man may dye in a time when God forbids and yet dye when God permits and live out all Gods time who wickedly shortens his own The murmuring Isralites were buried in the wilderness notwithstanding their promise of seeing Canaan their infidelity anticipated their funerals The wages of sin is death and may as justly be payd in the morning as in the evening of our lives Indeed temperance doth not alwayes prove an Antidot against the Pestilence nor Abstinence a preservative against Famin nor innocence a security from the stroke of injustice but they are likely meanes The flagitious impiety of the old world sent a Deluge which possibly might have been prevented had their repentance been as visible as the Ninevites was who were repreived from execution after the sentence of death had passed upon them whereby omnipotence did demonstrate that he hath reserved a power in his own hands to length then or shorten the lives of men as he pleaseth and to make the sands in the glass of time run swift or slow according to his pleasure it is very observable how the Patriarks out-lived all their titles of consanguinity yet none lived to a compleat thousand years some indeed give this reason for it be cause God would make good his threatning to Adam that in the day he eat he should dye the death and so they would compute a day for a thousand years as St. Peter speaks but this is trifling and foolish A more probable reason may be to declare to the world the vanity of life when those who lived longest could not arrive to such a period which in comparison of Gods eternity is but a day CHAP. XXXVII SIn brought death at first and as sin increased death came near er by 500 years presently after the flood man sinned still and built Castles in the air and then it is reduced to 200 years and by Moses time half that remnant is taken away and threescore and ten is the period had God gone on still to shorten our dayes as we increased in sin our life by this time had not been a day long and therefore he no longer destroys the kind but punisheth the individual and sets it down for a rule viz. evil shall slay the wicked So that not one in 500 arrive at that state which they might attain unto by the course of nature but end their dayes in sin and folly and in a period appointed in anger we may easily observe how the blessing of health is contradicted by an impious life for from surfeting proceeds disolution of members relaxation of nervs fractures of bones inflamation of the liver crudities of the stomach which Solomon sums up besides the uncleanly consequences of lust which hunt for the pretious life and like a dart strike through the liver and the casual deaths caused by Jealousies and animosities thus providence intervenes and suffers not nature to take its course by reason of impieties CHAP. XXXVIII IT is observable that not a Son dyed a natural death before the Father for three thousand years untill Terahs time who was the first that taught the people to make Images of clay and corrupted the Worship of God his son Haron was snatched away by death before him The Jewish Rabbins do observe that during the standing of the second Temple there were 300 high priests but in the time of the first but 18 which stood within 10 years as long as the first which may be much attributed to their impieties It is thought by some of the antients that Balaam's wish to dye the death of the righteous was not only that he might be sav'd at last but also seeing what judgments God had purposed to bring upon the Moabites that he might come to his grave in a good old age with his father in peace we live by the word of blessing out of the mouth of God every command if observ'd like food and physick tends to the length of our natural as well as spiritual lives CHAP. XXXIX THe fear of God is the best Antidote against sickness as it is a direct enemy to sin which brought in death If sin destroy soul and body why should not piety preserve both If the sting of conscience torment body as well as soul doubtless peace of conscience releives both Why may not the soul as well conduce to the prolongation of the body as to the immortality of it Why may not the body have the perfection of life viz. health from the soul as life it self CHAP. XL. THe circumstantial actions of piety are influential towards the lengthening the lives of men as the sweet sleeps of temperate persons and their freedome from violent and inraged passions and the admirable contentment that dwells in a holy conscience these must necessarily conduce to a healthfull life Dying to sin is an excellent means to preserve life if men would try the experiment It is observed that the male heir of Ely's family dyed as soon as born for many generations according to a divine threatning until they set themselves unto a serious humiliation and solemn repentance We live not at an adventure but the manner and moments of our death come under a divine appointment the Jews could not prejudice our Saviours life untill his hour was come viz. that hour which by a special providence was appointed to be his last hour although St. Paul was in deaths often yet he dyed not before providence thought meet it is appointed to men once to dye that is it is once appointed to men to dye CHAP. XLI A Man may shorten his own dayes but he cannot shorten a Divine determination the date of Hezekia's life was lengthened with respect to himself but not in respect of Divine purpose that is the same be our time long or short CHAP. XLII Object But if Piety doe so prevaile with God to lengthen our lives how comes it to pass that many good and holy men dye whilst in the prime of their years Answer Those that reason thus doe not consider that the righteous may be taken away from the evil to come and by their deaths God may serve other ends of his Providence and yet make his promise good by recompensing Temporal with Eternal life Although God hath promised long life to them that obey yet he never promised that he would not borrow our natural lives as it were and make a glorious exchange CHAP. XLIII DEath may sometimes be a great mercy and life a great misery It is observed that from Adam to to the Flood by the Patriarks were eleven Generations but by Cains line eight they being shorter lived because God intending to bring a flood upon the World rescued the Elect from the fatall Deluge And the same reason is generally given in case Infants dye before the use of reason for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven Although Abijah came to his grave whilst young yet ther was some good thing found in him towards the Lord God of Israel
Many times providence may make use of those distempered humours which the child derived from its Parent to be the instruments of death a holy person may dye in battail and be surpriz'd by every accident all these things falling alike to all Yet these examples doe not contradict a general rule viz. that Piety and Faith in Christ is a good preservative of natural life Enoch and Elias never dyed and became examples that a spotless life might possibly have been immortall CHAP. XLIV SO that the best way to secure our health is to indeavour to procure the providence of God to be our life guard but when he withdraws his protection we are exposed to the aspect of a Star the contingencies of a battel and the accidents of a humor every day and every minute we escape a thousand deaths surrounding us it is as natural for a young person to dye as an old because that is most natural which is most common and hath most natural causes but to dye with age is a very rare thing but the sins of youth are the immediate instruments of death and although a man in a consumption be under the preparations for death yet one in health may be as near it upon more fatall and less discern'd accompts by a sudden Feaver or Apoplexy c. There are some vices that carry a knife in their hand and cut of man before his time every sinfull pleasure tops off a branch from our short life Although we fly from death yet it followeth us and we doe like the poor creatures in Noahs flood when one flour drowned go to the next and so higher and higher and more and more diffracted with the horror of death and when at the uppermost story yet drown'd at last so we run from one disease and another overtakes us and we are pursued untill destroyed at last by the king of Terrors CHAP. XLV DAvid indeavours to use all the means possible to secure his life notwithstanding he had been told by Samuel he should live to wear the Crown so that the Divine determinations concerning our lives should not lessen our care to preserve our lives In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye the death was Adams sentence the wicked and blood thirsty man shall not live out half his days as the Patridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not so he that getteth riches and not by right shall leave them in the midst of his dayes The covetous rich man shall have his soul or life taken away and then whose are all his goods Sauls disobedience Ahaziahs evil consultations Jeroboams Idolatry Benhadads curiosity Ahabs cruelty Hananiahs false Prophesie Herods vainglory Saphyras perjury the Samaritan lords infidelity the forty two childrens calumny these impieties had a particular influence upon the contracting of their days as sacred writ demonstrates CHAP. XLVI MOreover the infirmities of virtuous good men may so far provoke the Almighty as to take away their natural lives although he reward them with Eternal life as in the example of Moses and Aaron and the good Israelites that murmured the good Prophet slain by the Lion Ely and Vzziah Somtimes God cuts off children for the sinfull miscarriage of Parents as in the case of Abijah the widows child Davids child Elies children Somtimes Subjects for the Ruâ—ers Impieties as Davids Subâ—ects CHAP. XLVII ANother thing that is necessary towards the procuring the fluence of a Divine blessing with the means is to endeavour to find out the cause of the distemper I mean the supernatural cause and to learn those lessons which providence intends to teach by sickness the Prophet's quaere wherefore doth the living man complain doth plainly intimate that there is a reason there is an Achan oâ— Babylonish garment or something that causeth the thorn in the flesh and this must be removed for the Almighty doth not afflict willingly the rod hath a voice there are many ends thaâ— God aims at in all afflictions Aâ— to correct for sinfull miscarriages our minds have diseases as weâ—… as our bodies the tympany oâ— pride the feaver of passion thâ— dropsie of covetousness anâ— therefore we are fed with thâ— bread of affliction and the water of adversity the plaguâ— of the heart is many times cureâ— with the plague of the body there is a root of bitterness from whence all our troubles spring As there is a vanity lyeth hid in the best worldly good so there is a blessing lyeth hid in the worst worldly evil we should imitate the Bee gather sweet fruit out of bitter flowers CHAP. XLVIII WE should not like Baalam strike the Ass look only upon the second cause of our sickness but behold the Angel that is the immediat instrument We are very prone to attribute too much to second causes but holy Job was of another minde when his children were killed by the fall of a house he saith The Lord took them away Sometimes the Almighty takes away a person by death in mercy to the person as Abijah and Josiah and others Sometimes he removes the child to exercise the parents faith as Jobs children and in the case of Isaac One reason why our distempers are no sooner removed is because the design of it is not answered CHAP. XLIX THere are many happy intentions that Divine providence aymes at in laying sicknesses and diseases upon the bodies of men One end that Divine Goodness aimes at is to demonstrate his own glory in healing and restoring so saith our blessed Lord concerning Lazarus this sickness shall not be unto death but for the glory of God and indeed deliverance from sickness is a singular mercy both to a mans self and others Epaphroditus was sick nye unto death but God had mercy on him and on me also saith holy Paul and therfore we should bless the Lord with our souls and all that is within us should praise his holy name and that upon this account because he healeth all our diseases CHAP. L. THis consideration ellivated the holy soul of Hezekias and transported him into a divine Doxology viz. the living the living they shall praise thee as I doe this day When men are miraculously delivered from death after they have received the sentence thereof in themselves it is given to this end that thanks may be many on their behalf When our souls are delivered from going down to the grave and our eyes are enlightned that we sleep not the sleep of death then â—hould we praise the Lord in the great congregation and our songs should be unto the God of our lives CHAP. LI. ANother design of providence in sickness is to prepare men for greater sufferings it prepares us for death St. Paul whose bodily presence was weak was ready to dye for the name of Christ why should he be afraid of them that kill the body they can do no more then an Ague or a Consumption the sick-bed is the attiring room of the grave in which we should be preparing
don by a skillfull Artist the rectifying of one spring may disorder the regular motion of the whole How many persons destroy themselves by imprudence in the choyce of Physitians more dying of soft places in their heads hen ulcers in their lungs and multitudes digging their graves with their thick sculls CHAP. XXII THe generallity of people if a person be but nick-named Doctor and took his degree in a drinking Schoole ascendit gradum sine gradibus It may be one who did his exercise in Fees and will be a Doctor although he wants the participle Doctus spels Physick with an F. and Chirurgion with an S. such a one shall serve turn Some called Doctors are as unskilfull in Physick as the Athenians were in Religion they dedicate their medicines to an unknown disease People had better fall into the hands of the common Executioner for then they will be put out out of their pain then into the hands of Illiterate Doctors or confident Quacks He deserves to be kill'd that runs against the point of a sword in the hand of a madman and little better are many who pretend to secrets or rare arcana's and kill men without making any noise like white Gunpowder that none shall know who hurt them Pretend privacy in the preparations of their medicines that the world may not see what poyson'd the Patient These imitate Evah or rather the Serpent pretend to give that which shall be pleasant to the tast and good for food and Physick but in the end beguile men of their health and few dayes after the Patient dyeth the death Like the Lyon that pretends to pull the thorne out of the Lambs foot and devours him like Gipsies tell you your fortune and pick your pockets These waterologers or rather piss Prophets will make a man believe they know every thing by the water even how many staires a man falls down when he bruises himself these are like mouse-traps when a man is in their hands their is no getting out but with the loss of life si populus vult decipi decipiatur CHAP. XXIII SOme goe altogether by books which are only a collection of conjectural experiments and never consider Age Constitution Sex Time of the disease never regard the rational intentions of cure lop the branches of the disease but never pluck up the root nor remove the cause but cry they are safe if they doe no good they can doe no hurt whereas they doe much hurt in omitting more effectual remedies while they use weak and insignificant ones Some blind Bayards there are who pretend to three or four universal remedies to cure all distempers and these will sometimes cure the disease and kill the Patient and like some Gardners pluck up the root of the plants and sow the seeds against the next year at the same time and snuff the candle so rashly as to put it quite out but so long as none but themselves know what the thing was that made the man breath his last all is well enough Whereas a learned experienced Physitian cares not who views his prescripts upon the file supposing the Patient dye it being nothing but what was safe what he would have taken himself and what would have certainly recovered the Patient if God would have had it so Some are so confident they will tell you they will be hanged if they don't cure you they can cure the Gout when the cause is removed and the Dropsie proceeding from neither wind nor water and pains in the head if not distemper'd in body and restore any man to health although never so crooked These will tell a woman she is with child when the course of nature hath been stopt half a year and no ill symtomes and that a mans liver grows too much on his right side and that there is water near his heart and such like things which every fool may doe if he please But none are so confident to talk and undertake as those that have least judgement it is therefore a great indiscretion in the vulgar to condemn the most learned and most experienced Physitians because they doe not preach over the water and enter into impertinent discourses with people as ignorant pretenders to Physick are apt to doe He that saith least and doth most is the best Physitian His business is to cure the Patients body not to inform his judgement to procure health not knowledge in Physick vulgar apprehensions are not capable of understanding either the terms or the notions of Physick Dogs may indeed lick mens sores and make them whole with their tongues Physitians must cure by reason and experience CHAP. XXIV INdeed illiterat Practitioners wil somtimes let fly such strange words that with a small addition being taken in the pap of an apple would give a man a purge that must needs be a simple composition in the cure of my distemper that hath more of words then deeds for its ingredients But frequently it happens that amongst such Doctors the most corrosive venemous Chimical medicine hath nothing to kill it but fasting spittle or a smooth tongue Beware of that medicine whose best corrective is a poyson though guilded over with never so plausible pretences their spirits generally prove evil spirits and such as cannot be cast out by natural means their powders are worse then Gunpowder for they blow up many good subjects and with so much privacy that none but he that did it can tell who hurt them CHAP. XXV ONe of these desperadoes may possibly be more talked on and admired by the vulgar then an able Physitian because never used but in desperate cases wherein they either kill or cure now if the Patient dye they are not blamed as others are because it is nothing but what was expected namely that the Patient should dye being given over by all but if the Patient recover then their skill is proclaimed but what a madness is it to run a sword in a mans bowels to cure him of an impostume because one was once cured so by accident It is no wonder to see such mens prodigious actions admired for doe we not gaze more upon a blazing Comet that infects the Aire and poysons men with pestilential vapours then on the regular motions of the glorious Sun whose cherishing beams yield light and health to humane nature Who hath more followers then the Prince of Darkness CHAP. XXVI GIve me the Physitian whose Prescriptions are safe and yet effectual who imitates nature and allures her into a healthful state and by plausible insinuations opens obstructions evacuates superfluities corrects crudities checks violent fermentations and in a mild and friendly way helps her to shake hands with the disease I desire no acquaintance with those malignant remedies who assault the disease with such imprudent rashness that they destroy the disease and kill the patient as Sampson did his enemies and himself It is good to use chimical remedies very warily a child is in more danger of doing mischief
it out This is like the Jews Truly this is my grief and I must bear it as well as I can thus men put from them the evil day and talk as if they were but beginning to live when they are ready to dye and boast as if they made a covenant with death It highly provokes God that when his hand is lifted up they will not see it Frowardness exasperates our calamities Now there are several considerations that may move Christians to patience and a willing submission unto the hand of God in sickness as to consider That it is laid upon us by a loving and wise Father and this may compose our spirits Shall we not drink the cup which our Father hath given us to drink we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of Spirits and live they chastened us after their own pleasure but He for our profit CHAP. LXXVIII SIckness it is a pledg of our Adoption God afflicts in faithfulness He aims at our good thereby and in making sore he binds up faithful are the wounds of such a friend when the righteous God smites he doth us a kindness we are not in heaviness except need be let us not say We are sick so as to complain if sin be pardoned Again Consider how many years of health you have injoyed formerly this may compose the spirits And shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil Again Consider that it might be worse It is a mercy we are not utterly consumed that we are out of hell that we are scourged with rods not with scorpions that our calamity is a natural infirmity not a wounded spirit for that is intolerable Again consider that if our sickness be never so painful we brought it upon our selvs We should therefore bear the indignation of the Lord because we have sinned against him CHAP LXXIX A Gain the best of men in all ages have been exposed to the same distempers of body Lazarus whom Christ loved was sick It is nothing but what is common to man and we may take the Prophets and Apostles for our examples in suffering affliction of the like kind and of patience Lastly look beyond all these sorrows and sickness the Time is short the Coming of the Lord draws nigh Heaven will make amends for all take a prospect of the Land of Promise where there shall be no more crying nor pain but sorrow sighing and sickness shall fly away And these Rules being observed in sickness would be an effectual way to procure the concurrence of a Divine blessing with the means that are used towards the preservation of natural life A serious contemplation of Heaven and a future State where these vile weak languishing bodies shall be made like the glorious body of Christ in spiritual agility and immortallity may exhilarate the spirits of a Christian when his flesh upon him is so in pain as to cause his soul with in him to mourn Spiritual peace is the best cordial to chear up the heart against bodily pains the inhabitants of Sion complain not of sickness if sin be but pardoned Our bodies are like Nebuchadnezzar's Image whose feet were of clay our foundations are in the dust and it is as natural for our bodies to be out of frame as for a Watch to be irregular in its motions nay far more natural besides our indispositions depend upon supernatural causes Sometimes sickness and divine wrath are concomitants as Solomon intimates and then its sad indeed and sometimes it comes to good purposes if Naaman had not been Leprous he would not have given the Prophet a visit Detrimenta Corporis incrementa virtutis Be mercifull unto me O Lord for I am weak and my bones are sore vexed saith holy David when Gods chastning was upon him The sickness of the body many times brings the body of sin into a Consumption and the holiness of the heart is many times promoted by the weakness of the body when Jacob's thoughts were in Heaven he minded not his Thigh being out of Joynt Surely it is a mercy that God hath abridged so much of the term of mans life in these last days wherein so much of Heaven is discovered that it would put a Saints patience to it to know so much of the upper worlds glory and yet to be kept so long from it as the Fathers in the first Ages were Such is the Saints state in this world that their very life and the pompous entertainments of it are but their cross because they detain them from their Crown CHAP. LXXX VVHen we seriously consider and reflect upon the nature of man in this State of mortality and observe the wonderful composure of our Bodies the Scituation of the Parts the circulations of the Blood the secret meanders of the Veines and Nerves and the curious distributions and digestions of our aliment into Blood and Flesh and take notice how small an obstruction in any part will discompose our health and stop the current of our ease how small an inflammation will transport us into an other world as if we went in a fiery Chariot how mean a putrifaction is able to crumble us into our first Original These things considered may not only compose our spirits under sickness but fill us with admiration that we live an hour in health and ease Did we but consider our frame and remember we are but dust how should we wonder that every blast of aire doth not blow us into our sick beds and graves We are as naturally exposed to trouble and sickness as the sparks are to fly upwards why then should we not be thankfull that pains and anguish are not our constant companions CHAP. LXXXI VVEre it possible for a man to stand upon one of the Battlements of Heaven and with one glance of his eye to behold all the wounds and Diseases and so hear all the groans and complaints of all the sick persons in the world how would the blessing of health be prized by such a one how uneasie a place is a sick bed when the man is full of tossing to and fro until the dawning of the day when it is day withing t were night and when it is night wishing for day imploying his time in telling the Clock and entertaining melancholy apprehensions of the blackness of the night Sick men as Seneca observes Aegrotantes mutationibus ut remediis utuntur use changes as if they were remedies How miserable in outward appearance is that mans case whose flesh is cloathed with worms as holy Jobs was Some Criticks do observe that the word translated flesh it springs from a root which signifieth to bring glad tidings and the Gospel is exprest by it Evangelium and they give this reason for it because there must be a taking off Flesh viz. the incarnation of Christ which would bring the best news the world ever heard of CHAP.