of a Consumption taken from his own mouth who for the last four years lay bed-rid and so weak that he could not turn himself therein without help By which Distemper his Body was so parched and dried that he was almost like a Sceleton but upon this Cure he recovered his former health and strength whereby he was enabled to follow his Trade being a Shoomaker and living at Stamford in Lincolnshire whereof he gave a large account to which I must refer you for further satisfaction with much affection and sensibleness of the Lord's mercy and goodness to him upon April 7th 1659. Now the Story as it is at large being much noised abroad divers Ministers met together at Stamford to consider and consult about it and for many reasons were induced to believe that the cure was wrought by the Ministry of a good Angel Clark's Mirror vol. 1. p. 18. More such Instances as these might be inferred and exhibited to the Reader but I suppose those already mention'd are a full demonstration of God's omnipotent power that he can work without means and also of his distinguishing mercy that he sometimes doth so for the benefit welfare and encouragement of the Godly who are made either Administrators or Receivers of this gift of bodily health And this may more fully appear if we consider that Edward the Confessor as Dr. Peter Heylin's Cosmog noteth was a man of that holiness in his life that he received power from above to cure many Diseases besides the Kings Evil and that Samuel Wallas was cured chiefly by observing the supposed Angel's injunction in these words But above all whatsoever thou doest fear God and serve him as it is recorded in the afore-mention'd Story to which I referred The consideration of which Instances doth assure us that God's Children have in a super-natural manner been sometimes agents and sometimes Patients in bodily Cures and by consequence may be so still And as touching longaevity the time would fail me to tell of Noah Abraham Isaac Jacob Joseph Moses Aaron Phineas grandchild of Aaron Joshua Job Elizeus the Prophet Isaiah the Prophet Tobias the elder and Tobias the younger old Simeon Anna the Prophetess St. John the Evangelist Simeon the Son of Cleoph as called the Brother of our Lord and Bishop of Hierusalem Polycarpus Disciple unto the Apostles and Bishop of Smyrna Dionisius Areopagita contemporary unto the Apostle St. Paul Aquila and Priscilla first St. Paul the Apostle's Hosts afterward his Fellow-helpers and some others whom I could name who by ancient Record appear all severally excepting Simeon that was the Prophet Luke 2. and St. John the Evangelist to have survived an hundred years and this not so much through strength of nature as the extraordinary grace of God thus rewarding their Moral and Christian vertues Now to conclude this Chapter though we are not to depend wholly upon Spiritual means and super-natural assistances for bodily health and length of dayes yet we must principally and chiefly respect them being as hinges upon which Almighty God doth frequently turn the course of Nature For in him as the Apostle citeth it out of Aratus the Poet we live and move and have our being Acts 17. 28. And Job testifieth as much when he saith I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men Job 7. 20. Job knew as well as Paul that the wages of sin was death and having sinned how should he avoid that death but by addressing himself to God who is the preserver of Men without him there is no Balm in Gilead sufficient Jer. 8. 2. no Physician there that is able to recover the health of the People Which is true as well in a natural as in a metaphorical sense Hezekiah's lump of Figs may be a soveraign Plaister but the prolonging of his life came from God the waters of Bethesda were in themselves likewise very soveraign but it was after they were moved by the Angel from Heaven We may yea we must use all honest and good means to preserve this our Tabernacle of clay from ruin and dilapidation I say we must thankfully embrace the good means which nature or art can minister unto us for the preservation or recovery of health The skill and experience of the judicious Physician may be made use of And though it were Job's complaint that there were many Physicians of no value Job 13. 4. And though such as these be mention'd with ignominy in the Gospel that instead of taking away the poor Womans superfluous blood they had sucked away her necessary maintenance She had spent all that she had and was nothing bettered but rather grew worse Mark 5. 26. I say though such unskilful Empiricks be mention'd with infamy as deserving reverence or reward from none but a Sexton who finds most of his employment from such Physicians desperate unskilfulness yet those of skill and experience and of conscience are worthy of a double honour of reward maintenance Luke the able and beloved Physician deserves a remembrance in St. Paul's Catalogue Col. 4. 14. And such a Physicians skill may be made use of with good success But yet in the use of secondary means this proviso must go along we must ascribe the main honour to God For it is from him that health springeth forth speedily as is hinted to us by the Prophet Isa. 58. 8. Let them therefore who want health together with an honest use of the means address themselves with Hezekiah unto God who is the Fountain of health and he will hear their prayers see their tears and grant them either that which they desire or that which he knoweth in his alwise Providence to be better for them And for us that do enjoy the blessing of health let us return our humble thanks unto God The living the living they shall praise thee as we do this day the father to the children shall make known thy truth Isa. 38. 19. And we cannot praise him better then in the words of our Church To thee O God who hast redeemed our souls from the jaws of death we offer unto thy Fatherly goodness our selves our souls and bodies which thou hast delivered to be a living Sacrifice unto thee to thee which doest restore the voice of joy and health into our dwellings we offer the Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving lauding and magnifying thy glorious Name for such thy preservation providence over us through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Vid. the two last Forms of Thanksgiving CHAP. III. Shewing that vertuous and regular actions and affections do naturally conduce to the health of Body and length of Life A Life led in Religion as the Lord Verulam in his History of Life and Death noteth seemeth to conduce to long Life There are in this kind of life these things leisure admiration contemplation of Heavenly things joyes not sensual noble hopes wholesom fears sweet sorrows lastly continual renovations by observances penances expiations all which saith he
all the increase of his house should die in the slower of their age 1 Sam. 2. 32. So on the other side it is God's blessing if he increase the length of our dayes and we die with Job being old and full of dayes and go in our grave in a full age as a shock of corn cometh in in his season to the barn Job 42. 17. 5. 26. Therefore that Heathen Cic. Tusc. 1. was mistaken who said Optimum est non nasci proximum quam cito aboleri The best thing is never to be born and the second best to die assoon as we are born For though long life to some be as wearisome as death is fearful though old age in many be a disease not curable but by death yet these are but accidental life it self is a blessing and the longer we live the more experience we have of God's favour a greater loathing of the sins of our youth and a larger time of repentance as having space wherein to grow wiser and better and thereby to make this life a large preparative to Eternal life Health then and long life being now considered as blessings we will henceforth follow the means and leave the blessing to God CHAP. 1. The first means being to avoid Sin in general which is supernaturally an occasion of bodily Diseases and shortness of Life DIseases are the interests of Sin till Sin there were no such things For this cause in general many are weak and sick Let a Man take the best air he can and eat the best food he can let him eat and drink by Rule let him take never so many Antidotes Preservatives and Cordials yet Man by reason of Sin is but a crazy sickly thing for all this For as one saith all sicknesses of the body proceed from the Sin of the Soul I am not ignorant that the Lethargy ariseth from the coldness of the brain that the Dropsie floweth from waterish blood in an ill affected Liver that the Spleen is caused from melancholly wind gathered in the mid-riff but the cause of all these causes the fountain of all these fountains is the Sin of the Soul And this Truth from the Fountain of Sacred Writ will be clearly derived unto us Our Saviour said unto the Man that had been thirty-eight years diseased Behold thou art made whole sin no more lest a worse thing come unto thee John 5. 14. Jesus thus warning him by shewing him the cause of his infirmity which was Sin Those Physicians that derive all Diseases from natural causes only do not well understand that Text for it is Spiritually discerned All sickness is certainly the fruit of Sin and many Physicians will acknowledge it being induced thereunto by a consequence from an instance of a particular though Epidemical disease namely the Plague or Pestilence which is concluded not only from the Word of God Lev. 26. 25. but also from the confirmed constant and received opinion of all Ages to be Flagellum Dei pro peccatis Mundi The rod of God for the sins of the World The word Plague in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifying no less for 't is so furious a disease as it disdains any general method of Cure when it is in its rage So that we must needs conclude that whatever be the natural causes of Diseases Sin is the supernatural and meritorious cause not only of this but also of all other Diseases Let me instance but one particular disease more the Palsy when our Saviour was about to cure a Man sick of that disease Mark 2. 5. he first pronounced forgiveness of Sins to him to shew that his Sins were the cause of his disease I confess diseases in the godly are many times God's love tokens and he doth not alwayes aim at the demonstrating of his justice in punishing sin when he layeth sickness upon Men for sometimes he layeth it upon his own Children for other ends as for the trial of their Faith and Patience c. as we see in Job's example yet it is true that God doth not chastise or punish those that are innocent but such as deserve it by their sins otherwise he should be supposed as unjust Sin then the Spiritual disease is the original and procuring cause of every natural disease so as if there were no sin there should be no sickness But here peradventure some may object and say how do this appear experimentally and exemplarily in some vicious Persons whose blood danceth in their veines and whose bones are moistned with marrow who are in health when he whom Christ loveth is sick John 11. 3. as 't was said of Lazarus To this I answer that the like matter bad almost stifled and amazed Job Job 21. and Asaph Psal. 73. but they soon understood a reason of the several dispensations of God's Providence One general reason might be this it may well stand with God's Providence as he is the Father of Mercies and the God of Justice as he shall see cause to let both his Mercy and his Justice meet together both upon the wicked and the Godly As for instance many times he conferreth benefits upon the wicked and suffereth them to go free from punishment there is his mercy though short and temporal but the evil that is in them he punisheth Eternally there is his Justice Again many times he punisheth the sins of his best Servants with temporal afflictions but their goodness he rewardeth with Eternal blessings there is his Justice in punishing temporally his Mercy in rewarding Eternally and in both these the wisdom of God's Providence is discovered So more particularly God doth sometime permit the wicked to have a sound body with a diseased Soul and the Godly a diseased body with a more sound Soul But yet for the most part in the revolution of experience we shall find that where sin reignes most there most diseases as hand-maids are attending upon her And though every general Rule in Grammar hath its exception yet take this as general without exception that Original and likewise Actual sins are the seeds of bodily diseases Though by Gods Mercy and Providence all things even the sharpest work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8. 28. Yea Sin is not only a Spiritual or supernatural cause of bodily diseases but also of shortness of life For as one saith through Sin our bodies are become nothing but the Pest-houses of diseases and death Sin hath corrupted Mans blood and rendered his body mortal and vile Before Sin our bodies were immortal for death and mortality came in by Sin but now Alas they must return to dust and 't is appointed to all Men once to die by Statute Law in Heaven and 't is well if they die but once and the second death hath no power over them they must see corruption and this is the wages that Sin allows to its Servants For the wages of Sin is death Rom. 6. 23. this is the largess or
congiary that Sin gives to its Souldiers viz. death of all sorts this is the just hire of the least sin and this hire is seldom long detained from them that have deserv'd it most As the Lord for the wickedness of the World reduced Man's age from almost a thousand to an hundred and twenty years Gen. 6. 3. and afterward from that to Moses his Arithmetick three score years and ten Psal. 90. 10. So now for the same cause he hath reduced it to a very little pittance not only to 70. but to 7. for in Law no man's life is valued more so that the life of Man is but a span and the weavers shuttle is no more swift than it is Job 7. 6. Especially when many vices are woven into it for then God's justice soon cuts it off as a Weaver cuts off his web from the Loom sometimes before it be finished For every disorderly Person that hath shortned his dayes by his sins may say as Hezekiah did once I have cut off like a weaver my life Isai. 38. 12. i. e. as some Expositors render it I have shortned my life by my sins Thus Er and Onan in the 38th Chap. of Genesis by their sins contracted their lives into the wicked man's abridgment viz. into less than the moyety not living out half their dayes Yea so unquestio able is this truth that it was taken for granted in Job's dayes as appeareth by Job's interrogation How oft is the candle of the wicked putout and how oft cometh their destruction upon them Job 21. 17. What pleasure hath he in his house after him when the number of his moneths is cut off in the mid 〈…〉 21. And in Solomon's dayes it became a Proverb The years of the wicked shall be shortned Prov. 10. 27. A truth that is exemplified in most of the wicked Kings of Judah and of Israel First The Kings of Judah Abijam a wicked King reigned but three years 1 Kings 15. 2. Jehoram of whom it is recorded that he did evil in the sight of the Lord he reigned but twelve years four with his Father and eight alone 2 Kings 8. 17. Ahaziah a wicked King reigned but one year 2 Kings 8. 25. Athaliah a wicked Queen an Usurper she reigned but six years 2 Kings 11. 3. Ahaz a wicked King reigned but unto the 37 th year of his age 2 Kings 16. 2. Amon a wicked King reigned but two years and lived but twenty-four 2 Kings 21. 19. To be short several others of the same Line are Chronicled with short Periods Sin and a sudden death reigning in them successively Secondly We may instance in the Kings of Israel Nadab the Son of Jeroboam a wicked King reigned but two years 1 Kings 15. 25. Baasha indeed reigned twenty-four years but Elah his Son reigned but two years being slain in his drunken humour by his Servant Zimri 1 Kings 16. 8 9. Zimri a Conspirator reigned but seven dayes for burning the King's House over him with fire he died Now the cause is recorded 'T was for his sins which he sinned in doing evil in the sight of the Lord in walking in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he did to make Israel to sin 1 Kings 16. v. 15. to 20. Omri a superlative Sinner reigned but twelve years 1 Kin 16. 23. Ahaziah the Son of Ahab was an Idolatrous King and reigned but two years 1 Kings 22. 51. He being sick sent Messengers to enquire of Baal-zebub the god of Ekron whether he should recover of his disease but had his judgment by Elijah who said Thou shalt not come down off that bed on which thou art gone up but shalt surely die which came to pass according to the word of the Lord which Elijah had spoken 2 Kings 1. And now what shall I more say For the time would fail me to tell of Jehoram Zachariah Shallum Menahem Pekahiah Pekah and some others who through sin lost their lives with their Kingdoms being cut off by the hand of God's vengeance either before or in their middle age And although some of the wicked Kings of Judah and of Israel did reign many years by the permission of a long suffering God yet the instances are so few that they are much overballanced by the short lives of those already mentioned Much also of this truth might be observed in the short Periods of the wicked reigns of sundry Princes not only of this but of other Nations but thus much shall serve to have delineated and demonstrated sin to be in general a Spiritual or Moral cause of bodily diseases and shortness of life supernaturally effected CHAP. II. Shewing that many sins are Natural causes of bodily distempers and shortness of life Most sins are sins of the flesh which are so named because through our flesh to wit our seed or through Carnal generation sin is conveyed into the whole Man Soul and Body Also for that the flesh or body is the instrument to execute the lusts of our natural concupiscence Rom. 6. 13. Thus Piscator and Peter Martyr do judge Now these fleshly lusts we must understand have a powerful influence and operation in the production of fleshly or bodily diseases And this will appear by an examination of the numerous off-spring of excess and intemperance which in many places of Sacred Writs is deemed no less than the transgression of the bounds of God's Law Now the off-spring or fruits of intemperance are these First It brings upon us almost all diseases Secondly It takes part with diseases and makes them often incurable Thirdly It shortens our dayes and makes us die in Agonies From whence cometh soreness and weariness melancholy and heaviness of Spirits stiffness and pain of joints belchings crudities feavers distastings of meat loss of appetite and other tempestuous evils but from excess and intemperance These experimental effects who can deny since almost every Man carries about him and within him a convincing argument thereof Whence is the multitude of Physicians saith a modern Physician but from the frequency and multitude of diseases and whence that frequency and multitude but from excess This saith he is generally confessed but the practise still continued the understanding assents but the affections over-rule Now Intemperance in general may be thus described It is an inordinate and immoderate appetite or desire in our affections pleasures gifts and the use of the Creatures more particularly it is taken for an inordinate appetite and immoderate desire and use of meat and drink and this is when a due mean is exceeded in the too liberal and excessive use of them so that Gluttony and Drunkenness are the two main supporters of Intemperance which is the Mother of most diseases Democritus said that intemperate Men were Valetudinis suae proditores Betrayers of their own health and killers of themselves by their pleasures He spake it of intemperance in eating and drinking of which and also of other sorts of intemperance I shall
further treat in the following Sections SECT I. Of Gluttony THis is such a sin as Christ gives us a strict Caution against it Take heed to your selves lest at any time your hearts be over-charged with surfeiting c. And as it is a sin so a Mother-sin fruitful in the production of other sins Deut. 21 20. yea fruitful also in diseases of the body The Stoicks imputed all diseases to age but Erasistratus did not ill to ascribe all or most of them to excess in eating For if a Man feed too much as a Physician saith these discommodities arise thereof all Natural Spirits leave their several standings and run headlong to the stomack to perfit Concoction which if with all their forces they cannot perform then brain and body are over-mastered with heavy vapours and humours so that he is ever under the arrest of some disease or in danger of it Multos morbos fercula multa faciunt Many dishes bring or cause many diseases It was the observation of temperate Seneca and it is not without reason For Physicians do affirm that crudities the fruits of repletion are the nurseries of all those diseases wherewith Men are ordinarily vexed Now that which we call crudities is the imperfect Concoction of food for when the stomack either through the excess of Meat or for the variety taken at one meal or some other evil quality doth imperfectly digest what it hath received the juice of the Meat so taken is said to be crude that is to say raw or to have a cruditie in it which is the occasion of many inconveniences For in the first place they do fill the brain with many phlegmatick excrements and overheat the bowels whereupon many obstructions are bred in the narrow passages of them Moreover these cruduties do corrupt the temper of the whole body and stuff the veins with putrid humours from whence proceed many grievous diseases for when the first Chylus is crude and what we eat is malignantly concocted it is impossible to speak as to the less Modern opinion that any good blood can be bred in the second Chylus of the Liver for the second Concoction can never amend the first Again these crudities are the cause that the veins through the whole body are replenished with foul and with impure blood and mingled with many humour which do break forth into desperate Diseases And this may be more fully seen if we shall make make an inspection into a Treatise of Doctor Charlton's Exercitationes Pathologicae p. 70. wherein we may observe how and after what manner food becomes the cause or matter of diseases Or if a sum of what he more largely deliberates upon may be satisfactory take it thus From an ingurgitation of food beyond the strength of Nature ariseth a Repletion from a Repletion flow a Plethora or an Exuperance of good humours and when these by a continual motion have increased to corruption and putrifaction there soon follows a Cachochymia or a redundance of ill Humours and out of these two spring a most fruitful field of diseases Hence arise Feavers Inflammations Tumours Swellings Irruption of the Vessels bleeding at the Nose Apoplexies Cathexy or ill disposition of the Body when the nourishment is converted to ill humours Scabiness Leprosie and innumerable other diseases For saith he p. 71. quid mali precor est quod à corrupto sanguine non expectes ac time as What evil distemper I pray is there but may be both expected and feared to arise from a corrupt blood Thus you see Gluttony is a Nurse to innumerable diseases But this is not all it is a cut-throat to innumerable Persons according to the Proverb Intemperance is a cut-throat destroying Man's life frequently and suddenly according to that known saying By Suppers and Surfeits more have been killed than Galen ever cured Yea by surfeiting have many perished as saith the Son of Sirach Eccl. 37. 31. Thus Gluttons dig their graves with their teeth whil'st their Kitchin is their Shrine their Cook their Priest their Table their Altar and their Belly their God Hence also it is said That Meat kills as many as the Musket and that Pluaes pereunt crapulâ quam capulo lantibus quam lanteis The board kills more than the sword I have read that the Spartans to deter others from Luxurious feeding erected Statues to represent the fatal and fearsul end of those that were given to riot What Schollar hath not read in Herodotus of the Minstrel of Megara whose girdle in the wast was three yards and a half long or of Milo Crotoniates that great Pamphagus Athen. l. 10. c. 1. yet they died both very weak Men and young by oppressing Nature History records of the Scots that they punished their Belly-gods in this sort First they filled their bellies as full of good Meat as ever they could hold then they gagged them and threw them into the next River with their arms pinnion'd saying Now as thou hast eaten too much so drink too much But they should not have needed to punish them by such an artificial destruction for had they waited with a little patience they might have observed this sin to be its own natural punishment destroying more frequently and more generally than any other means For Life as one saith is a lamp excess in Meat doth shorten the one as too much Oyl extinguisheth the other The Glutton then turning that into an occasion of death which was given for preservation of life seldom or never lives long But as he is hateful unto God in idolizing his belly so he is hurtful to himself as a Felo de se in hastning his own death Now if any should here require some Rules of Temperance in eating whereby they may know how to limit themselves within due bounds that so they may not run out upon the borders of Intemperance I must suspend that enquiry with its full determination until I shall have positively treated of Temperance in general Only thus much may be inserted here which Doctor Muffet a famous Physician hath written in his Book of Health's Improvement Fools and Idiots saith he know you when your Horse and your Hawk and your Dog have enough and are you ignorant what measure to allow your selves Who will urge his Horse to eat too much or cram his Hawk till she be over-gorged or feed his Hound till his tail leave waving And shall Man the measurer of Heaven and Earth be ignorant how in Diet to measure the bigness or strength of his own stomack Knows he by signs when they are over-filled and is he ignorant of the signs of repletion in himself namely of satiety loathing drowsiness stiffness weakness weariness heaviness and belching But we will pass over this and treat of the other branch of Intemperance which follows SECT II. Of Drunkenness THat this is a sin and that of no mean degree we may plainly perceive by sundry Texts of sacred Writ Luke 21. 34. Gal. 5. 21. Eph. 5.
viz. the Epilogue this Prescription as an Antidote against that disease Be not idle be not solitary Burton's Melancholy Moreover there are many other disease that are the excrescences of this sin but let it suffice in general terms to denote it as a main occasion of bodily distempers brooding and hatching them by a sedentary life So true is that of the Poet Ovid Ignavum corrumpunt otia corpus Idelness corrupts wastes and destroys the body And the learned Galen saith as much Otium reddit imbecillas vires membrorum Com. 3. in lib. de Off. c. 32. Also in another place Otium liquefacit Com. 3. i◠lib. 6. Eped c. 2. And also Nature's great Explorator Lord Verulam in his History of Life and Death doth denote unto us That an idle life doth manifestly make the flesh soft and dissipable and so consequently an Enemy to long life Sluggishness is likewise much of the same Nature and property bringing many from the Couch to the Bed of sickness and from the Bed to the Coffin For if the old Rule be true Diluculo surgere saluberrimum est To arise betimes in the morning be the most wholesom thing in the world then surely Regulâ contrariorum by the Rule of Contraries to play the Sluggard and to exceed that convenient measure of rest which Nature alloweth must be if not the most unwholesom thing in the world yet one of the most And this will appear if we consider the Inconveniences of immoderate sleep as they are described by Physicians First In that the heat being thereby called into the Body it consumes the superfluous moistures and then the necessary and lastly the solid parts themselves and so extenuates dries and emaciates the Body And Secondly It fixes the Spirits and makes them stupid it hardens the excrements and makes the Body costive from whence follow many inconveniences Lastly The brain being therby filled with vapours the Head-ach is caused the natural motions of the humours are hindred and stopped crude phlegmatick juices and all manner of superfluous humours are heaped up and increased whence flows a notable Spring of distillations and such like cold and long continuing diseases I could add hereunto what the Patrons and Supporters of Ballance Physick write viz. By too much sleep the strength is suffocated concoction diminished perspiration hindred the head and bowels hurt c. D. Sanctor's and D. Cole's new Art of Physick But I must not forget my intended brevity SECT V. Of Immoderate Anger ANger when it is immoderate becomes sinful when the Sun goeth down upon it soon becomes a work of darkness and therefore the Apostle after a Concession Be angry addeth a Restriction And sin not let not the Sun go down upon your wrath Eph. 4. 26. In which Restriction sinful and remaining anger are connexed and prohibited Now as this remaining or immoderate anger is sinful so it is unhealthful for the incommodities thereof are many and evil as Feavers Phrensies and Madness Trembling Palsies Apoplexies decay of Appetite and want of Rest Paleness Collicks Plurisies Inflammations Cholerick Caeliack and Iliack Passions c. So that not without cause was the saying of Eliphaz Wrath killeth the foolish man Job 5. 2. And to this purpose I shall infer what I find recorded in humane Story The Emperour Nerva ended his life in a Feaver contracted by anger The Emperour Valentinian died by an irruption of blood through anger Cuspianus Chromerus l. 18. Vinceslaus King of Bohemia raging against his Cup-bearer fell presently into a Palsie whereof he died Also L. Sylla who in his anger had spilt the blood of many at last in his fury raging and crying out against one that had broken promise with him thereby brake a Veine within him vomiting out his blood soul and anger together Valer. Maxim l. 9. And Ajax through anger fell into a deadly fury Now from these Instances we may conclude the truth of that Sentence in Eccl. 30. 24. Wrath shortens the life And also of that old Medicinal Rule in Schold Salerni Si vis incolumem si te vis reddere sanum Irasci crede profanum If thou wilt live in health and free from sickness bane Then think thou choler in excess to be prophane We may add hereunto that anger in excess inflameth the blood and increaseth choler which is for the most part the cause of that acute and dangerous disease Cholerica passio or Choler which as the Physicians write is often so sharp and vehement that it doth deprive a Man of life within the space of a day or two even without a Feaver Moreover it is observed that Children most fretful are usually short-liv'd and that anger if it be inveterate causeth the Natural Spirit to feed upon the juyces of the Body which must consequently produce Consumptions and abbreviate Life SECT VI. Of Envie Hatred and Malice AMongst many other These as the Apostle saith Gal. 5. 20 21. are works of the flesh Envie is Cousen german to hatred and malice and so they are all three upon the account of a base and ignoble Race for the Devil is their Father and Concupiscence their Mother They are in the judgment of the Holy Ghost no less than mental Murder for Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer 1 Ep. John 3. 15. v. Now saith Christ the devil is the father of murderers John 8. 44. As then we may conclude Envie hatred and malice to be mortal sins to the Soul so I shall prove them to be mortal and destructive to the Body Envie saith the Lord Verulam in the History of Life and Death is the worst of all passions and feedeth upon the Spirits and they again upon the body and so much the more because it is perpetual and as is said keepeth no holy dayes It is a sin that doth fret and consume the Body and so is a means to hinder health and shorten life and of this the Wise Man took notice when he termed Envie the rottenness of the bones Prov. 14. 30. And justly it is called the rotting of the bones because like a Fever Hectick it doth consume a Man and bring him to his end as the rottenness of the marrow that lieth within the bones Envious Men cordis sui peste moriuntur They die by the plague of their own heart Gregor An envious Man is sui ipsius carnifex His own tormentor and Executioner The Grecians call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 homicidium slaughter because the envious Man killeth his own heart with this passion Or it may be derived from the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 corrumpo consumo because it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Consumption Livor tabificus malis venenum Yea Envie to the heart is like rust to the Iron or blasting to the Corn like the Vultures eating up continually the heart of Prometheus or the foolish Bee that loseth the life with the sting it burneth the heart and wasteth
the Body and is like the Worm that breedeth in timber and consumeth it So true is that of the Son of Sirach Envie c. shorten the life Eccl. 30. 24. Hatred also produceth the like effects for what is said of Envie may as well relate unto Hatred and Malice Envie slayeth the silly one saith Job 5 ch 2 v. and so doth Hatred and Malice by causing ill humours in the body For according to the Modern Philosopher M. Des-Cartes in his Treatise of the Passions The pulse in Hatred is observed to be uneven and weaker and oftentimes faster than usual that a Man feels colds inter-mingled with sharp and pricking heat in the breast that the stomack ceases to do its office is enclined to vomit and reject the Meats it hath eaten or at least to corrupt them and convert them into ill humours All which considered Hatred can be profitable unto none For ill humours are the Springs of most Diseases Again Hatred cannot be so small but it hurts the Body because it is never without Sadness which brings me to the next Section SECT VII Of Worldly Sorrow and Immoderate Grief of mind BY those Epithetes Worldly and Immoderate the Sorrow to be now treated of is distinguished from Godly sorrow which worketh repentance to Salvation which is neither Wordly nor Immoderate and may be thus described Worldly sorrow causing death of Body and Soul is that which is immoderate and humbleth not the heart kindly but disquiets disturbs and distempers it whether it proceed from outward evils and losses or inward evils as most from melancholious humours and worst from an evil Conscience and this sorrow may be termed rather Attrition than Contrition the sorrow for our misery or punishment being called Attrition for our sault Contrition But to the Point in hand Worldly and Immoderate sorrow though it may be look'd upon as a punishment of sin rather then a sin it self yet doubtless it is little less than both being a plain aberration from the Rules of Christianity so long as 't is leavened with Avarice Despondency Distrust Despair Discontent Hence it is that the Apostle Paul interdicts excessive sorrow for the dead because it argues despair and want of hope But I would not have you ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope 1 Thess. 4 13. Excess in sorrow makes it sinful in Christians And here also hath place the Caveat of the same Apostle Lest any be swallowed up with over-much sorrow 2 Cor. 2. 7. Upon which place a Modern Expositor Trapp of our own ventureth to say that sorrow for sin if it so far exceed as that thereby we are disabled for the discharge of our duties it is a sinful sorrow yea though it be for sin With much more confidence then may we term that a sinful sorrow which the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 7. 10. worketh death namely the sorrow of the world which by Expositors is understood to be that sorrow which is proper to Men of the World such as are not regenerated by the Spirit of God whose grief and sorrow is nothing but the bitter smart of their misery without any serious and sincere repentance Or by sorrow of the World is meant a sorrow only for the loss of worldly things or which is caused from the fear of God's Judgments in Unbelievers whereupon there followeth commonly hardness of heart and a reprobate sense and at length if not prevented by repentance despair and damnation which do not only bring a Spiritual and Eternal death but also by wasting the Body hasten a temporal death And this will appear in respect of the Body First by Natural Reason Secondly by Divine and Humane Testimony First By Natural Reason And here we must understand that in sorrow or sadness the heat and spirits retire and by their sudden surrounding and possession of the heart all at once as the Physicians observe do many times cause Suffocation they being likewise by uniting encreased do violently consume the moisture of the Body and so beget drought and leanness and through long continuance Consumptions Or as others thus in sorrow or sadness there is a gathering together of much melancholly blood about the heart which Collection extinguisheth the good Spirits or at least dulleth and dampeth them Besides the heart being possessed by such an humour cannot digest well the Blood and Spirits which ought to be dispersed thorow the whole Body but converteth them into melancholy the which humour being cold dry drieth the whole Body and maketh it wither away for cold extinguisheth heat and drieness moisture which two qualities principally concern Life Secondly By Divine and Humane Testimony it further appeareth For first Solomon saith A merry heart doth good like a medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones Prov. 17. 22. Also heaviness in the heart of man maketh it stoop Prov. 12. 25. It maketh it stoop because it wasteth the natural vital and animal Spirits Hence also is that prescription of the Son of Sirach Remove sorrow far from thee for sorrow hath killed many Eccl. 30. 23. And that of the same Author Of heaviness cometh death and the heaviness of the heart breaketh strength Eccl. 38. 18. These with the fore cited places out of St. Paul's 2d Epistle to the Corinthians might be thought sufficient to confirm this truth did not some Men require a further Illustration of it by Humane Testimony and this may be considered in the next place as useful to the same end 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Euripides Sorrows to Men diseases bring Hence also and for this cause are those trite and vulgar sayings Sadness and Melancholy the path-way to sickness Too much sorrow maketh a Man to run mad Sorrow is good for nothing but sin Hence also is that Conclusion of Aquinas in his Summs 1. 2. q. 37. 4. o. Tristitiae magis corpori nocet quam aliae passiones cùm vitalem motum cordis impediat i. e. Sadness doth more hurt the Body then other passions of the mind because it hindereth the vital motion of the heart It likewise takes away appetite overheats the heart and lungs corrupts the nutritious juyce causeth Consumptions and other cold Diseases Out of which we may gather that this Affection especially if it be more vehement and inveterate than ordinary doth bring very many and those grievous damages unto the Body some part whereof may be evidenced in these ensuing Instances Plantius the Numidian at the sight of his dead Wife presently died Laertius Diodorus the Logician died for sorrow because he could not answer the question of Stilpo Homer died with sudden sorrow because he was not able to answer a Fishermans question Plut. Aristotle the Prince of Ancient Philosophers when he came to Chalcis and saw the ebbing and flowing of Euripus that narrow Sea near Boeotia seven times in the twenty-four houres because he could not find the cause he fell into an incurable
disease Caelius Phinehas's Wife when she heard the sorrowful tidings of the taking of the Arck of God the death of her Father in Law and Husband she bowed her self being great with child was delivered and died through sorrow of heart 1 Sam. 4. 19 20. Queen Mary died as some supposed by her much sighing before her death of thought and sorrow of heart for the departure of King Philip or the loss of Calice Act. Mon. 1901. Now in all this Argument we may take notice what fearful effects immoderate sorrow doth produce upon our Bodies what a malign cold and dry Passion it is wasting the radical humour and by degrees quenching the natural heat of the body yea thrusting her poyson even unto the heart whose vigour she causeth to wither and consumes the forces by her bad influence whereof we may see the signs after death when as they come to open those that have been smothered with Melancholy For instead of a heart they find nothing but a dry skin like to the leaves in Autumn So that all things exactly considered we may say that there is not any Passion which doth so much shorten our life or make it so infirm and miserable as this in its excess Hitherto might be referred Despair an evil Conscience such as is neither quiet nor good and such like self tormenting sins which as they are sometimes causes of immoderate and excessive sorrow so by the like influence upon the Body do produce such a flow of diseases as suddenly ebb in death And here lest it should be judged that Godly sorrow which worketh repentance because it is sometimes very intense should produce the same Natural effects in the Body that immoderate and vicious doth you must understand that in true Godly sorrow though it be sometimes very intense vehement and zealous there are such intervals of Spiritual joy by reason of the cherishing hope of pardon that all excess with its Natural effects is diverted mitigated and in due season avoided Nocte pluit tot â redeunt Spectacula mane Which in a Metaphorical sence may be render'd thus Clouds showers of grief may endure a night But glympses of joy return at day-light Or as David thus Heaviness may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning Psal. 30. 5. The acrimony then in Godly sorrow is so corrected by the sweet ingredient of inward Consolation that it never proves offensive or prejudicial to bodily health as wordly and immoderate sorrow hath been fully declared to do SECT VIII Of Sensual Joy and Laughter in excess SOlomon made trial of sensual joy mirth and pleasure thinking therein to find true content and Soul-satisfaction but in the conclusion found nothing but the husks of vanity wherewith he at first like a Prodigal Son would fain have satisfied himself but could not as appeareth by his own words I said in my heart Go to now I will prove thee with mirth therefore enjoy pleasure and behold this also is vanity Eccl 2. 1 2. I said of laughter it is mad and of mirth what doth it There is a woe denounced by Christ of whom St. Augustin noteth that 't is often read that he wept never that he laughed St. Aug. Serm. 35. de Sanctis against all such as rejoyce in riot revelling carousing luxury and other forbidden pleasures of this World in that comprehensive Phrase Wo unto you that laugh now for ye shall mourn and weep Luk 6. 25. All inordinate rejoycing or rejoycing in unlawful pleasures may justly have the Apostle's reprehension applied to it All such rejoycing is evil Jam. 4. 16. Now as it is evil in respect of the Soul so also in repect of the Body for that very oft swounding and sudden death hath befallen to sudden and immoderate joy and that because the Cordial blood and Vital Spirits are thereby so suddenly diffused to the exterior parts that Life goeth out therewith and returneth not as Fernelius noteth Or as Des-Cartes of this Passion in its excess thus observeth Opening extraordinarily the Orisices of the heart the blood of the veines doth so huddle in and in so abundant a quantity that it cannot there be rarified by the heat soon enough to list up the little skins that shut the entries of those veins by which means it smothers the fire which it used to feed when it came into the heart in fit proportion Des-Cartes of the Passions Artic. 122. Hence I suppose it is that the Lord Verulam saith in his History of Life and Death p. 221. Great joyes attenuate and diffuse the Spirits and shorten life Instances hereof are many in History let these few suffice Diagor as Rhodius had his three valiant Sons victors in one Olympiad who putting all their three Crowns upon their Fathers head through too much joy he presently died Gellius lib. 3. cap. 15. Xeuxis the Painter beholding the vive Picture of an old Wife which he so cunningly did paint burst forth so in laughter that he presently died Sophocles that worthy Poet and also Dionisius the Tyrant after a victory in a Tragedy at the whole People's congratulation through exceeding joy yielded up their life Plin. lib. 7. cap. 53. Chrysippus Philemon at the sight of an Ass eating Figs was so overcome with immoderate laughter that he died Valer. Maxim Chilo the famous Lacedaemonian Philosopher soon expired his last breath when as overjoyed he beheld his Son Conquerour in the Olympick games Ravis Philippides the Athenian an aged Comick overcoming the rest in Poesie and crowned for his great pains died for his present pleasure Cael. lib. 3. c. 15. With such like Instances I might further dilate upon this Point but lest an odd Humorist should laugh himself out of breath to think of them as improbable or the significant Caveats deduced from them as unseasonable in sad times I here desist SECT IX Of Servile Slavish and all Unlawful Fear in excess THere is as Divines distinguish a Divine fear a Filial fear a Dutiful fear a Wise fear and these are all lawful But then there is also a Slavish fear a False fear a Distrustful fear or a Natural fear joyned with diffidence and these are unlawful Servile or Slavish fear whereby Men do abstain from sin rather in respect of the punishments ensuing thereupon then out of an unfained hatred thereof or a fear which ariseth upon the apprehension of God's Justice and wrath against sin and the punishments and plagues for sin is to be avoided as irregular For we ought to serve God without this sort of fear Luke 1. 74. It is Carnal and such as doth no wise proceed from the working of the Spirit but is quite contrary to the same For God saith the Apostle hath not given us the Spirit of fear but of power of love c. 2 Tim. 1. 7. The reason hereof may be in that the perfect love of God in us excommunicates it Perfect love saith St. John caseth out fear 1 Ep. John 4.
and folly in Israel but also of their abettors the Benjamites who lost above twenty-five thousand Men in the slaughter through that occasion Thus the first voluntary lust of the Levite's Wife was most justly punished by a second rape amongst the lustful Gibeonites whose lust when it had conceived brought forth sin and sin when it was finished brought forth death Amnon one of the Sons of King David was so strongly enchanted with the love of his Sister Thamar that to the end to fulfil his lust he traiterously forced her to his will But Absalom her natural Brother hunting for opportunity of revenge for this indignity towards his Sister invited him two years after to a Banquet with his other Brethren and after the same caused his Men to murder him for a fare-well 2 Sam. 13. The same Absalom that slew Amnon for incest with his Sister committed himself incest with his Fathers Concubines moved thereto by the wicked counsel of Achitophel But it was the fore-runner and occasion of his overthrow and untimely death 2 Sam. 16 18 chap. Rodoaldw the eight King of Lumbardy being taken in Adultery even in the fact was slain without delay by the Husband of the Adulteresse Anno 659. in like sort John Maletesta slew his Wife and the Adulterer together when he took them amidst their embracements Chron. Phil. Melancton So did one Lodewick Steward of Normandy kill his Wife Carlotta and her Lover John Lavernus as they were in bed together At Naples it chanced in the King's Palace as young King Frederick Ferdinand's Son entered the privy Chamber of the Queen his Mother to salute her and the other Ladies of the Court that the Prince of Bissenio waiting in the outward Chamber for his return was slain by one of his own Servants that suddenly gave him with his sword three deadly strokes in the presence of many Spectators Which deed he confessed that he had watched three years to perform in regard of an injury done unto his Sister and in her to him whom he ravished against her will Bemb lib. 3. Hist. Venet. The Spaniards that first took the Isle Hispaniola were for their Whoredoms and rapes which they committed upon the Wives and Virgins all murdered by the Inhabitants Benzoni Milan Infinite are the Examples that might out of History be collected to this purpose But to avoid prolixity let it suffice only to add hereunto that for these and the like sins many thousands in the World in every Age have either by the rage of jealousie in the Persons wronged or by the revenging Sword of the Higher Powers punishing wrong suffered the condigne punishment of death Thirdly and lastly To summ up all further Addition that might be look'd upon as necessarily relating to this Chapter consider in few words that immoderate Anger Envie Hatred Malice Self-murder unlawful Duels Treason Murder of others Despair Rebellion Theft Ambition Covetousness immoderate Grief Atheisme Blasphemy Witchcraft and such like do either immediately by themselves or mediately by other sins accumulated and a succession of unprosperous events attending them prove accidental causes sometimes of Diseases but most commonly of an untimely death And so I proceed to the fourth Chapter as followeth CHAP. IV. Containing an Enumeration of sundry Sins as they are supernaturally occasions of bodily Diseases and shortness of Life THis Chapter may seem to have some relation to the First and so it hath in genere but in regard it differs from it in specie I have here placed it as one of the chief Corner-stones to adorn strengthen yea as a Top-stone to finish and complete the four-square building of this First Part of my Discourse But before I descend to particulars give me leave here to lay down somewhat in general terms as praeliminary to the present design Though God be the proper efficient and super-natural cause of Diseases yet as sin is the immediate cause of God's wrath and anger and a provocation of his vindictive Justice in this respect it may be termed a principal though not immediate cause or occasion of Diseases more especially of such as depend not upon the ordinary chain of second causes but being above the Sphaere of Nature are inflicted by the almighty and unlimited power of God And this the great Secretaries of Nature as Philosophers and Physicians should do well to observe according to the advice of Hippocrates who would have a Physician to take special notice whether the Disease came from a Divine super-natural cause or whether it follow the course of Nature How this place of Hippocrates is to be understood Paracelsus is of opinion that such Spiritual Diseases for so he calls them are spiritually to be cured and not otherwise But of this by the way in general I shall now descend to Particulars whereof I shall make demonstration de facto And First of the abuse of the Ordinances of God viz. the Word and Sacraments Theopompus a Philosopher being about to insert certain things out of the Writings of Moses into his prophane Works and so to abuse the sacred Word of God was striken with a Frensie and being warned of the cause thereof in a dream by prayers made unto God recovered his senses again Joseph Antiq. lib. 12. cap. 2. This Story is recorded by Josephus as also another of Theodectes a Poet that mingled his Tragedies with the Holy Scriptures and was therefore striken with blindness until he had recanted his impiety In a Town of Germany called Itszith there dwelt a certain Husband-man that was a monstrous despiser of the Word of God and his Sacraments He upon a time in the midst of his Cups railed in most bitter terms upon a Minister of God's Word after which going presently into the Fields to over-look his Sheep he never returned alive but was found there dead with his Body all scorched and burnt as black as a coal the Lord having given him over into the hands of the Devil to be thus used for his vile prophaness and abusing Holy things Dr. Justus Jonas in Luther's Conferences reporteth this to be true If you shall despise my Statutes saith the Lord or refuse to hearken unto my Law I will visit you with Consumptions and burning Agues and heaviness of heart Lev. 26. 15 16. Moses for neglecting the Sacrament of Circumcision which is much the same see Rom. 4. 11. Col. 2. 11. 12. in a Spiritual sense with that of Baptisme was struck immediately by the Lord and fell so sick by the way that it was thought he would have died And it came to pass by the way in the Inn that the Lord met him and sought to kill him Exod. 4. 24. Which words are by some Elucidators Bishop Hall c. thus understood viz. that the Lord appeared visibly unto him and sensibly afflicted him with some sudden and violent disease which he knew to be done in regard of his neglect of his Sons Circumcision Eutychus for sleeping at the Sermon fell down so
as he had slept his last sleep Acts 20. 9. but that a merciful God by the hands of Paul did raise him up again to teach him and by him all Church-sleepers the future danger of such negligence and irreverence in his House His deadly fall not being so much accidental as a judgment from God And as concerning the unworthy receiving the Lord's Supper St. Paul telleth the Corinthians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep 1 Corinthians 11. 30. i. e. For these abuses of this Holy Sacrament the hand of God hath been upon many of you so as many of you are afflicted with divers kinds of Diseases and many of you are striken with a temporal death here called sleep Now from the Apostles declaring this to be the true cause of that sickness and mortality that was amongst them it is to be supposed that either they looked not after the cause at all but took it to come only as a thing of course or which is more probable that they mistook the cause imagined that to be the cause which was not A great mortality there was amongst them many died but that they thought might proceed from the distemperature of the Body or from the corruption of the Air or from want of exercise or from not observing a good diet or from immoderate labour Some they thought might die of one of these causes some of another But the Apostle passeth all these over and maketh known unto them that however these might be considerable as causes in their due places yet the true main and principal cause they were utterly ignorant of and that was their abusive and negligent receiving of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper For this cause many are weak c. A truth which had any less than an Apostle delivered he would have been esteemed a setter forth of new Doctrine Or had the Apostle delivered it in any dark and obscure Phrase flesh and blood would have found out twenty Interpretations before ever they would have thought of this But the Speaker is so Divine and the speech so plain that it cannot be mistaken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Text For this cause because of your unworthy receiving the Body and Blood of Christ many are sick and many sleep Hence was that speech of Saint Anselme taken who saith that many Diseases that reign in the Summer though Physicians may impute them to other secondary causes proceed from Peoples irreverent receiving that Sacrament at Easter That de facto this is a truth see the 2d of the Chronicles and the 30th chap. v. 20. where you shall find that for some abuses and disorders committed in the Celebration of the Passover the Jews were smitten with some troublesom disease For 't is here said that upon Hezekiah's Prayer the Lord healed the People which implieth plainly that they were diseased and sick before and yet this default was only in the circumstantial Points of that Sacrament For 't is there also said that every one had prepared his heart for to seek God Some defect there was only in some Ceremonial Rite to be observed Now what we find applied to the Passover we may without fear apply to the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper For however they differ in circumstances yet for substance they are the same Sickness we see was sent for the abuse of that and therefore the same punishment appointed for the abuse of this yea inflicted witness the Corinthians who for this cause were plagued with divers Diseases and sundry kinds of death And indeed it is not unlike that since these Corinthians there have been many thousands who for the very same cause have not as the Psalmist saith lived out half their dayes but have been swept away out of the Land of the living and gone down with sorrow into the Grave True then it is de facto God hath thus plagued the sinful neglect and abuse of his Sacrament I will now also demonstrate that de jure it must needs be so and this will appear if we consider the sin it self to be Camelinum peccatum A sin of a very large size burdened with those following aggravations namely that 't is a sin immediatly against Christ's own Person robbeth God of that which he is most tender of his honour and is in the judgment of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 11. 27. I suppose if will-fully committed no less than a spilling and shedding of the precious blood of Christ Heb. 6. 6. In a word that 't is a sin paramount like Saul higher then his Fellows And therefore let us judge in our selves whether the wages of such a sin unrepented of can be less than Corporal plagues and temporal death For if we contemn the sacred Body of Christ how can we think that God should take any care of ours If we make no reckoning of Christ's death 't is but just with God to disregard ours Oh then as we tender our health and our lives let us never dare to approach unto that dreadful Table without due reverence and a competent measure of preparation Secondly Concerning the Prophaning the Lord's day Sacriledge c. we read several Instances of God's wrath upon such declared in Corporal plagues and destruction A certain Godly Minister preaching and pressing the sanctification of the Sabbath and taking occasion herein to make mention of that Man who by the special command of God was stoned to death for gathering sticks upon the Sabbath day Hereupon one in the Congregation stood up and laughed and made all the haste he could out of the Church and went to gathering of sticks though he had no need of them But when the People came out from the Sermon they found this Man dead with the bundle of sticks in his arms lying in the Church Porch This is attested by a credible Author Yea if time would permit or this Enchiridion extend to it I could expatiate upon such Instances as might likewise demonstrate that not a few have upon the breach of the fourth Commandment been striken by the immediate hand of the Almighty with lameness and sore Diseases And for Sacriledge that hath been severely punished in like manner As in Antioches Epiphanes who fell sick with grief upon the remembrance of the evils he did at Jerusalem in taking away the Vessels of gold and silver that were therein confessing that for this cause his troubles came upon him and so suddenly died 1 Mach. chap. 6. Also it is recorded that wicked Alcimus for his violation of the Sanctuary and his sacrilegious enterprises was immediatly taken with a Palsie so that he could no more speak any thing but died suddenly with great torment 1 Mach. 9. cap. 54 55 56. v. Again Ananias and Sapphira his Wife for their Sacriledge cloaked with hypocrisie at Peter's rebuke fell down dead Acts 5. 5. 10. Thirdly Swearing Blasphemy and Perjury do sometimes in a supernatural manner occasion Diseases
their Habitation were smitten with blindness Gen. 18. 11. A just and proper punishment to stop up those lights that were the windows or inlets and outlets of such abominable lust and concupiscence Lastly what shall I more say to borrow the Apostle's Phrase Heb. 11. for the time would fail me to tell of Miriam who for sedition was punished with a Leprosie Num. 12. 10. Of Gehazi that for covetousness and dissimulation of King Azariah who for not removing the high Places 2 Kings 5. 27. 15. 4 5. and King Uzziah that for invading the Priest's Office 2 Chron. 26. 20. were smitten with the same virulent Disease And of Belshazzar who for rioting and revelling amongst his pots had the end of his life as well as Kingdom denounced against him by a bodiless hand-writing upon the wall the Lord's decree Dan. 5. and also of a Cloud of witnesses more in Divine and Humane Records portending a showr of wrath and vengeance from Heaven upon all impenitent Sinners even in this life by Corporal plagues and destruction I shall therefore add only thus much more to the summ and then give you the total viz. that as God is a supernatural Agent and his Power is not to be limitted to Natural means in regard it is evident by many instances that he can and sometimes doth work without means in the production of sundry Diseases and mortal Distempers a truth not much taken notice of by such as would comprehend all causes and effects within the Sphaere of Nature so likewise the Devil by God's permission for the punishment of some sins hath power to cause sickness and that supernaturally So he did afflict Saul with the vehemency of a frenzy and melancholy Distemper 1 Sam. 16. 23. So he did the Lunaticks Mark 9. and many Daemoniacal Persons with strange maladies Luke 13. yea and still doth act over his old part in these last dayes though not so frequently as in Christ's getting possession in many even in this Nation as History and our own experience can demonstrate And as he can perform this by himself so likewise by his Complices and Instruments as Witches and Magicians who by God's permission can cause most Diseases yea sometimes death it self to such as they bear malice as might more fully appear de facto by a Book intituled The Arraignement and Trial of witches at Lancaster and York But yet their power is so limited by an Higher that not all whom they spleen are subject to it but only or mostly such as will not be gathered under the wings of God's Providence and protection straying so far in sin as until they become a prey unto Satan and his Hellish Spies who will at least infest their Bodies with Diseases and sudden mortality though mercy perhaps may step in betimes to redeem their Souls And thus may we discern the truth of this Point that those sundry sins which I have mentioned in this Chapter are in a supernatural way principal occasions of bodily Diseases and shortness of Life A Corollary The Result of the whole preceding Discourse is that as the Body by a powerful influence works upon the affections of the Soul so the Soul works most effectually upon the qualities and temperature of the Body producing by her Passions and perturbations wonderful alterations as most Diseases and sometimes death it self For sin is the cause of that excess which is in the qualities of which our Bodies are made and consequently of the Diseases that proceed from thence which afterward bring death to the Body But this is not all for sometimes it comes to pass that when those effects are not produced by such natural means the mind being corrupted and viciated doth draw them down from Heaven being supernaturally wrought for the greater testimony of God's power and vengeance upon obstinate Offenders So then that is most true which Plato saith in his Charmides Omnia corporis mala ab animâ procedere All the mischiefs of the body proceed from the soul. And thus much shall suffice to have run over the First Part of this Undertaking which was to demonstrate by Natural Reason and also by Divine and Humane Testimony that vicious and irregular actions and affections prove often occasions of most bodily Diseases and of shortness of Life THE SECOND PART Demonstrating by Natural Reason and also Divine and Humane Testimony that vertuous and regular actions and affections do conduce to the preservation of Health and prolongation of Life CHAP. I. In a Transition from the First Part to the Second the terms vertuous and regular and explained and the method of the subsequent Discourse is declared THe cause of the Disease being known the Cure is the more readily wrought and in this respect I shall be the more brief in this my Second Part because Contraria contrariis illustrantur Contraries are illustrated by contraries and that in such a manner as the First Part being admitted for a truth the Second may Regulâ contrariorum By the Rule of contraries succeed as a necessary consequence But before I proceed to further illustration I shall explicate the terms By the term vertuous we may understand godliness honesty of life and good manners For the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vertue according to the ordinary known notion of it signifieth probity of manners among Men as the generical word that contains all Moral and Christian vertues under it in which sense it is used by St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If there be any vertue Phil. 4. 8. And also by St. Peter 2 Pet. 1. 3. as you may take notice of by viewing the Original and the Annotations of the learned Dr. Hammond upon the same So by the word regular we understand such actions and affections as are squared according to the direction of God's Word which is a rule to go and work by As many saith the Apostle as walk according to this rule or Canon Gal. 6. 16. Hence the Scriptures are called Canonical because they contain and give a perfect rule of Faith and manners unto the Church which is bound to walk obediently according to this rule and to give testimony to it and not by her authority to over-rule it and the sense of it as many do without blushing Likewise by this term regular we may apprehend and comprehend whatsoever is according to the dictates or rules of right reason in the whole course and carriage of a Moral Prudent Christian and Religious conversation And this I might easily prove by shewing the great congruity that is between that light and the Laws that God hath placed in our Souls and the duties of Religion that by the expresness of his written Word he requires from us and demonstrate that reason teacheth all those excepting only the two positives Baptism and the Holy Eucharist as a learned modern Author hath said before me in his Sermon ad Clerum upon Rom. 12. and latter part of the first Vers. Which is your reasonable service