end their dayes in Sin and Folly From surfeiting proceeds dissolutions of Members relaxations of Nerves fractures of Bones Inflamations of Blood Crudities of the Stomack besides the uncleanly Consequences of Lust which like a Dart strikes through the Liver Our great Creator hath composed our Bodies like Lamps and to supply the Oyl consumed by the flame hath given us Appetites of Hunger and Thirst and Reason to guide our Appetites and the Revelation of his Will to guide our Reason but if men through the depravation of Nature and the predominancy of Temptation suffer their Appetites to dethrone their Reason and give way to Intemperance which extinguisheth Natures Lamp by corrupting the Oyl or spilling it or blowing out the flame men may then justly expect to be cut off in the midst of their dayes and to be made a Sacrifice unto their overmuch wickedness I'ts not improbable that Baalam's wish to dye the Death of the Righteous did not only include his being saved at last but also that he might come to his grave in a good old age with his Fathers in peace and might not be cut off like the Moabites and other Nations who were to perish in their wickedness before his eyes Since Man-kind Bruised himself with his Fall he hath corrupted his Blood and sowed the Seeds of innumerable Diseases We daily feel the smart of our first Sentence viz. Thou shalt dye the Death or In Dying thou shalt Dye or Thou shalt become exposed unto Sickness and Death Men
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