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
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
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
thou by one bit of an Apple a sower one set both thine own and thy Childrens teeth on edge to all thy succeding generations but blessed be God who hath sent his Son Jesus Christ the second Adam the Lord from Heaven who by the merits of his sufferings hath redeemed that forfeiture and infeoffed us in a better estate then we were in before the fall whereby we who were of the earth earthly are made conformable to the image of the heavenly and intitled to a celestial paradise into which no Serpent shall ever be able to enter and out of which we shall never be ejected It is worth the noting that if our first Parents had not transgressed but had continued in their imparadised conditon they should not have enjoyed an idle lazy felicity God did not put them into the Garden as we put beasts into a good pasture to graze and batten or as he placed the Leviathan in the Sea to play therein but to dress and keep it to employ their time in doing good in it and that exercise of their vocation should have been unto them there as the doing of Gods will is to the blessed Angels in Heaven a maine part of their beatitude It is a comfortable thing to live in a good vocation and indeed without that we cannot properly be said to live A calling or vocation is in the language of the law tearmed an Addition but it is such an addition as a figure is to a cyphar it is that that makes us something in the world and without which the greatest that are are but like Nulls in a character only remarkable because they signify nothing O my Soul consider this it is better to dye then not to live and they live not that live to no end Make it thy buisiness so to live as that when God shall call thee thou maist be found in the way of thy calling doing thy Lords buisiness which is the way to be admitted into the joy of thy Lord. It is written of our blessed Saviour that he affected a garden and frequented it often with his disciples God doth not prohibit us the liberty and free use of lawful pleasures so long as we do not set our hearts and affections upon them but make use of them as we do of our gardens for recreation and diversion and not to dwell in and so long as we look up to him in the enjoyment of them as the God of our comforts and have our rejoycing in him O my Soul take him whom thou lovest for an example and study to improve this delight to a sanctified use when thou art here in company to edify others as he did his disciples by a holy communication Ministring grace unto them and when alone to spend thy time and exercise thy thoughts as he also did in Meditation and praier Nay let his burial and resurrection both which were in a garden be remembrances unto thee to put thee in mind in the middest of thy delights that thou art implanted with him into death that like as he was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father even so thou also shouldest be conformed to the likeness of his resurrection to walk in newness of life Let these thoughts be thine intertainment and thy garden will be so much paradise unto thee He that walkes with God can never want a good walke and good company There is no garden well contrived but that which hath an Enoch's walk in it How cleanly are these Allies kept and how orderly are the Hedges cut and the Trees pruned and nailed and not an irregular Twig left there is no such care taken for the weeds and bushes and brambles that grow abroad God is careful to preserve the Garden of his Church in all decency and order and will not suffer it to be overgrown with errours or prophaness but is like a good Husbandman if I may say so with all humbleness ever at work about it either weeding out what his heavenly hand hath not planted or if need be lopping and cutting off luxuriant branches that bear not fruit or purging those that do bear that they may bring forth more fruit But as for those that are without he lets them alone to grow wild not giving himself so much trouble to speak after the manner of men as either to dig about them with his Chastisements or to dung and inrich them with his Mercies but leaving them to their own barrenness and to the curse attending it God in his judgement begins at his own House and if so what shall the end be of those that are not of his Houshold It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God though for correction an edification but it is infinitely more fearful and horrid to fall out of his hands to be as without the pale of his providence left to bring forth fruit unto our selvs Why should those that are of the Church of God be discouraged under their crosses and afflictions when as they are but the effects of his divine husbandry whereby to meliorte and improve them their sufferings are but signes of his owning them to be true plants of his own setting and that they grow where they should do Lord do any thing to me rather then nothing Let thy pruning knife be never so sharp and cutting it can do me no hurt so long as it tends to make me good At present this is a sweet place but what will it be a few months hence at what time the liberality of nature will for this Season be spent and her charity to us will have reduced her to a bare condition When winter is come all this verdure and fragrancy is gone and we may go seek the garden in the garden and the place thereof shall not know it How vain and transitory and fugitive are all earthly pleasures like flowers they wither even whilst we are smelling to them and perish in the using the fashion of the world as well as of the garden passeth away It was well said of a Heathen that in this inferior visible world there is nothing to be seen but the shadows and appearances of things but that in the invisible in the superior world there are solids and substances to be found as in their proper region In vain do we look for any thing in any thing here when there is a superscription of vanity written upon all things under the Sun If any body would know what vanity is the word of God will tell him it is something less then nothing if any would be satisfied what nothing is I can tell him it is nothing and it is so because it is not because it hath no being He is wise that knows how to take things as they are in their true entity The world can never deceive us so long as we are led by truth and not by opinion He is not confined in the receiving of mony that takes brass coine