Remedies I sent you but I am sorry to hear you should be guilty of so great a Mistake as to think that no Observation of yours can render the use of Medicines subservient towards Health and long Life Sir I pray give me leave to assert the contrary and to prove that the practice of Piety and true Religion have a wonderful tendency towards long Life If you desire to wear a Crown of Glory in this World and the next also it may be obtained by gray Hairs found in the Way of Righteousness And you know it 's promised as a Blessing to the Good man that he shall come to his Grave in a full Age as a Shock of Corn comes in its season The beloved Disciple of our Lord survived the other Disciples and many of the Fathers of the Church were long-lived Which shews that the Blessing of long Life so often promised under the Law had less abatement after our Saviours dayes than other Blessings had Enoch and Elias never Dyed and became Examples that a spotless Life might possibly have been Immortal as it is probable that Man before his Fall was Yet had he never sinned perhaps he had not still remained here upon Earth though his Age might have been extended to some thousands of years and at length have been translated from hence to Heaven where he could neither have sinned nor dyed When our great and wise Creator made Man the Masterpiece of his Creation he was pleased as an expression of his Kindness to plant him in a Garden wherein he might have an opportunity at the same time both to Contemplate his Makers Goodness and to preserve his own Life being furnisht with supernatural Wisdom he could discern the particular Qualities of those Plants with which he conversed But Man being too familiar with the Tree of Knowledge forfeited his Right unto the Tree of Life and hath exposed himself unto the assaults of innumerable Diseases But such is the kindness of Heaven unto Man in his lapsed state that he is pleased to promise some of the Influences of this Symbolical Tree upon his Obedience unto the Divine Will So that by our Observance of the Eternal Laws of Evangelical Purity which are prescribed as the Christians Rule we may as it were transplant the Tree of Life into our own Gardens and sit under the shadow thereof with great Delight and its fruit may become sweet unto our taste There are certain practices which have a great tendency towards long Life and this the inspired Penman intimates when he saith Righteousness tendeth to life and there are frequent Promises of long Life made to the Obedient Caleb and Joshua survived all the Jews who came out of Egypt the rest were not suffered to see Canaan lest they should introduce Egyptian Innovations Nothing doth more conduce unto the preservation of our natural Health than our living the Divine Life but when our Expectations and Actions are wholly employed about the Gratifications of the Animal Life we do but prepare for the Messenger of the Grave The practice of serious Christianity is a great friend unto the Health of Humane Nature The circumstantial actions of Religion are very influential towards the lengthning mens Lives as the sweet sleep of temperate persons their freedom from violent and enraged Passions with the admirable Contentment that dwells in a holy Conscience also the great Moderation that 's exercised by such Persons There are attending the Divine Life leisurely Contemplations of Heavenly things Joyes refined from the Dregs of Sensuality Hopes of a noble and generous nature wholsom sweet and comfortable Fears and a universal Harmony in the Mind These things make the Lamp of Life burn bright and clear and from hence by the favour of Divine Clemency Health springeth forth speedily Plato's Observation is excellent That all the Pleasures of the Body proceed from the Joy of the Mind The breaking off our sins by Righteousness many times proves a lengthening of our temporal Tranquility The Jewish Doctors say That Adam felt no Cold notwithstanding he was naked because he had Communion with God but as soon as ever he had eaten the forbidden Fruit his Head aked Faith and Obedience like the Tree of Life in Paradise not only Sacramentally but really conduce unto Health and long Life so far as it is a Blessing and this it doth by impregnating our Food with the tincture of a Divine Benediction by meliorating our Constitutions and infusing wholsom Dispositions in the Air and Friendly Influences in the Host of Heaven The Jews came under a Promise of having their Bread and their Water blessed and Sickness removed if they obeyed the Divine Law And Solomon urgeth the consideration of our Health as a strong Argument to promote holy and Religious Fear telling us it should be health unto our Navels and marrow to our Bones And Godliness hath the promise of the Life that now is as well as of that which is to come If men love Life and desire many dayes and make it their request to obtain the Divine Wisdom the way prescribed is to desist from evil and to do good and then length of dayes and long life shall be added as the Wisest of men observed Yielding Subjection unto the Father of Spirits is as sure a way to obtain the Blessing of Health and long Life as Obedience unto our natural Parents for there is a Command with a Promise annexed unto both And we find Life in the Inventory of a Christians goods when drawn up by the great Apostle of the Gentiles And the inspired Pen-men frequently prescribe Religion as an Antidote against immature Death it being a direct Enemy unto Sin which brought in Sickness True goodness doth as well conduce to the prolongation of the Body in natural Life as to its Immortality in Eternal Life and the Body hath the perfection of Life viz. Health from the Soul as well as Life it self Dying unto sin is an excellent means to preserve Life if men would try the Experiment and endeavour to procure the Divine Providence to be their Life-Guard We live by the Word of Blessing out of the Mouth of God every Command if observed like Food and Physick tends unto the lengthening our Dayes Now although it be a known truth that of our selves we can do nothing yet it is as true that by the Grace of God we may do much in the practice of Religion and consequently may contribute towards the lengthening of our Dayes and rendering the use of Medicines effectual towards that great and noble end Moreover Religion secures Men from the Terrors of a guilty Conscience which many times makes Men wash their Hands in their own blood and it also preserves Men from the Condemnation of Humane Tribunals many being cut off by the Hand of Justice for their flagitious impieties as Murders Thefts and Rapines But Sir that the great Preserver of Men may so ballance the Humours in your Body that you may live to
though thanks be to God Pestilences have not been very fatal of late years and we observe from our weekly Bills of Mortality that the numbers of the deceased are greatly augmented for in the year 1604. there dyed 4323 and 895 of the Plague but in the year 1659. there dyed 14720 and 36 of the Plague and yet we observe near the same number of persons Born and Christned both years so that the Disproportion is near nine Thousand in a year in about sixty years distance We may observe in the space of sixty years so small a spot of ground as a Church-yard swallowes up a whole Parish I knew an old Sexton in London who told me he lived to Bury his Parish almost three times over As one Generation comes on the Stage another goeth off And very evident it is that more dye now in a state of Childhood than in former Ages We lick new bodies off our Trenchers once in seven years and the very fear of a Clymacterical Year hath Killed some who have not understood how groundless such a fear is In the dayes of Ancient times it was a strange thing to hear of the death of a young Child according unto the ordinary course of Nature Some of the Jewish Doctors tell us that there was not a Son dyed of a natural death before his Father for near three thousand years after the Creation but the course of Nature was observed and he that was born first dyed first untill Terah's time who was the first that taught the People to make Images of Clay and to corrupt Divine Worship with Idolatry and as a punishment of his Sin his son Haran was snatcht away before him and Moses observes that Haran dyed before his Father Terah in the Land of his Nativity And we find it was looked upon as a great Judgment that the Male Heir of Eli's Family as soon as born dyed for many Generations so that an Old man could not be seen of his Posterity And we find the good Woman expostulating passionately with the Prophet when she saith Art thou come to call my Sins to remembrance and to slay my Son Every Age hath its peculiar diseases In the state of Infancy Life is like a Spark in a pile of Wood the Candle is so newly lighted that every breath of Air or the least shaking puts it out and it dyes Childhood is so active and unwary so subject to run into dangers that unless a Messenger be sent from Heaven to stand Sentinel and watch its playing sleeping eating and drinking it 's exposed to death every minute The Middle age is apter to lend its helping hand to the use of Remedies but when we consider how many new distempers invade us and how many old ones intermingled with collateral complications and many Diseases are not fully understood as in time they may be and many Symptoms are often alike and sometimes there are none at all as in several Impostumes and some Diseases are lodged in remote parts of the Body that oftentimes no application can be made or at least the effects of Medicines cannot reach them untill after two or three Alterations and Concoctions which change the Species of Medicines And sometimes new Methods come upon the Stage and alter old Foundations Old Age hath Diseases incurable by nature The House must fall when the Foundation is decayed Old men in Scripture account are said to be as good as dead as Abraham was In some Diseases the Patient seems Bailable yet a distemper lyeth in ambush and sets upon him with full strength when the bitterness of death seemed to be past and some men live and dye like Fools pour in Drink and let out Life and so by inconsideration pull the Monumental Stone upon their own heads Men are like Water if the Sluces be opened it runs away apace if the Current be stopt it swells and grows troublesome and spills over if it stands still then it stinks and putrifies Some Sicknesses walk in darkness and destroying Angels are wrapt up in the Curtains of Immateriality whom we cannot see but feel in some Chronick distempers men walk about and hear Passing-bells ring for stronger men There is no age of Man but hath some Posterns and Out-lets to death out of which thousands pass into the Land of Forgetfulness Every breath of wind troubles our Faces and our little Cares wrinkle our Foreheads and trifling accidents dig our Graves In Feavors men ride post to the Chambers of death they prove a Beesome of Destruction to three parts of Adam's race If all the ages of all Mankind were put together it would scarce make One and twenty to each single person It 's more natural for Youth to dye than the Aged it being more common having more natural causes as being more subject to acute Diseases which surprize men suddenly and undiscernably but to dye of Age is a very rare Thing old Age is a young Death But to speak strictly all men dye before they come to be of age every man being within an inch of Death Like a Mariner at Sea we carry our Lives in our hands Many a man in a state of health hath a secret Enemy lying hid ready to surprize Either Gods Archers cleave our Reins in sunder with the Stone or Strangury or our feet are set in the Stocks by the Gout or our Breath is corrupt by the Ptysick or our Gaul is poured on the ground by the Dissentery or our Skin cleaves to our Bones by a Hectick The Clock hath struch Twelve this night therefore take it not ill that I abruptly style my self Yours whilest I am J. M. LETTER X. SIR I Received yours Dated the 7th instant wherein you speak very slightly of old Age as if you did not look upon it as so great a blessing and also seem to Question whether the Patriarchs lived so long as some imagine To which I answer you are certainly under a great mistake for nothing is more certain than that the Antediluvian Patriarchs were very long lived and particularly Father Adam who may well be accounted above a thousand years old if we compute that time whch he might have lived had he been born as Methusalem was we may judge him at his Creation as Perfect as one of the Ancients at two hundred They out-lived all their titles of Consanguinity and yet none of them lived a compleat Thousand years which possibly might be to accomplish the threatning unto Adam That the day he eat the forbidden Fruit he should Dye computing a day for a thousand years But a more probable reason may be to Demonstrate to Man the Vanity of Life when those who lived longest could not arrive to that Period which compared to Gods Eternity is but a day As there are at this day some who exceed a hundred so there are a hundred times as many who do not arrive at that Period Had men in all Ages and Places arrived at the age of the Patriarchs the Earth
Again humbly to implore the help of that great Physician who was Typified by the Brazen Serpent would be a very effectual means to be cured both of the Sting and Pain of Sickness It well becomes the most holy Soul under Distempers to abound with an O Spare me that I may recover Strength When Men are like Moses commanded to go up into a Mount as it were of a Sick-Bed and Dye there the same Hand that Wounded must make whole many lose their Lives for want of asking it at his Hands who grants it if Invited to our Bed-sides by fervent Prayers joyned with Faith and Patience When the only wise God resolves to make Men sick with smiting them they ought to beware of Murmuring and Impatience which doth exasperate all Calamities it being far more advantageous towards recovery patiently to hope and quietly to wait for the Salvation of God for they that wait upon the Lord have a Promise they shall renew their Strength and be saved with a temporal as well as a spiritual Salvation if they continue in Faith and Patience with Sobriety The Poets have an excellent Fiction that the Image of the Goddess Augerine was with a Muffler at her Mouth placed at the Temple of Volupia signifying that Pleasure should be their Portion who bear Sicknesses with Patience Silence and Submission Good Men never question the Divine Favour so much at any time as under sickness because the Body discomposeth the Mind and hinders the free exercise of spiritual Reason besides they have not such express comfort from their Saviours Sufferings for we never read he was ever Sick yet he had Passions equivalent to Sickness as Hunger Thirst Weariness which afflicted his Body with Pain and therefore can be toucht with the feeling of our Infirmities The best way to obtain Cure is by the Power of a Divine Faith to shake off Diseases as St. Paul did the Viper from his Hand And Sir that the great Physician may make your Soul like his Body in the Gospel every whit whole shall be the Desire of Your true Friend and faithful Servant J. M. LETTER VIII SIR I Received yours dated the Second of this Month wherein you acknowledge your self a Convert unto the several Arguments of Discourse which have formerly passed between us but you seem very much to doubt whether humane Prudence Care and Art can any way contribute unto long Life And that they may be very subservient thereunto there is nothing more plain and evident Certainly King David's departing from Keylak diverted Sauls Rage and preserved his own Life for that time And our blessed Saviours own practice in preserving himself until the time he knew that his hour was come is recorded for our Imitation St. Pauls Mariners saved their Lives by abiding in the Ship who otherwise in all probability might have been Drowned The Wisdom of Joseph and Mary in observing the Angels advice and flying into Egypt with the blessed Babe in all humane probability it prevented his Death at Bethlehem The Centurion Importun'd our Saviour to cure his Servant which he would never have done if it had not conduced towards the prolongation of his Life 'T was not without cause that Naomi was foretold Obed should be a restorer of her Age. As fire dies for want of air and is extinguished when the flame is suffocated so doth our vital flame as our Spirits are repaired by Air so are our sanguine Humours by Aliments Much may be done by Art for the retarding the course of Nature as may be seen in many Insects and Animals and in Men restored from Consumptive pineing Sicknesses their flesh becoming like that of Children as in Naamans Case The efficacy of Remedies with some is so great that their Youth is as 't were renewed like the Eagle their natural strength not abating at a great Age Moreover it doth not seem probable that means should be used with good success to answer all other intentions in Nature and be used in vain in attaining that which is the most desirable thing in Nature and which renders a Man capable of perfection in all Arts and Sciences viz. Health And yet as none can speak of Death by experience because they who speak of it have not felt it and they who have felt it cannot speak of it the Case is much the same concerning Life For unless a Man live unto extream old Age he will not believe his Life hath been prolonged but rather that his hour was not yet come but yet it 's not inconsistent with reason to say that he who would Infallibly have Dyed of a Gangreen in his Leg hath had his Life prolonged when his Leg was Cured or to say that a Consumptive Body hath been saved from Death when restored to a healthful State by a Medicinal Diet which hath added Oyl to the Lamp of Life The Nectar and Ambrosia of the Poets which kept their gods from growing old seems to be an Emblem of the Tree of Life which was to have been a Restorer of Nature as well as a Symbal of future things Suppose we with Pithagoras that Life is a strait line and that the accidents which disturb it and at length bring Death constitute another Line and as these two lines incline less or more one towards another Death approaches sooner or later and consequently Life is longer or shorter yet may we not suppose that Divine Providence and humane Prudence may probably conduce towards the retarding the Neighbourhood of those lines Or suppose with the Aristotelians that Life consists in the union of Heat and Moisture and Death approacheth by the Predominance of the contrary Qualities viz. Cold and Dryness why may not such means as preserves the former and keeps back the latter have a natural tendency to prolong Life Or suppose with the Chymists that Life consists in a volatile Armoniack Salt why may we not suppose that Art improved may compose such fixed Alkali as may stop the wingy motions of the former Volatility The pleasing gratifications of Sense walk Hand in Hand with Death and pursueth Mortals as the Waves of the universal Deluge did the Posterity of Cain and though they went from one story to another higher and higher yet at last they were overflowed Though Temperance doth not alwayes prove an Antidote against Sickness yet it 's a likely means Sir I pray distribute my Service where you think it 's due for it is time to come to a full point and to tell you that in Truth I am Yours in all that Power and Will can manifest J. M. LETTER IX SIR I Received yours dated the 11th instant wherein you give me an account of the great Sickness and Mortality of your Town and Countrey now Languishing under this Epidemick Feaver which indeed rageth in the City also and carrieth hundreds if not thousands unto their long Homes You may easily believe that there are greater Languors Sicknesses Weaknesses and decayes of Nature now than in former Ages
Motion of the whole Engine Reason prompts men to consult the ablest Farriers when their Horses are sick and not take the Hostler who hath the Confidence to prescribe a Drench We have many amongst us nicknamed Doctors who are as unskilfull in Physick as the Athenians were in Religion dedicating their Medicines unto an unknown Disease Men who took their Degrees in a Drinking-School or did their Exercise in Fees affect the Title Doctor though they want the Participle Doctus Having no more Learning than what may serve to conceal their Ignorance To run to these men is as if a man to lance an Imposthume should run his Body against the poynt of a Sword in the hands of a mad man or as if to cure a Quinsie a man should desire the help of the common Executioner People ought to know that Diseases are cured by Method as well as by Medicine by Rules as well as by Receipts Multitudes amongst us may be said to dig their Graves with their thick Skulls and destroy their Bodies as well as their Souls by an implicit Faith in hearkening to such Fellows if a Cure succeeds it is more by accident than Art as a blind man hits the mark It 's madness to choose Physicians by the Commendations of the Vulgar they only talk like an Eccho because they hear a Voyce but know no reason why and it 's as imprudent to choose Physicians by their Garb because an Ass may have gilded Trappings Many of these men have more skill in mending Garments than Bodies that wear them and yet will pretend to cure all Diseases that ever Sin intailed on the Race of Adam Let me advise you as a prudential Observation tending to Health and Long Life to use the same discretion when your Health is in danger as when your Estate is not to depend on the advice of an Attorney but to fee a Counsellor And since you say you are deeply engaged unto me give me leave to prescribe the Recompence which is that you would believe me to be what I truly am Your constant Friend J. M. LETTER XVII SIR I Received yours Dated the 11th instant wherein you give me an account of the rare secret Medicine lately recommended to you as an infallible cure for your Distemper being recommended as a cure for all diseases Sir let me tell you I have often found those kind of Medicines but meer Cheats and Springes to catch Woodcocks and yet men will not learn Wisdom until the dust of the Grave that Powder of Experience be cast in their Eyes He that will venture his life with the use of such a Medicine will give the world cause to suspect he stands in need of a large dose of Hellebore Without doubt there is no Observation can conduce more towards the rendring Remedies effectual than to be well assured that they are safe known and experienced Medicines and faithfully prepared by the hand of an Artist whose Profession it is and exposed to the view of the world upon the Apothecaries file The design of keeping Medicines as Secrets being chiefly to conceal the ignorance of the recommender who could not write it in Latin or the same persons dishonesty who dare not publish so dangerous a Medicine or else his Covetousness in exacting in the price of a mean ordinary familiar Medicine which it appears to be when publisht If a Pill be but guilded over with the pretences of Rare and Excellent it is cryed up and swallowed down when it 's as common in the Shops as Salt and Pepper in a Kitchin and there are abundance of Poysonous Remedies abroad in the World that have nothing to kill them but Fasting Spittle and a smooth tongue their best corrective being such an ingredient as wants a Corrective but yet these Remedies must needs cure all diseases at one blow as Sampson did the Philistines But these by rash snuffing Natures Candle put it quite out That Medicine costs the Patient dear that costs him his Life yet many such there are that ride post daily making every Corner do penance in venomed sheets the Directions for the use of them being like Davids Letter to Uriah only giving Instructions for the Death and ruine of the Patient Is there any pleasure in being destroyed because we are not able to say what hurt us A Medicine may cure the disease and kill the Patient and a safe Medicine may do much hurt by occasioning the omission of more proper and effectual Remedies The world hath been much imposed upon by being made to believe that Chymistry is a distinct art from Pharmacy when the most excellent Rules for Chymical Preparations have been proposed to the World by Physicians and Apothecaries it being but a Modern way of preparing Medicines and doth peculiarly belong to that trade As much as for a Taylor to make a Garment in a new fashion as well as in an old Indeed such Medicines ought to be very prudently advised because a Child may do more mischief with a Knife of Steel than of Bone You shall many times have Death in the pot babtized with the name of the Elixir of Life and a Dram of it cryed up beyond a bushel of March Dust to Reinthrone the deposed Archeus and do no man knows what And at another time you shall have Alexipharmagons Pantimagogons and medicines of such conjuring names that if you understood their natures you would think them a kind of Tophet Potabile and fitter for Country Farmers to treat Rats with than to cure diseases in humane Bodies There is nothing hath more contributed to the Brevity of mens Lives and the languishments of humane Nature in this Age than the Multitude of secret private Medicines cryed up as Infallible which have laid the foundations for innumerable diseases and made work for able Physicians And that which is a strange Paradox to me is that when a known experienced Remedy is recommended every one must be advised with whether it may be used or no but if a Medicine which none understand nay not he that commends it yet down it must go without inquiry into it's nature until by the fatal consequences we repent the using it Sir I beseech you interpret these lines as the expressions of my tender respects and care for your Health one request more and I have done Put me into the number of those that you count your most faithful Friends For indeed I am And ever will be so c. J. M. LETTER XVIII SIR I Received yours Dated the Fifteenth instant wherein I perceive your great inconstancy and want of Regular Perseverance in the use of those proper Remedies the Physician last prescribed I should be glad I could say these things to your Ears as well as to your Eyes but London finds me too much Business to grant me so great a happiness therefore give my Pen leave to tell you that the Regularity of the Patient is as necessary in order unto the success of Remedies as the skill of