bodies to those regions of blessednesse that they may thence fetch comfort to alleviate the sorrows of their heavie partners Thus doe thou my sonne imploy thy better part no paines of the worse can make thee miserable That spirituall part of thine shall ere long be in blisse whiles this earthen peece shall lye rotting in the grave Why shouldst thou not even now before thy separation improve all the powers of it to thy present advantage Let that still behold the face of thy God in glory whiles thy bodily eyes look upon those friends at thy bed side which may pity but cannot help thee § 3. 2 Comfort from the author of sicknesse and the benefit of it Thou art pained with sicknesse Consider seriously whence it is that thou thus smartest Affliction commeth not out of the dust couldst thou but heare the voyce of thy disease as well as thou feelest the stroke of it it saith loud enough Am I come up hither without the Lord to torment thee The Lord hath said to me Goe up against this man and afflict him Couldst thou see the hand that smites thee thou couldst not but kisse it Why man it is thy good God the Father of all mercies that layes these stripes upon thee Hee that made thee he that bought thee at so deare a rate as his owne blood it is he that chastiseth thee and canst thou think he would whip thee but for thy good Thou art a Father of children and art acquainted with thine owne bowels Didst thou ever take the â—od into thy hand out of a pleasure that thou tookest in smiting that flesh which is derived from thine owne loines Was it any ease to thee to make thy child smart and bleed Didst thou not suffer more then thou inflictedst Couldst thou not rather have been content to have redeemed those his stripes with thine own Yet thou sawest good reason to lay on and not to spare for his loud crying and many teares and canst say thou hadst not loved him if thou hadst not been so kindly severe And if we that are evill know how to give loving and beneficiall correction unto our children how much more shall our Father which is in heaven know how to beat us to our advantage so as wee may sing under the rod with the blessed Psalmist I know O Lord that thy judgements are right and that of very faith fulnesse thou hast afflicted me Might the child be made arbiter of his own chastisement do we think he would award himself so much as one lash yet the wiser parent knowes he shall wrong him if he doe not inflict more as having learned of wise Solomon Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shalt deliver his soul from hell Love hath his stroaks saith Ambrose which are so much the sweeter by how much they are the harder set on Dost thou not remember the message that the two sisters sent to our Saviour Lord behold hee whom thou lovest is sick Were it so that pain or sicknesse or any other the executioners of Divine justice should be let loose upon thee to tyrannize over thee at pleasure on purpose to render thee perfectly miserable there were just reason for thy utter disheartening now they are stinted and goe under commission neither can they bee allowed to have any other limits then thy own advantage Tell me whether hadst thou rather be good or be healthfull I know thou wouldst bee both and thinkst thou mayst well be so Who is so little in his owne favour as to imagine hee can be the worse for faring well But he that made thee lookes farther into thee then thine owne eyes can doe he sees thy vigour is turning wanton and that if thy body be not sick thy soul will if he therefore finde it sit to take downe thy worse part a little for the preventing of a mortall danger to the better what cause hast thou to complain yea rather not to be thankfull When thou hast felt thy body in a distemper of fulnesse thou hast gone to sea on purpose to make thy self sick yet thou knewest that turning of thy head and stomach would bee more painful to thee then thy former indisposition why should not thine alâ—wise Creator take liberty to cure thee with an afflictious remedy § 4 3 Comfort from the vicissitudes of health Thou art now sick Wert thou not before a long time healthfull Canst thou not be content to take thy turns If thou hadst had more daies of health then houres of sicknesse how canst thou think thou hadst cause to repine Had the divine Wisedome thought sit to mitigate thy many daies pain with the ease of one hour it had been well worthy of thy thanks but now that it hath before-hand requited thy few painfull houres with yeares of perfect health how unthankfully dost thou grudge at the condition It was a foule mistake if thou didst not from all earthly things expect a vicissitude they cannot have their being without a change As well may day be without a succession of night and life without death as a mortall body without sits of distemper and how much better are these momentany changes then that last change of a misery unchangeable It was a wofull word that Father Abraham said to the damned glutron Son remember that thou in thy life time receivedst thy good things and Lazarus evill things but now he is comforted and thou art tormented Oh happy stripes wherewith we are here chastened of the Lord that we may not bee condemned with the world Oh welcome feavers that may quit my soule from everlasting burnings § 5 4 Comfort Sicknesse better then sinfull health Thou complainest of sicknesse I have known those that have bestowed teares upon their too much health sadly bemoaning the feare and danger of Gods disfavour for that they ayled nothing and our Bromiard tels us of a devout man in his time that bewailed his continued welfare as no small affliction whom soon after God fitted with pain enough The poore man joyed in the change and held his sicknesse a mercy neither indeed was it otherwise intended by him that sent it Why are we too much dejected with that which others complain to want why should we finde that so tedious to us which others have wished There have been Medicinal Agues which the wise Physitian hath cast his Patient into for the cure of a worse distemper A secure and lawless health how ever Nature takes it is the most dangerous indisposition of the soul if that may be healed by some few bodily pangs the advantage is unspeakable Look upon some vigorous Gallant that in the height of his spirit and the heat of his blood eagerly pursues his carnal delights as thinking of no heaven but the free delectation of his sense and compare thy present estate with his Here thou liest groaning and sighing and panting and shifting thy weary sides complaining of the heavie pace
death another trembles to expect it one beggs for life another will sell it dearer here one would rescue one life and loseth two there another would hide himself where he findes a merciless death here lies one bleeding and groaning and gasping parting with his soul in extremity of anguish there another of stronger spirits kills and dies at once here one wrings her hands and tears her hair and seeks for some instrument of a self-inflicted death rather then yeeld her chaste body to the lust of a bloody ravisher there another clings inseparably to a dear husband and will rather take part of the murtherers sword then let go her last embraces here one tortured for the discovery of hid treasure there another dying upon the rack out of jealousie Oh that one man one Christian should be so bloodily cruel to another Oh that he who bears the image of the merciful God should thus turn fiend to his own flesh and blood These are terrible things my son and worthy of our bitterest lamentations and just fears I love the speculation of Seneca's resolutely-wise man that could look upon the glittering sword of an executioner with erected and undazeled eyes and that makes it no matter of difference whether his soul pass out at his mouth or at his throat but I should more admire the practice whiles we carry this clay about us nature cannot but in the holiest men shrink in at the sight and sense of these tyrannous and tragical acts of death Yet even these are the due revenges of the Almighties punitive justice so provoked by our sins as that it may not take up with an easier judgement Dost thou not see it ordinary with our Physitians when they finde the body highly distempered and the blood foul and inflamed to order the opening of a vein and the drawing out of so many ounces as may leave the rest meet for correction Why art thou over-troubled to see the great Physitian of the world take this course with sinful mankinde Certainly had not this great Body by mis dieting and wilful disorder contracted these spiritual diseases under which we languish had it not impured the blood that runs in these common veins with riot and surfets we had never been so miserable as to see these torrents of Christian blood running down our chanels Now yet as it is could we bewail and abandon our former wickedness we might live in hope that at the last this deadly issue might stop and dry up and that there might be yet left a possibility of a blessed recovery § 7. The woful miseries of Pestilence allaid by consideration of the hand that smites us Thou art confounded with grief to see the pestilence raging in our streets in so frequent a mortality as breeds a question concerning the number of the living and the dead That which is wont to abate other miseries heightens this The company of participants It was certainly a very hard and sad option that God gave to King David after his sin of numbring bring the people Chuse thee whether seven yeers famine shall come unto thee in thy Land or three moneths flight before thine enemies or three days pestilence We may believe the good King when we hear him say I am in a great strait Doubtless so he was but his wise resolutions have soon brought him out Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man He that was to send these evils knew their value and the difference of their malignity yet he opposes three days pestilence to seven yeers famine and three months vanquishment so much oddes he knew there was betwixt the dull activity of man and the quick dispatch of an Angel It was a favour that the Angel of death who in one night destroyed an hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians should in three daies cut off but seventy thousand Israelites It was a great mercy that it was no worse We read of one City shall I call it or Region of Cayro wherein eighteen hundred thousand were swept away in one years pestilence enow one would think to have peopled the whole earth and in our own Chronicles of so generall a mortality that the living were hardly sufficient to bury the dead These are dreadfull demonstrations of Gods heavy displeasure but yet there is this alleviation of our misery that we suffer more immediatly from an holy just mercifull God The Kingly Prophet had never made that distinction in his wofull choyce if he had not known a notable difference betwixt the sword of an Angell and an enemy betwixt Gods more direct and immediate infliction and that which is derived to us through the malice of men It was but a poor consolation that is given by a victorious enemy to dying Lausus in the Poet Comfort thy selfe in thy death with this that thou fallest by the hand of great Aeneas but surely we have just reason to â—aise comfort to our souls when the pains of a pestilentiall death compasse us about from the thought and intuition of that holy and gracious hand under which we suffer so as we can say with good Eli It is the Lord. It is not amisse that we call those marks of deadly infection Gods Tokens such sure they are and ought therefore to call up our eyes and hearts to that Almighty power that sends them with the faithfull resolution of holy Iob Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee It is none of the least miseries of contagious sicknesse that it bars us from the comfortable society and attendance of friends or if otherwise repaies their love and kinde visitation with death Be not dismaid my son with this sad solitude thou hast company with thee whom no infection can indanger or exclude there is an invisible friend that will be sure to stick by thee so much more closely by how much thou art more avoided by neighbours and will make all thy bed in thy sickness and supply thee with those cordialls which thou shouldst in vain expect from earthly visitants Indeed justly doe we style this The sicknesse eminently grievous both for the deadlinesse and generality of the dispersion yet there is a remedy that can both cure and conâ—ine it Let but every man look well to the plague of his own heart and the Land is healed Can we with David but see the Angell that smites us and erect an Altar and offer to God the sacrifices of our praiers penitence obedience we shall hear him say It is enough The time was and that time may not be forgotten when in the dayes of our late Soveraigne our Mother City was almost desolated with this mortall infection When thousands fell at our side and ten thousands at our right hand upon the publique humiliation of our soules the mercy of the Almighty was pleased to command that raging disease in the height of its fury
in the mean time entertain him let him be sure to be thy daily guest Thus the blessed Apostle I protest by our rejoycing which I have in Christ Jesus I die daily Bid him to thy board lodge him in thy bed talk with him in thy closet walk with him in thy garden as Joseph of Arimathea did and by no means suffer him to be a stranger to thy thoughts This familiarity shall bring thee to a delight in the company of him whom thou didst at first abhor so as thou shalt with the chosen vessel say I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ which is best of all § 3. The misapprehension of death injurious Thou art grievously afraid of death Is it not upon a mistaking Our fears are apt to imagine and to aggravate evils Even Christ himself walking upon the waters was by the Disciples trembled at as some dreadful apparition Perhaps my son thou lookest at death as some utter abolition or extinction of thy being and Nature must needs shrink back at the thought of not being at all This is a foul and dangerous misprision It is but a departing which thou callest a death See how God himself stiles it to the father of the faithful Thou shalt go to thy Fathers in peace thou shalt be buried in a good old-age And of his holy grand-childe Israel the Spirit of God says When Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons he gathered up his feet into the bed and yeelded up the ghost and was gathered unto his people Lo dying is no other then going to our Fathers and gathering to our people with whom we do and shall live in that other and better world and with whom we shall re-appear glorious Let but thy faith represent death to thee in this shape and he shall not appear so formidable Do but mark in what familiar terms it pleased God to confer with his servant Moses concerning his death Get thee up into this mountain Abarim unto mount Nebo which is in the land of Moab and behold the land of Canaan which I give unto the children of Israel for a possession And die in the mount whither thou go est up and be gathered to thy people as Aaron thy brother died in mount Hor and was gathered to his people Lo it is no more then Go up and die Should it have been but to go a days journey in the Wilderness to sacrifice it could have been no otherwise expressed oâ—â—s if it were all one to go up to Sinai to meet with God and to go up to Nebo and die Neither is it otherwise with us onely the difference is that Moses must first see the land of Promise and then die whereas we must first die and then see the promised Land § 4. Comfort from the common condition of men Thou art troubled with the fear of death What reason hast thou to be afflicted with that which is the common condition of mankinde Remember my son the words of Joshua the victorious Leader of Gods people Behold this day saith he I am going the way of all the earth If all the earth go this way couldst thou be so fond as to think there should be a by-path left for thee wherein thou mayst tread alone Were it so that Monarchs and Princes that Patriarchs Prophets Apostles were allowed any easier passage out of the world thou mightst perhaps finde some pretence of reason to repine at a painfull dissolution but now since all goe one way and as the wise Philosopher saies those which are unequall in their birth are in their deaths equal there can be no ground for a discontented murmure Grudge if thou wilt that thou art a man grudge not that being a man thou must die It is true that those whom the last day shall finde alive shall not die but they shall bee changed but this change of theirs shall be no other then an analogicall death wherein there shall be a speedy consumption of all our corrupt and drossie parts so as the pain must be so much the more intense by how much it is more short then in the ordinary course of death Briefly that change is a Death and our Death is a change as Job stiles it the difference is not in the pain but in the speed of the transaction Fear not then the sentence of death remember them that have been before thee and that come after for this is the sentence of the Lord over all flesh §. 6. Death not feared by some Thou fearest death So doe not infants children distracted persons as the Philosopher observes Why should use of reason render us more cowardly then defect of reason doth them Thou fearest that which some others wish O death how acceptable is thy sentence to the needy and to him whose strength faileth that is now in the last age and is vexed with all things and to him that despaireth and hath lost patience Wherefore is light given saith Iob to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soul which long for death but it commeth not and dig for it more then for hid treasures which rejoyce exceedingly and are glad when they can finde the grave How many are there that invite the violence of death and if hee refuse it doe as Ignatius threatned he would doe to the Lions force his assault Death is the same to all the difference is in the disposition of the entertainers Couldst thou look upon death with their eyes he should be as welcome to thee as he is unto them At the least why shouldst thou not labour to have thy heart so wrought upon that this face of death which seems lovely and desirable to some may not appear over-terrible to thee §. 6. Our death day better then our birth day Thou art afraid to die Couldst thou then have been capable of the use of reason thou wouldst have been more afraid of comming into the world then thou art now of going out for why should we be more afraid of the better then of the worse Better is the day of death then the day of ones birth saith the Preacher Eccles. 7. 2. Better every way Our birth begins our miseries our death ends them Our birth enters the best of men into a wretched world our death enters the good into a world of glory Certainly were it not for our infidelity as wee came crying into the world so wee should goe singing out of 〈◊〉 And if some have solemnized their birth-day with feasting and Triumph the Church of Old hath bestowed that name and cost upon the deaths-deaths-day of her Martyrs and Saints §. 7. The sting of death pulled out Thou abhorrest death and fleest from it as from a Serpent But doest thou know that his Sting is gone What harme can there be in a Sting-lesse Snake Hast thou not seen or heard of some delicate Dames that have
carried them thus corrected in their bosome for coolnesse and for the pleasure of their smoothnesse The sting of death is sinne Hee may hisse and winde about us but he cannot hurt us when that sting is pulled out Look up O thou beleeving soul to thy blessed Saviour who hath pluckt out this sting of death and happily triumphs over it both for himself and thee O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory §. 8. Death is but aparting to meet again Thy soul and body old companions are loth to part Why man it is but the forbearing their wonted society for a while they doe but take leave of each other till they meet againe in the day of Resurrection and in the mean time they are both safe and the better part happy It is commendable in the Jews otherwise the worst of men that they call their grave Beth Chajim the house of the living and when they return from the buriall of their neighbours they pluck up the grasse and cast it into the aire with those words of the Psalmist They shall flourish and put forth as the grasse upon the earth Did wee not beleeve a Resurrection of the one part and a re-uniting of the other wee had reason to be utterly daunted with the thought of a dissolution now wee have no cause to bee dismayed with a little intermission Is it an Heathen man or a Christian such I wish he had been whom I hear say The death which wee so fear and flee from doth but respite life for a while doth not take it away the day will come which shall restore us to the light again Settle thy soul my sonne in this assurance and thou canst not bee discomforted with a necessary parting § 9. Death is but a sleep Thou art afraid of death When thou art weary of thy dayes labour art thou afraid of rest Hear what thy Saviour who is the Lord of life esteems of death Iohn 11. 11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth And of Jairus his daughter The maid is not dead but sleepeth Neither useth the Spirit of God any other language concerning his servants under the Old Testament Now shall I sleep in the dust saith holy Job And of David When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers Nor yet under the New For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep saith the Apostle Lo the Philosophers of old were wont to call sleep the brother of death but God says death is no other then sleep it self A sleep both sure and sweet When thou liest down at night to thy repose thou canst not be so certain to awake again in the morning as when thou layest thy self down in death thou art sure to wake in the morning of the Resurrection Out of this bodily sleep thou mayst be affrightedly startled with some noises of sudden horrour with some fearful dreams with tumults or alarms of War but here thou shalt rest quietly in the place of silence free from all inward and outward disturbances whiles in the mean time thy soul shall see none but visions of joy and blessedness But Oh the sweet and heavenly expression of our last rest and the issue of our happie resuscitation which our gracious Apostle hath laid forth for the consolation of his mournful Thessalonions For if we believe saith he that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Lo our belief is antidote enough against the worst of death And why are we troubled with death when we believe that Jesus died And what a triumph is this over death that the same Jesus who died rose again And what a comfort it is that the same Jesus who arose shall both come again and bring all his with him in glory And lastly what a strong Cordial is this to all good hearts that all those which die well do sleep in Jesus Thou thoughtst perhaps of sleeping in the bed of the grave and there indeed is rest but he tells thee of sleeping in the bosome of Jesus and there is immortality and blessedness Oh blessed Jesu in thy presence is the fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Who would desire to walk in the world when he may sleep with Jesus § 10. Death sweetned to us by Christ. Thou fearest death It is much on what terms and in what form death presents himself to thee If as an enemy as that is somewhere his style the last enemy death thy unpreparation shall make him dreadful thy readiness and fortitude shall take off his terrour If as a messenger of God to fetch thee to happiness what reason hast thou to be afraid of thine own bliss It is one thing what death is in himself a privation of life as such Nature cannot chuse but abhor him Another thing what he is by Christ made unto us an introduction to life an harbinger to glory Why would the Lord of Life have yeelded unto death and by yeelding vanquisht him but that he might alter and sweeten Death to us and of a fierce Tyrant make him a Friend and Benefactor And if we look upon him thus changed thus reconciled how can we chuse but bid him welcome § 11. The painfulness of Christs â—eath Thou art afraid of the pangs of death There are those that have died without any great sense of pain some we have known to have yeelded up their souls without so much as a groan And how knowest thou my son what measure God hath allotted to thee Our death is a Sea-voyage so the Apostle I desire to lanch forth wherein some finde a rough and tempestuous passage others calm and smoothe such thine may prove so as thy dissolution may be more easie then a fit of thy sickness But if thy God have determined otherwise Look unto Jesus the Authour and Finisher of our faith the Son of God the Lord of glory see with what agonies he conflicted what torments he endured in his death for thee Look upon his bloody sweat his bleeding temples his furrowed back his nailed hands and feet his racked joynts his pierced side Hear his strong cries consider the shame the pain the câ—rse of the Cross which he underwent for thy sake Say whether thy sufferings can be comparable to his He is a cowardly and unworthy Souldier that follows his General sighing Lo these are the steps wherein thy God and Saviour hath trod before thee Walk on courageously in this deep and bloody way after a few paces thou shalt overtake him in glory For if we suffer with him we shall also reign together with him §. 12. The vanity and miseries of life Thou shrinkest at the thought of death Is it not for that thou hast over-valued life and made thy home on earth Delicate persons that have pampered themselves at home are loth to stir abâ—â—ad especially
upon hard and unâ—â—uth voyages Perhaps it is so with thee wherein I cannot but much pity thy mistaking in placing thy contentment there where a greater and wiser man could finde nothing but vanity and vexation Alas what can be our exile if this be our home What woful entertainment is this to be enamoured on What canst thou meet with here but distempered humours hard usages violent passions bodily sicknesses sad complaints hopes disappointed frequent miscarriages wicked plots cruel menaces deadly executions momentany pleasures sauced with lasting sorrows lastly shadows of joy and real miseries Are these the things that so bewitch thee that when death calls at thy door thou art ready to say to it as the Devil said to our Saviour Art thou come to torment me before the time Are these those winning contentments that cause thee to say of the world as Peter said of Mount Tabor Master It is good for us to be here If thou have any faith in thee and what dost thou profess to be a Christian without it look up to the things of that other world whither thou art going and see whether that true life pure joy perfect felicity and thâ— eternity of all these may not be worthy to draw up thy heart to a loâ—ging desire of the fruition of them and a contemptuous disvaluation of all that earth can promise in comparison of this infinite blessedness It was one of the defects which our late Noble and learned Philosopher the Lord Virulam found in our Physitians that they do not studie those remedies that might procure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the easie passage of their Patients since they must needs die thorow the gates of death Such helps I must leave to the care of the skilful Sages of Nature the use whereof I suppose must be with much caution lest whiles they endeavour to sweeten death they shorten life But 〈◊〉 me prescribe and commend to thee my son this true spiritual means of thine happie Euthanasia which can be no other then this faithful disposition of the labouring soul that can truely say I know whom I have believed I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kâ—pt the faith Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day § 13. Examples of courageous resolutions in others Thou startest back at the mention of death How canst thou but blush to read of that Heathen Martyr Socrates who when the message as death was brought to him could applaud the news of most joyful Or of a Cardinal of Rome who yet expected a tormenting Purgatory that received the intimation of his approaching death with Buâ—na nuova buona nuova O che buona nuova è questa Is not their confidence thy shame who believing that when our earthly house of this Tabernacle is dissolved we have a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens yet shrinkest at the motion of taking the possession of it Canst thou with dying Mithridates when he took his unwilling farewel of the world cry out oh light when thou art going to a light more glorious then this thou leavest then the Sun is more weak then a Rush-Candle It is our infidelity my son it is our meer inâ— idelity that makes us unwilling to die Did we think according to the cursed opinion of some fanatick persons that the soul sleeps as well as the body from the moment of the dissolution till the day of Resurrection Or did we doubt lest we should wander to unknown places where we cannot be certain of the entertainment or did we fear a scorching trial upon the emigration in flames little inferiour for the time to those of hell there were some cause for us to tremble at the approach of death But now that we can boldly say with the Wise man ` The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die and their departure is taken for misery and their going from us to be utter destruction but they are in peace Oh thou of little faith why fearest thou Why dost thou not chide thy self as that dying Saint did of old Go forth my soul go boldly forth what art thou afraid of Lo the Angels of God are ready to receive thee and to carry thee up to thy glory neither shalt thou sooner have left this wretched body then thou shalt be possessed of thy God after a momentany darkness cast upon nature thou shalt enjoy the beatifical vision of the glorious God Be not afraid to be happie but say out of faith that which Jonah said in anger It is better for me to die then to live § 14. The happy advantages of death I am afraid to die This is the voice of Nature but wilt thou hear what Grace saith To me to live is Christ and to die is gain If therefore meer Nature raign in thee thou canst not but be affrighted with death But if true grace be prevalent in thy soul that guest shall not be unwelcome Was ever any man afraid of profit and advantage Such is death to the faithful Whosoever he be that findes Christ to be his life shall be sure to finde Death his gain for that he is thereby brought to a more full and neer communion with Christ whereas before he enjoyed his Saviour onely by the dim apprehension of his Faith now he doth clearly and immediately enjoy that glorious presence which onely makes blessedness This is it which causeth death to change his Copie and renders him who is of himselfe formidable pleasing and beneficiall I desire to depart and to be with Christ saith the man who was rapt up to the third heaven Had it been onely departing surely he had had no such great edge to it but to depart and be with Christ is that which ravisheth his soule When the Heathen Socrates was to die for his Religion he comforted himselfe with this That hee should goe to the place where he should see Orphaeus Homer Musaeus and the other Worthies of the former ages Poor man could he have come to have knowne God manifested in the flesh and received up into glory and therein that glorified flesh sitting at the right hand of Majesty could he have attained to know the blessed order of the Cherubim and Seraphim Angels Archangels Principalities and Powers and the rest of the most glorious Hierarchy of heaven could he have been acquainted with that celestiall Chore of the Spirits of just men made perfect could he have reached to know the God and Father of Spirits the infinitely and incomprehensibly glorious Deity whose presence transfuses everlasting blessednesse into all those Citizens of glory and could he have known that he should have an undoubted Interest instantly upon his dissolution in that
better eyes 239 Sect. 3. Comfort from the better object of inward sight ib. Sect. 4. The ill offâ—ices done by the eyes 241 Sect. 5. The freedome from temptations by the eye and freedome from many sorrows 243 Sect. 6. The chearfulnesse of some blind men 247 Sect. 7. The supply which God gives in other faculties 248 Sect. 8. The benefit of the eyes which once we had 252 Sect. 9. The supply of one sense by another 255 Sect. 10. The better condition of the inward ear 258 Sect. 11. The grief that arises from hearing evill things 260 Comforts against barrennesse 261 Sect. 1. The blessing of fruitfulnesse seasoned with sorrows 261 Sect. 2. The paines of child-bearing 263 Sect. 3. The misery of ill disposed and undutifull children 265 Sect. 4. The cares of Parents for their children 267 Sect. 5. The great grief in the losse of children 273 Comforts against want of sleep 276 Sect. 1. The misery of the want of rest with the best remedy 276 Sect. 2. The favor of freedom from pain 280 Sect. 2. The great favour of health without sleep 281 Sect. 4. Sleep is but a symptome of mortality 284 Sect. 5. No use of sleep whither we are going 286 Comforts against the inconveniencies of old age 287 Sect. 1. The illimitation of age and the miseries attending it 287 Sect. 2. Old age is a blessing 292 Sect. 3. The advantages of old age 1 Fearlesness 295 Sect. 4. The next advantage of old age Freedom from impetuous passions of lust 298 Sect. 5. The third advantage Experimentall knowledge 301 Sect. 6. Age in some persons vigorous and well-affected 306 Sect. 7. The fourth advantage of age near approach to our end 308 Comforts against the fears and pains of death 311 Sect. 1. The fear of death naturall 311 Sect. 2. Remedy of feare acquaintance with death 313 Sect. 3. The misapprehension of death injurious 315 Sect. 4. Comfort from the common condition of men 318 Sect. 5. Death not feared by some 320 Sect. 6. Our deaths-deaths-day better then our birth-day 322 Sect. 7. The sting of death pull'd out 323 Sect. 8. Death but a parting to meet again 324 Sect. 9. Death but a sleep 326 Sect. 10. Death sweetned to us by Christ 330 Sect. 11. The painfulnesse of Christs death 332 Sect. 12. The vanity and miseries of life 334 Sect. 13. Examples of the courageous resolutions of others 338 Sect. 14. The happy advantages of death 341 Comforts against the terrours of Judgement 347 Sect. 1. Aggravations of the fearefulnesse of the last Iudgment 347 Sect. 2. Comfort from the condition of the elect 350 Sect. 3. Awe more fit for thoughts of judgment then terrour 354 Sect. 4. In that great and terrible day our Advocate is our Iudge 356 Sect. 5. Frequent meditation and due preparation the true remedy of fear 361 Comforts against the fears of spirituall enemies 364 Sect. 1. The great power of evill spirits and their restraint 364 Sect. 2. The fear of the number of evil spirits and the remedy of it 368 Sect. 3. The malice of the evill spirits and our fears thereof remedied 373 Sect. 4. The great subtilty of evill spirits and the remedie of the feare thereof 376 The universal Reeeipt for all Maladies 385 I Have perused this excellent Treatise intituled The Balm of GILEAD containing in it many singular medicines and soverain Salves compounded and made up with so many sweet and spirituall Ingredients of holy and heavenly consolations as may be sufficient and effectual being rightly applied to cure and heal all sicknesses and sores of body and mind caused by the fearfull apprehension of imminent dangers or the sense of present evils unto which I subscribe my probatum est and do allow it to be Printed and Published JOHN DOVVNAME THE COMFORTER Comforts for the sick Bed The Preface WHat should we do in this vale of teares but bemoan each others miseries Every man hath his load and well is he whose burthen is so easie that he may help his neighbours Hear me my son my age hath waded through a world of sorrowes The Angel that hath hitherto redeemed my soul from all evill and hath led me within few paces of the shore offers to lend thee his hand to guide thee in this dangerous foard wherein every error is death Let us follow him with an humble confidence and bee safe in the view and pity of the wofull miscarriages of others § 1. Aggravation of the misery of sicknesse Thou art now cast upon the bed of sicknesse roaring out all the day long for the extreamity of thy pain measuring the slow houres not by minutes but by groanes Thy soule is weary of thy life through the intolerable anguish of thy spirit Of all earthly afflictions this is the soarest Job himself after the sudden and astonishing newâ—â— of the losse of his goods and children could yet beare up and blesse the God that gives and takes but when his body was tormented and was made one boyle now his patience is retched so farre as to curse not his God but his Nativity The great King questioning with his Cup-bearer NEHEMIAH can say Why is thy countenance sad seeing thou art not sick as implying that the sick man of all other hath just cause to be dejected worldly crosses are aloofe off from us sicknesse is in our bosome those touch ours onely these our selves here the whole man suffers what could the body feele without the Soule that animates it how can the soule which makes the body sensible choose but be most affected with that pain whereof it gives sense to the body Both partners have enough to doe to encounter so fierce an enemy The sharper assault requires the more powerfull resistance Recollect thy self my son and call up all the powers of thy soul to grapple with so violent an enemy § 2. 1 Comfort from the freedom of the soul. Thy body is by a sore disease consined to thy bed I should be sorry to say thou thy self wert so Thy soul which is thy self is I hope elsewhere That however it is content to take a share in thy sufferings soares above to the heaven of heavens and is prostrate before the throne of grace suing for mercy and forgivenesse beholding the face of thy glorious Mediator interceding for thee wo were to us if our souls were coffin'd up in our bosomes so as they could not stirre abroad nor goe any further then they are carried like some snail or tortoise that cannot move out of the shell Blessed be God he hath given us active spirits that can bestirre themselves whiles our bodies lie still that can be so quicke and nimble in their motions as that they can passe from earth to heaven ere our bodies can turn to the other side and how much shall we be wanting to our selves if we doe not make use of this spirituall agilitie sending up these spirits of ours from this dull clay of our
intermission which thou canst neither suffer nor avoid fear them whiles thou grudgest at these lay thy self lowe under the hand of thy good God and be thankful for a tolerable misery How graciously hath the wisdom of our God thought fit to temper our afflictions so contriving them that if they be sharp they are not long and if they be long they are not over-sharp that our strength might not be over-laid by our trials either way Be content man either thy languishment shall be easie or thy pain soon over Extreme and everlasting are terms reserved for Gods enemies in the other world That is truly long which hath no end that is truly painful which is not capable of any relaxation What a short moment is it that thou canst suffer short yea nothing in respect of that eternity which thou must either hope for or fear Smart a while patiently that thou maist not be infinitely miserable § 8. 7 Comfort Tâ—â— benefit 〈◊〉 the exercise of our patâ—â—ence Thou complainest of pain What use were there of thy Patience if thou aâ—ledst nothing God never gives vertues without an intent of their exercise To what purpose were our Christian valour if we had no enemy to encounter Thus long thou hast lien quiet in a secure Garison where thou hast heard no trumpet but thine own and hast turned thy drumshead into a Dicing table lavishing out thy days in varieties of idle Recreations now God draws thee forth into the field and shews thee an enemy where is thy Christian fortitude if thou shrink back and cowardly wheeling about chusest rather to make use of thy heels then of thy hands Doth this beseem thee who professest to fight under his colours who is the Great Conquerour of Death and Hell Is this the way to that happie Victory which shal carry away a crown of glory My son if thou faint in the day of thine adversity thy strength is but small Stir up thine holy courage Be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might Buckle close with that fierce enemy wherewith thy God would have thee assaulted looking up to him who hath said and cannot fail to perform it Be faithful to the death and I will give thee a crown of life § 9. 8 Comfort The necessity of expecting sickness Thou art surprized with Sickness whose fault is this but thine own Who bade thee not to look for so sure a guest The very frame of thy body should have put thee into other thoughts Dost thou see this living fabrick made up as a clock consisting of so many wheels and gimmers and couldst thou imagine that some of them should not be ever out of order Couldst thou think that a Cottage not too strongly built and standing so bleak in the very mouth of the Windes could for any long time hold tight and unreaved Yea dost thou not rather wonder that it hath out-stood so many blustring blasts thus long utterly unruined or that the wires of that engine should so long have held pace with time It was scarce 〈◊〉 patient question which Job asked Is my strength the strength of stones or is my flâ—sh as brass No alas Job thy best metal is but â—lay and thine as all flesh is grasse the clay mouldereth and the grasse withereth what doe we make account of any thing but misery and ficklenesse in this wofull region of change If we will needs over-reckon our condition we doe but help to aggravate our owne wretchednesse §. 10. 9. Comfort Thou art retired to thy sick bed Be of good comfort God was never so neer thee never so tenderly indulgent to thee as now The whole saith our Saviour need noâ— the Physitian but the sick Lo the Physitian as being made for the time of necessity commeth not but where there is need and where need is he will not fail to come Our need is motive enough to him who himself tooke our infirmities and bare our sicknesses our health estranges him from us Whiles thou art his patient he cannot be kept off from thee The Lord saith the Psalmist will strengthen thee upon the bed of languishing Thou wilt make all his bed in his sicknesse Loe the heavenly comforter doth not onely visit but attend thee and if thou finde thy pallet uneasie he shall turn and soften it for thy repose Canst thou not read Gods gracious indulgence in thine own disposition Thou art a Parent of children perhaps thou findest cause to affect one more then another though all be deare enough but if any one of them be cast down with a feverous distemper now thou art more carefully busie about him then all the rest how thou pitiest him how thou pliest him with offers and receits with what silent anxiety dost thou watch by his couch listening for every of his breathings jealous of every whispering that might break off his slumber answering every of his groanes with so many sighes and in short so making of him for the time that thy greatest darling seems the while neglected in comparison of this more needfull charge How much more shall the Father of mercies be compassionately intent upon the sufferings of his deare children according to the proportion of their afflictions § 11. 10 Comfort The comfortable end of our suâ—ferings Thou art wholly taken up with the extremity of thy paines Alas poor soule thy purblinde eies see nothing but what is laid close to thee It is thy sense which thou followest but where is thy faith Couldst thou look to the end of thy sufferings thou couldst not but rejoyce in tribulation Let Patience have her perfect work and thou shalt once say It is well for me that I was afflicted Thou mightsâ— be joâ—ond long enough ere thy jollity coulâ— make thee happy Yea woâ— be to them that laugh here But on the contrary our light affliction which is but for a momeâ—t worketh for us a farre more exceeding and eternall weight of glory Oh blessed improvement of a few groanesâ—â— Oh glorious issue of a short brunt of sorrow What do we going for Christians if we be nothing but meer flesh and blood And if we be more we have more cause of joy then complaint For whiles our outward man perisheth our inward man is renewed daily Our outward man is but flesh our inward is spirit infinitely more noble then this living clay that wee carry about us whiles our spirit therefore gaines more then our flesh is capable to lose what reason have we not to boast of the bargain Let not therefore these close curtaines confine thy sight but cast up thine eies to that heaven whence thy soule came and see there that crowne of glory which thy God holds forth for all that overcome and run with patience the race that is set before thee looking unto Iesus the Author and Finisher of our faith who is set down at the right hand of the throne of God And solace thy selfe
blessed Martyr Theodorus have upon racks and gibbets found their consolations stronger then their pains Whiles therefore the goodnesse of thy God sustaines and supplies thee with abundance of spirituall vigour and refreshment answerable to the worst of thine assaults what cause hast thou to complain of suffering The advice is high and heroicall which the Apostle James gives to his Compatriots My brethren count it all joy when ye fâ—ll into divers temptations Let those temptations be rather trials by afflictions then suggestions of sin yet even those overcome yeeld no small cause of triumph for by them is our faith no lesse tried and the trying of our saith worketh patience and the perfect work of patience is a blessed entirenesse of grace The number of enemies addes to the praise of the victory To overcome single temptations is commendable but to subdue Troopes of temptations is glorious § 3. The restraint of our spirituall enemies and their over-matching by the power of God Alas thou saist I am overlaid not with multitudes onely but with power In all challenges of Duels there is wont to be respect had to the equality both of the Combatants and weapons But woe is me how am I overmatched For me I am a weak wretch and we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against Principalities and powers against the rulers of the darknesse of this world against spirituall wickednesse in heavenly places Behold the Amorite whose height is like the height of the Cedars and their strength as the strength of oaks What are we but poor pismires in the valley to these men of measures Who can stand before these sonnes of Anak I did not advise thee my son to be strong in thy self alas we are all made up of weaknesse One of those powers of darknesse were able to subdue a whole world of men but to bee strong in the Lord whose lowest Angel is able to vanquish a whole hell of Devils and in the power of his might who commandeth the most furious of those infernal spirits to their chains Wo were us if we were left in our own hands there were no way with us but foiling and death But our help is in the Name of the Lord who hath made heaven and earth The Lord is our strength and our shield he is our rock and our salvation he is our defence so as we shall not be moved It is he that hath girded us with strength unto battel and that subdueth those that rise up against us Take courage therefore to thy self man there cannot be so much difference betwixt thee and those hellish powers as there is betwixt them and the Almighty their force is finite and limited by his omnipotence How fain dost thou think Jannes and Jambres the great Magicians of Egypt by the conjoyned powers of hell would have made but a Louse in an affront to Moses yet they could not How earnestly was that legion of Devils fain to beg but for leave to prevail over a few Gaderene-swine How strong therefore soever they 〈◊〉 to thee yet to him they are so meer weakness that they cannot so much as move without him Who can fear a Bear or a Lion when he sees them chained to their stake Even children can behold them baited when they see their restraint Look not upon thy self therefore look not upon them but look up to that over-ruling hand of the Almighty who ordinates all their motions to his own holy purposes and even out of their malice raises glory to himself and advantage to his servants §. 4. The advantage that is made to 〈◊〉 by our temptations and foils It is a woful advantage thou sayst that I have made of temptations for alas I have been shamefully foiled by them and what by their subtilty and what by their violence have been miscarried into a grievous sin against my God and lie down in a just confusion of face to have been so miserably vanquished Hadst thou wanted tears my son for thine offence I should willingly have lent thee some It is indeed a heavie case that thou hast given thy deadly enemy this cause to triumph over thee and hast thus provoked thy God Be thou thorowly humbled under the consciâ—ence of thy sin and be not too sudden in snatching a pardon out of the hand which thou hast offended be humbled but after thou hast made thy peace with God by a serious repentance be not disheartned with thy faâ—lings neither do I fear to tell thee of an advantage to be made not of thy temptations onely but even of thy sin What art thou other then a gainer if having been beaten down to thy knees thou hast in an holy indignation risen up and fought so much the more valiantly A wound received doth but whet the edge of true fortitude Many a one had never been victorious if he had not seen himself bleed first Look where thou wilt upon all the Saints of God mark if thou canst see any one of them without his scars Oh the fearful gashes that we have seen in the noblest of Gods Champions upon earth whose courage had never been raised so high if it had not been out of the sense of some former discomfitures As some well-spirited wrestler therefore be not so much troubled with thy fall as zealous to repay it with a more successful grapling We know saith the blessed Apostle that all things work together for good to them that love God All things yea even those that are worse then nothing their very sins The Corinthians offended in their silent connivence at the incestuous person the Apostles reproof produceth their sorrow what was the issue For behold this self-same thing that ye sorrowed after a godly sort what carefulness it wrought in you yea what clearing of your selves yea what indignation yea what fear yea what vehement desire yea what zeal yea what revenge Lo what a marvellous advantage is here made of one offence What hath Satan now gotten by this match One poor Corinthian is mis-led to an incestuous copulation The evil spirit rejoyceth to have got such a prey but how long shall he enjoy it Soon after the offending soul upon the Apostles holy censure is reclaimed he is delivered over to Satan that Satan should never possess him The Corinthians are raised to a greater height of godly zeal then ever Corinth had never been so rich in grace if it had not been defiled with so foul a crime Say now whether this be not in effect thy case Shouldst thou ever have so much hated thy sin if thou hadst not been drawn in to commit it Shouldst thou have found in thy self so fervent love to thy God if it had not been out of the sense of his great mercy in remitting it Wouldst thou have been so wary of thy steps as now thou art if thou hadst never slipped Give glory to God my son whiles thou givest shame to thy self and bless him
Write this man childless As on the contrary it is a special favour of God that the barren hath born seven And it is noted by the Psalmist as a wonder of Gods mercy That he maketh the barren woman to keep house and to be a joyful mother of children It is pity he was ever born that holds not children a blessing yet not simple and absolute but according as it may prove She hath a double favour from God that is a joyful mother of children many a one breeds her sorrow breeds her death There is scarce any other blessing from God seasoned with so much acrimony both of misery and danger Do but lay together the sick fits of breeding the painful throws of travel the weary attendances of nursing the anxious cares of education the fears and doubts of mis-guidance the perpetual solicitude for their provision the heart-breaking grief for their miscarriage and tell me whether thy bemoaned sterility have not more ease less sorrow §. 2. The pains of child-bearing It is thy sorrow then that thou art not fruitful Consider that thou art herein freed from a greater sorrow In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children Do but think upon the shrieks and torments that thou hast seen and heard in the painful travels of thy neighbours One thou hast seen wearying the days and nights in restless pangs and calling for death in a despair of delivery Another after the unprofitable labours of Midwives forced to have her bowels ransackt by the hand of another sex One hath her dead burden torn from her by piece-meal another is delivered of her life and birth together One languisheth to death after the hand of an unskilful Midwife another is weary of her life through the soreness of her brests All these sorrows thou hast escaped by this one In these regards how many whom thou enviest have thought thee happier then themselves §. 3. The misery of ill-disposed and undutiful children Thou art afflicted that thou art not a mother Many a one is so that wishes she had been barren If either the childe prove deformed and mis-shapen or upon further growth unnatural and wicked what a Corrosive is this to her that bore him Rebecca thought it long to be after her marriage twenty yeers childless her holy husband at sixty yeers age prays to God for issue by her his devotion as the Jewish Doctors say carried him to Mount Moriah for this purpose that in the same place where his life was miraculously preserved from the knife of his Father it might by the like miracle be renewed in his posterity God hears him Rebecca conceives but when she felt that early combat of her strugling twins in her womb she can say If it be so why am I thus And when she saw a childe come forth all clad in hair and after saw his conditions no less rough then his hide do we not think she wished that part of her burden unborn Certainly children are according to their proof either blessings or crosses Hast thou a childe well disposed well governed A wise Son maketh a glad Father Hast thou a childe disorderly and debauched A foolish son is the heaviness of his Mother and the calamity of his Father Hast thou a son that is unruly stubborn unnatural as commonly the cions over-rule the stock He that wasteth his Father and chaseth away his Mother is a son that causeth shame and bringeth reproach And if such a son should live and die impenitent what can be answerable to the discomfort of that Parent who shall think that a piece of himself is in hell § 4. The cares of parents for their children Thou hast no children As thou hast less joy so thou hast loss trouble It is a world of work and thoughts that belongs to these living possessions Artemidorus observes that to dream of children imports cares to follow Surely as they are our greatest cares so they bring many lesser cares with them Before thou hadst but one mouth to feed now many And upon whom doth this charge lie but upon the Parent not Nature onely but Religion casts it upon him For if any provide not for his own especially for those of his own house he hath denied the Faith and is worse then an infidel Dost thou not see that many suckers growing up from the root of the tree draw away the sap from the stock and many rivulets let out from the main Chanel leave the stream shallow So it must be with thee and thine But this expence is not more necessary then comfortable I remember a great man coming to my house at Waltham and seeing all my children standing in the order of their age and stature said These are they that make rich men poor But he straight received this answer Nay my Lord these are they that make a poor man rich for there is not one of these whom we would part with for all your wealth Indeed wherefore do we receive but to distribute and what are we but the Farmers of those we leave behinde us And if we do freely lay out of our substance before-hand for their good so much of our rent is happily cleared It is easie to observe that none are so gripple and hard-fisted as the childless whereas those who for the maintenance of large Families are inured to frequent disbursements finde such experience of Divine providence in the faithful managing of their affairs as that they lay out with more chearfulness then they receive Wherein their care must needs be abated when God takes it off from them to himself and if they be not wanting to themselves their faith gives them ease in casting their burden upon him who hath both more power and more right to it since our children are more his then our own He that feedeth the young ravens can he fail the best of his creatures Worthy Mr Greenham tels us of a Gentlewoman who comming into the cottage of a poor neighbour and seeing it furnished with store of children could say Here are the mouthes but where is the meat but not long after she was paid in her own coyne for the poor woman coming to her after the buriall of her last and now onely childe inverted the question upon her Here is the meat but where are the mouthes Surely the great House-keeper of the world whose charge we are will never leave any of his menialls without the bread of sufficiency and who are so fit to be his Purveyors as the Parents for their own brood Nature hath taught the very Birds to pick out the best of the graines for their young Nature sends that moisture out of the root which gives life to the branches and blossomes Sometimes indeed it meets with a kinde retaliation some Stork-like disposition repaies the loving offices done by the Parents in a dutifull retribution to their age or necessity But how often have we seen the contrary
turn his blessing into a curse Yea the same God who best knows the price of his own favours as he makes no small estimation of age himself so he hath thought fit to call for an high respect to be given to it by men out of an holy awe to himself Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man and fear thy God I am the Lord. Hence it is that he hath pleased to put together the Ancient and the Honourable and hath told us that an hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in a way of righteousness And lastly makes it an argument of the deplored estate of Jerusalem that they favoured not the Elders As therefore we too sensibly feel what to complain of so we well know what priviledges we may challenge as due to our age even such as nature it self hath taught those heathens which have been in the next degree to savage If pride and skill have made the Athenians uncivill yet a yong Lacedemonian will rise up and yeeld his place in the Theatre to neglected age §. 3. The advantages of old age 1. Fearlesnesse It is not a little injurious so to fasten our eyes upon the discommodities of any condition as not to take in the advantages that belong to it which carefully laid together may perhaps sway the balance to an equall poise Let it be true that old age is oppressed with many bodily griefes but what if it yeeld other immunities which may keep the scales even whereof it is not the least that it gives us firm resolution and bold security against dangers and death it selfe For the old man knowes how little of his clew is left in the winding and therefore when just occasion is offered sticks not much upon so inconsiderable a remainder Old age and orbity as Cesellius professed were those two things that emboldened him And when Castritius refused to deliver the hostages of Placentia to Carbo the Consul and was threatned with many swords hee answered those menaces with his many yeares And that wee may not disdain home-bred instances and may see that brave spirits may lodge in cottages In my time a plain Villager in the Rude Peake when theeves taking advantage of the absence of his family breaking into his solitary dwelling and finding him sitting alone by his fire side fell violently upon him and one of them setting his dagger to his heart swore that he would presently kill him if he did not instantly deliver to them that money which they knew he had lately received the old man looks boldly in the face of that stout Villain and with an undaunted courage returnes him this answer in his Peakish Dialect Nay even put fro thee sonne I have lived long enough but I tell thee unlesse thou mend thy manners thou wilt never live to see halfe my daies put fro thee if thou wilt What young man would have been so easily induced to part with his life and have been so ready to give entertainment to an unexpected death Surely the hope and love of life commonly softens the spirits of vigorous youth and disswades it from those enterprises which are attended with manifest perill whereas extream age teacheth us to contemn dangers §. 4. The second advantage of old age Freedome from passions Yet a greater priviledge of age is a freedome from those impetuous passions wherewith youth is commonly over-swayed for together with our naturall heat is also abated the heat of our inordinate lusts so as now our weaker appetite may easily be subdued to reason The temperate old man in the Story when one shewed him a beautifull face could answer I have long since left to be eyesick And that other could say of pleasure I have gladly with drawn my self from the service of that imperious mistresse What an unreasonable vassalage our youthfull lusts subject us unto we need no other instance then in the strongest and wisest man How was the strongest man Sampson effeminated by his impotent passion and weakned in his intellectuals so far as wilfully to betray his own life to a mercenary Harlot and to endure to hear her say Tell mee wherewith thou mayest be bouud to doe thee hurt How easily might he have answered thee O Delila Even with these cords of brutish sensuality wherewith thou hast already bound me to the losse of my liberty mine eyes my life How was the wisest man Solomon besotted with his strange Wives so as to be drawn away to the worship of strange gods And how may the firre trees howle when the Cedars fall who can hope to be free from being transported with irregular affections when wee see such great precedents of frailty before our eyes From the danger of these miserable miscarriages our age happily secures us putting us into that quiet harbour whence we may see young men perillously tossed with those tempests of unruly passions from which our cooler age hath freed us §. 5. The third advantage of age experimentall knowledge Adde hereunto the benefit of experimentall knowledge wherewith age is wont to enrich us every dram whereof is worth many pounds of the best youthly contentments in comparison whereof the speculative knowledge is weak and imperfect this may come good cheap perhaps costs us nothing that commonly we pay deare for and therefore is justly esteemed the more precious If experience be the mistresse of fools I am sure it is the mother of wisedome neither can it be except we be too much wanting to our selves but the long observation of such variety of actions and events as meet with us in the whole course of our life must needs leave with us such sure rules of judgement as may be unfailing directions for our selves and others In vain shall this be expected from our younger yeares which the wise Philosopher excludes from being meet Auditors much lesse Judges of true morality In regard whereof well might the old man say Yee young men think us old men fooles but we old men know you young men to be fooles Certainly what value soever ignorance may put upon it this fruit of age is such as that the earth hath nothing equally precious It was a profane word and fit for the mouth of an Heathen Poet That Prudence is above Destiny But surely a Christian may modestly and justly say That next to Divine Providence Humane Prudence may challenge the supreme place in the administration of these earthly affairs and that Age may claim the greatest interest in that Prudence Young Elihu could say Multitude of yeers should teach wisdom And the wise man Oh how comely a thing is judgement for gray hairs and for ancient men to know counsel Oh how comely is the wisdom of old men and understanding and counsel to men of honour In regard whereof the Grecians had wont to say that young men are for Action old men for Advice And among the Romans we
know that Senators take their name from age That therefore which is the weakness of old mens eyes that their visual spirits not uniting till some distance they better discern things further off is the praise and strength of their mental eyes they see either judgements or advantages afar off and accordingly frame their determinations It is observed that old Lutes sound better then new and it was Rehoboam's folly and undoing that he would rather follow the counsel of his green heads that stood before him then of those grave Senators that had stood before his wiser father Not that meer Age is of it self thus rich in wisdom and knowledge but Age well cultured well improved There are old men that do but live or rather have a being upon earth so have stocks and stones as well as they who can give no proof of their many yeers but their gray hairs and infirmities There are those who like to Hermogenes are old men whiles they are boys and children when they are old men These the elder they grow are so much more stupid Time is an ill measure of age which should rather be meted by proficiency by ripeness of judgement by the monuments of our commendable and useful labours If we have thus bestowed our selves our Autumn will shew what our Spring was and the colour of our hair will yeeld us more cause to fear our pride then our dejection §. 6. Age in some is vigorous and well affected We accuse our Age of many weaknesses and indispositions But these imputations must not be universal Many of these are the faults of the person not of the age He said well As all Wine doth not turn sowre with age no more doth every Nature Old Oil is noted to be clearer and hotter in Medicinal use then new There are those who are pettish and crabbed in youth there are contrarily those who are milde gentle sociable in their decayed yeers There are those who are crazie in their prime and there are those who in their wane are vigorous There are those who ere the fulness of their age have lost their memory as Hermogenes Cornivus Antonius Caracalla Georgius Trapezuntiâ—s and Nizolius There are those whose intellectuals have so happily held out that they have been best at the last Plato in his last yeer which was fourscore and one died as it were with his Pen in his hand Isocrates wrote his best Piece at ninety four yeers And it is said of Demosthenes that when death summoned him at an hundred yeers and somewhat more he bemoaned himself that he must now die when he began to get some knowledge And as for spiritual graces and improvements Such as be planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God They also shall bring forth more fruit in their age and shall be fat and well liking § 7. The fourth advantage of Age Neer approach to our end But the chief benefit of our Age is our neer approach to our journeys end for the end of all motion is rest which when we have once attained there remains nothing but fruition Now our Age brings us after a weary race within some breathings of our goal for if young men may die old men must A condition which a meer carnal heart bewails and abhors complaining of Nature as niggardly in her dispensations of the shortest time to her noblest creature and envying the Oaks which many generations of men must leave standing and growing No marvel for the worldling thinks himself here at home and looks upon death as a banishment he hath placed his heaven here belowe and can see nothing in his remove but either annihilation or torment But for us Christians who know that whiles we are present in the body we are absent from the Lord and do justly account our selves forraigners our life a pilgrimage heaven our home how can we but rejoyce that after a tedious and painful travel we do now draw neer to the threshold of our Fathers house wherein we know there are many mansions and all glorious I could blush to hear an heathen say If God would offer me the choice of renewing my age and returning to my first childhood I should heartily refuse it for I should be loth after I have passed so much of my race to be called back from the goal to the bars of my first setting out and to hear a Christian whining and puling at the thought of his dissolution Where is our faith of an heaven if having been so long sea-beaten we be loth to think of putting into the safe and blessed harbour of immortality Comforts against the fears and pains of death §. 1. The fear of Death natural THou fearest death Thou wert not a man if thou didst not so The holiest the wisest the strongest that ever were have done no less He is the King of fear and therefore may and must command it Thou mayst hear the man after Gods own heart say The sorrows of death compassed me And again My soul is full of troubles my life draweth nigh to the grave I am counted with them that go down to the pit as a man that hath no strength free among the dead Thou mayst hear good and great Hezekiah upon the message of his death chattering like a Crane or a Swallow and mourning as a Dove Thou fearest as a man I cannot blame thee But thou must overcome thy fear as a Christian which thou shalt do if from the terrible aspect of the messenger thou shalt cast thine eyes upon the gracious and amiable face of the God that sends him Holy David shews the way The snares of death prevented me In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God he heard my voice out of his Temple and my cry came before him even into his ears Lo he that is our God is the God of salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues of death Make him thy friend and Death shall be no other then advantage It is true as the Wise man saith that God made not Death but that through envie of the devil Death came into the world But it is as true that though God made him not yet he is pleased to employ him as his messenger to summon some souls to judgment to invite others to glory and for these later Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints And what reason hast thou to abominate that which God accounts precious §. 2. Remedy oâ— fear Acquaintance with death Thou art afraid of death Acquaint thy self with him more and thou shalt fear him less Even Bears and Lions which at the first sight afrighted us upon frequent viewing lose their terrour snure thine eyes to the sight of death and that face shall begin not to displease thee Thou must shortly dwell with him for a long time for the days of darkness are many do thou
life having spoiled principalities and powers hath made a shew of them openly triumphing over them on his Crâ—ss Lo all the powers of hell were dragg'd after this glorious Conquerour when he was advanced upon that Triumphant Chariot Look therefore my son upon these hellish forces as already vanquished and know that in all things we are more then Conquerours through him that loved us Onely do thou by the power of thy faith apply unto thy self this great work that thy victorious Saviour hath done for the salvation of all the world of believers § 4. The great subtilfy of evil spirits and the remedy of the fear of it Power without malice were harmless and malice without power were impotent but when both are combined together they are dreadful But whereas Malice hath two ways to execute mischief either Force or Fraud the malice of Satan prevails more by this latter so as the subtilty of these malignant spirits is more pernicious then their power In regard of his power he is a Lion in regard of his subtilty he is a Serpent yea that old Serpent whose craft must needs be marvellously increased by the age and experience of so many thousand yeers So much the more careful ought we to be my son Lest Satan should get an advantage of us This is that he seeks and if our spiritual wisdom circumspection be not the more will be sure to find It is a great word and too high for us which the Apostle speaks For we are not ignorant of Satans devices Alas he hath a thousand stratagems that our weak simplicity is never able to reach unto The wisest of us knows not the deceitfulness of his own heart much less can he dive into the plots of hell that are against us We hear and are fore-warned of the wiles of the Devil but what his special machinations are how can we know much less prevent Even the children of this world saith our Saviour are in their generation wiser then the children of light how much more crafty is their Father from whom their cunning is derived Be as mean as thou wilt my son in thine own eyes say with Agur the son of Jakeh Surely I am more brutish then any man and have not the understanding of a man I neither learned wisdom nor have the knowledge of the holy But what ever thou art in thy self know what thou art or mayst be in thy God Consider what the man after Gods own heart sticks not to profess Thou through thy Commandments hast made me wiser then mine enemies for they are ever with me Lo the spirit of wisdom is ours and he who is the eternal Wisdom of the Father is made unto us wisdom as well as righteousness And he who over-rules hell hath said The gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church What are the gates of hell but the deep plots and consulâ—tations of those infernal powers The Serpent is the known embleme of subtilty The Serpents of the Egyptian Sorcerers were all devoured by Moses his Serpent wherefore but to shew us that all the crafty counsels and machinations of hellish projectors are easily destroyed by the power and wisdom of the Almighty when all was done it was the Rod of God that swallowed them all and was yet still it self when they were vanquished So as that whereby Satan thought to have won most honour to himself ended in his shame and loss What an infinite advantage did the powers of darkness think to have made in drawing our first Parents by their subtil suggestions into sin and thereby into perdition as imagining either mankinde shall not be or shall be ours the incomprehensible wisdom and mercy of our God disappointed their hopes and took occasion by mans fall to raise him up to a greater glory and so ordered it that the Serpents nibbling at the heel cost him the breaking of his head What Trophees did that wicked spirit think to erect upon the ruines of miserable Job and how was he baffled by the patience of that Saint and how was that Saint doubled both in his estate and honour by his conquering patience How confidently did the subtilty of hell say concerning the Son of God exhibited in the flesh This is the heir come let us kill him and the inheritance shall be ours How sure work did they think they had made when they saw him through their subtil procurement nailed to the Cross and dying upon that tree of shame and curse when they saw him laid dead under a sealed and guarded Grave-stone And now behold even now begins their Confusion and his Triumph now doth the Lord of Life begin to trample upon Death and hell and to perfect his own glory and mans redemption by his most glorious resurrection And as it was with the Head so it is with the members when Satan hath done his worst they are holier upon their sins and happier by their miscarriages God findes out a way to improve their evils to advantage and teaches them of these Vipers to make soverain Treacles and safe and powerful Trochisces Shortly the temptations of Satan sent out from his power malice subtilty are no other then fiery darts for their suddenness impetuosity penetration If we can but hold out the shield of faith before us they shall not be quenched onely but retorted into the face of him that sends them and we shall with the chosen vessel finde and profess that in all things we are more then conquerours through him that loved us and in a bold defiance of all the powers of darkness shall say I am perswaded that neither death nor life nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord To whom be all honour glory praise power and dominion now and for evermore The Vniversal Receit for all Maladies THese are my son special compositions of wholsome Receits for the several Maladies of thy soul wherein it shall be my happiness to have suggested unto thee such thoughts as may any whit avail to the alleviation of thy sorrows But there is an universal Remedy which a skilfuller Physitian hath ordained for all thy grievances and I from his hand earnestly recommend to thee Is any among you afflicted let him pray Lo here the great and soverain Panpharmacum of the distressed soul which is able to give ease to all the fore-mentioned complaints Art thou castâ— down upon thy sick bed Call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray This was Hezekiah's receit when he was sick unto death He turned his face to the wall and prayed This was David's receit Have mercy on me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed Take therefore the
counsel of the Wise man My son in thy sickness be not negligent but pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole Art thou soul-sick pray So did holy David The sorrows of hell compassed me about and the snares of death prevented me In my distress I called upon the Lord and cried unto my God Art thou infested with importunate temptations Pray So did S. Paul when the messenger of Satan was sent to buffet him Thrice I besought the Lord that it might depart from me So did David Whiles I suffer thy terrours I am distracted thy fierce wrath goeth over me But unto thee have I cried O Lord and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee Art thou disheartned with the weakness of grace Pray so did David I am feeble and sore broken I have roared by reason of the disquietness of my heart Lord all my desire is before thee Art thou afflicted with the slanders of evil tongues Pray So did David The mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are opened against me they have spoken against me with a lying tongue Hold not thy peace O God of my praise Art thou grieved or affrighted with the Publike Calamities of War Famine Pestilence Pray So good Jehosaphat presseth God with his gracious promise made to Solomen If when evil cometh upon us as the sword judgement or pestilence or famine we stand before this house and in thy presence and cry unto thee in our affliction then thou wilt hear and help and shuts up his zealous supplication with Neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon thee Art thou afflicted with the loss of friends Pray and have recâ—urse to thy God as Ezekiel when Peletiah the son of Benaiah died Then fell I down upon my face and cried with a loud voice and said Ah Lord God! wilt thou make a full end of the remnant of Israel Art thou distressed with Poverty Pray So did David I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me I became also a reproach to them when they that looked upon me shaked their heads Help me O Lord my God Oh save me according to thy mercy Art thou imprisoned Pray So did Jonah when he was shut up within the living wals of the Whale I cried by reason of my affliction unto the Lord so did Asaph Let the sighing of the Prisoner come before thee according to the greatnesse of thy power preserve thou them that are appointed to die Art thou driven from thy Country pray This is the remedy prescribed by Solomon in his supplication to God If thy people be carried away into a Land far off or near yet if they bethink themselves in the Land whither they are carried and turn and pray to thee in the Land of their Captivity If they return to thee with all their hearts and pray towards the Land which thou gavest to their Fore-fathers c. then hear thou from heaven their prayer and their supplication Art thou bereaved of thy bodily senses Make thy addresse to him that said Who hath made mans mouth or who maketh the dumb and the deaf or the seeing or the blind have not I the Lord Cry aloud to him with Bartimeus Lord that I may receive my sight And if thou be hopelesse of thine outward sight yet pray with the Psalmist O Lord open thou mine eyes that I may see the wondrous things of thy Law Art thou afflicted with sterility pray so did Isaac so did Hannah she was in bitternesse of soul and prayed unto the Lord and wept sore and received a gracious answer Art thou troubled and weakned with want of rest pray so did Asaph I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed Thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak I cryed to God with my voice unto God with my voice and he gave ear unto me Dost thou droop under the grievances of old age pray so did David Oh cast me not off in the time of old age forsake me not when my strength faileth O God thou hast taught me from my youth Now also when I am old and gray-headed O God forsake me not Art thou troubled and dismayed with the feares of death pray so did David My soul is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh unto the grave I am counted with them that goe down into the pit I am as a man that hath no strength Free among the dead thou hast laid me in the lowest pit in darknese in the deeps But unto thee have I cried O Lord and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee Dost thou tremble at the thought of judgement So did the man after Gods own heart My flesh trembleth for fear of thee and I am afraid of thy judgements Look up with Jeremiah and say to thy Saviour O Lord thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul thou hast redeemed my life O Lord judge thou my cause Lastly art thou afraid of the power malice subtilty of thy spirituall enemies pray so did David Deliver me from mine enemies O my God defend me from them that rise up against me Oh hide me from the secret counsell of the wicked Consider mine enemies for they are many and they hate me with cruell hatred O keep my soul and deliver me So did S. Paul pray that he might be freed from the messenger of Satan whose buffets he felt and was answered with My Grace is sufficient for thee so he sues for all Gods Saints May the God of peace tread down Satan under your feet shortly Shortly what ever evill it be that presseth thy soul have speedy recourse to the throne of Grace pour out thy heart into the eares of the Father of all mercies and God of all comfort and be sure if not of redresse yet of ease We have his word for it that cannot not fail us Call upon me in the day of trouble I will deliver thee and thou shalt glorifie mee Fashionable suppliants may talk to God but be confident he that can truly pray can never be truly miserable Of our selves we lie open to all evils our rescue is from above aud what entercourse have we with heaven but by our prayers Our prayers are they that can deliver us from dangers avert judgements prevent mischiefs procure blessings that can obtain pardon for our sins furnish us with strength against temptations mitigate the extremity of our sufferings sustain our infirmities raise up our dejectednesse increase our graces abate our corruptions sanctifie all good things to us sweeten the bitternesse of our afflictions open the windows of heaven shut up the bars of death vanquish the powers of hell Pray and be both safe and happy FINIS Gen. 48. 16. a Ps. 32 3 Job 10 1. Job 7. 11