Selected quad for the lemma: death_n
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A47235
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Prayers for the use of all persons who come to the baths for cure. By the author of the Manual of prayers, for the use of the scholars of Winchester Colledge.
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Ken, Thomas, 1637-1711.
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1692
(1692)
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Wing K277; ESTC R220999
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15,192
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82
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trial Holy Scripture teacheth us that God has threatened very many and very sore bodily Diseases to Disobedience Deu. xviii 58 59 60. and that they who are sick are stricken by God 2 Sam. xii 15 The Corinthians who profaned the blessed Sacrament were for that cause many of them weak and sickly 2 Chron. xxi 18 1 Cor. xi 30 And our Saviour in his advice he gives to the Man whom he cured of an Infirmity of thirty eight years continuance intimates that sin was the cause of that inveterate Disease Jo. v. 14 But when God is pleased to afflict righteous persons with Sickness as he did King David and Hezekiah then Sickness is not an effect of God's Anger but of his Paternal disciplin towards them Ps. xxxviii 7 Isa. xxxviii 1 The like may be said of Lameness which happens by the Divine Direction to good Men as well as to the wicked King Asa who did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God in the time of his old age was diseased in his feet 1 King xv 23 Mephibosheth was lame from five years old 2 Sam. iv 4 And the poor Man whom St. Peter and St. John miraculously healed was lame from his mothers womb Acts iii. 2 Since then both Sickness and Lameness are strokes given us by God to him we must chiefly and in the first place betake our selves for Cure and the Holy Ghost has set a mark of spiritual disgrace on Asa who was otherwise a good King That in his disease he sought not to the Lord but to the Physicians 2 Chr. xvi 12 Not that the Scripture does in the least condemn or discourage our going to the Physicians when we are sick or our use of all due means for our Recovery Our Saviour himself when he says They that are whole need not a Physician but they that are sick Mat. ix 12 sufficiently intimates that they that are sick did need one The Son of Siraâ—h gives excellent advice to both the sick and the Physician Honour a Physician with the honour due unto him for the uses which you may have of him the Lord hath created him the Lord hath created Medicines out of the earth and he that is wise will not abhor them and with such doth he heal men and taketh away their pains Ecclus. xxxviii 1 c. But then he adds My son in thy sickness be not negligent but pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole leave off from sin and order thy hands aright and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness give a sweet savour and a memorial of fine flower then give place to the Physician There is a time when in their hands there is good success for they also shall pray unto the Lord that he would prosper that which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life I earnestly recommend to you this Counsel of the Son of Sirach and therefore to you that are sick or infirm or lame I recommend Repentance and Prayer and Sacrifice the Sacrifice of Alms by which you will offer to God a sweet savour To your Physician I also recommend devout Prayer to the Author of Health and Sickness that his Physick may prosper and then is Physick like to procure a Blessing when both the Patient and the Physician joyn in their Prayers for it I exhort you to begin with Repentance and to read Devotional Books on that Subject of which blessed be God there are good store for it is Repentance that must dispose you for Prayer The Prophet complains of the obdurateness of those who when God had stricken them did not grieve Jer. v. 3 God forbid you should be thus obdurate God forbid but since he has stricken you you should grieve and grieve with that godly sorrow which worketh Repentance to Salvation not to be repented of I â—â—seech you then to examine your selves very seriously whether you have ever repented of your sins so as to bring forth fruits meet for repentance for if you are guilty either of total Impenitence or of an universal relapse into your old sins or if you lie under the dominion of any one wilful sin look no further for the original cause of your Distemper God has in Justice sent it you for your punishment But the most merciful God who delights not in the death of a sinner in his very Punishments designs rather to awaken than to destroy us and if this punishment by which God calls you to repentance does awaken you out of your former security it turns to a Blessing to a happy occasion of your eternal Bliss be of good cheer then and repent Your very bodily Distemper will present you with a lively Idea of your sins and Holy Scripture makes use of the former to picture out to us the latter Think then of the weakness and the pain and the indisposedness and the restlessness and the danger that afflict the sick Man and compare them with that impotence to good that anguish of a wounded Spirit that universal indisposedness to Duty that restlessness of Conscience those horrors of eternal torment which attend the sinner and which without Repentance are for ever incurable and make this reflection with your self that if we are so very sollicitous for the cure of our Bodies much more ought we to be sollicitous for the cure of our Souls But if your heart does not condemn you if you are conscious to your self you have truly repented and have never returned to your vomit again and indulge no one wilful sin and have nothing to accuse your self of but your daily failings which are the unavoidable infelicities of lapsed nature and for which you daily beg pardon then is your Distemper a fatherly Chastisement only and you ought to rejoyce in it rather than in the least to regret it However it is your best way to renew your repentance on this occasion and to be sure to bear Gods Rod and to learn that Lesson from it in which you are sensible you were deficient before and which God has sent this â—ffliction on purpose to â—each you True Repentance will rightly dispose you for Prayer and you will come with boldness with an humble but firm confidence to the throne of Grace when you can look on God as reconciled to you in Jesus and shall be sure to obtain help in time of need To obtain either the Cure of your Distemper or if God sees thâ— continuance of it to be morâ— for your spiritual advantage such Grace which is sufficienâ— for you such Consolation iâ— your own Soul and satisfaction in God's good pleasure as shall abundantlâ— over-balance your Calamityâ— Prayer is a Duty alwayâ— obliging and to be practised by all because all stand alike in need of the Divine Mercy and Benediction but it is more especially the Duty proper for the time of affliction because our needs are then most pressing and therefore says St. James Is any afflicted let him pray Jam. v.