Imprimatur Hic liber cui Titulus The Divine Physician AB CAMPION R mo D no. Arch. Cant. à Sacris Domesticis Feb. 22. 1675. ex Aedib Lambeth THE DIVINE PHYSICIAN Prescribing Rules for the Prevention and Cure of most Diseases as well of the BODY as the SOUL Demonstrating by Natural Reason and also Divine and Humane Testimony that as vicious and irregular Actions and Affections prove often occasions of most bodily Diseases and shortness of Life so the contrary do conduce to the preservation of Health and prolongation of Life In two Parts By J. H. M. A. Exod. 15. 26. If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God and wilt do that which is right in his sight and wilt give ear to his Commandments and keep all his Statutes I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians for I am the Lord that healeth thee Prov. 10. 27. The fear of the Lord prolongeth dayes but the years of the wicked shall be shortned Printed for George Rose Bookseller in Norwich and are to be sold by him there and by Nath. Brook and Will. Whitwood Booksellers in London 1676. To The right Worshipful and much Honour'd ROBERT COKE Esq Now a Member of the High and Honourable Court of Parliament SIR IT is reported that when one presented unto Antipater King of Macedon a Treatise of Happiness that he rejected it with this answer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am not at leasure You shall find this a Treatise tending to Happiness here and hereafter yet I assure my self it shall find better entertainment when it kisseth your hand not only in regard of the novelty and usefulness of the Design but also the Author 's good intention As to the Novelty thereof though I confess to have met dispersedly with many gleanings in sundry Authors yet the scattered ears were never heretofore so far as I have searched collected into Order the large field of this Argument lying as a barren soyl or a desolate wilderness untilled As to the Usefulness since all goods may be reduced to Bona animi corporis fortunae The goods of the mind the body and of fortune as Divine Providence hath liberally furnish'd you with the last this Manual presents you with the two former Which three and tria sunt omnia rightly improv'd will add such a lustre each to other as will make you shine not only as a Star of the first magnitude in the Sphaere you are in now but as the Sun it self hereafter when you shall be higher and richer in the reversion of a Celestial Kingdom whereof your temporal Estate thus sanctified made comfortable by the health of Soul and Body becomes an earnest Certes he is as happy as Solomon in all his glory who hath health to enjoy his riches and grace to preserve his health and the hope of glory greater than that of Solomon to remunerate his grace Riches without health is but like meat without a stomack which the best Cook on Earth cannot make relishing or grateful And health unless it relates to Soul as well as Body is but like a Down-pillow to a restless head which the best Chamberlain cannot make easie enough or refreshing But when goodness shall run parallel with greatness and healthfulness with holiness they must needs concenter in the Pole of Happiness As to the Auhtor's good Intention though I be a stranger to your Honored Person yet receiving my first breath and part of my Education within the sensible Horizon of Hill hall in Holkham and having known for the space of more than three lives in the Law the splendid Family of your Predecessors there and receiving from them I mean the two last of them no small Favors and Obligations and not knowing how better to testify my Gratitude to them than by expressing it to such a person as may be thought worthy in their room to inherit their praises with their Vertues as well as their Estate I have therefore presumed to make this Dedication of the First-fruits of my Labor such as it is humbly craving your Patronage or pardon and also beseeching in my Orisons that the Almighty preserver of Men would preserver you and yours in health and prosperity both of Body and Soul together with length of days subordinately by the observation of such Rules as are prescribed in this Enchiridion and that He would bless you no less with accumulation of Honors and fruitfulness of Loyns that as your Fortunes look green and flourishing so may your Name also to the glory of God the service of your Country the hope of your friends and the joy of every one who is no less devoted to your Service than SIR Your well-wishing Honorer J. H. TO THE READER TO let pass threadbare Apologie worn by so many Authors in their Epistles Prefatory namely Importunity of Friends let it suffice that after I had drawn up some scattered Notions into a Body for my private exercise and satisfaction the glory of God and the publick good were the grand Motives that encouraged me to permit my Divine Physician to see the light and to travel abroad amongst his Patients though he may chance to meet with as sharp Censures as the bodily Physician upon the miscarriage of his endeavours I confess a more accurate and acute Pen might with more confidence have undertaken and better success accomplished the design of the following Treatise But in regard no full Discourse of this nature hath ever presented it self to the Author's cognizance it hath been my lot to undertake it and my endeavour by the natural and general desire of Bodily Health to promote the Health of the Soul and also by the Health of the Soul to promote the Health of the Body In which two Points all the lines of our several designs must concenter or else the happiness of this Life and also of the next will prove eccentrick and to lye beyond the Sphaere of our reach If then thou would'st Vivere valere Live and that in health and enjoy Gaius his wished prosperity 3 Epist. John vers 2. take this advice Eschew evil and do good shun vice and embrace vertue For as in the former are lurking the seeds of Diseases and mortality so in the latter is contained such a spring of Divine sap as bringeth forth the blossoms of Health and the lasting fruit of long Life For it must be understood that as there is an agreement and correspondence between the Affections of the Soul and the Temperature of the Body and that as naturally Mores sequuntur humores The manners follow the Crasis and complexion of the humours So the Affections for their parts have great power and influence over the Body and though their Natures differ much one from another and we cannot by the Reasons of humane Philosophy comprehend how Spiritual and Corporeal Beings are linck'd together and conjoyned in one yet experience and the effects demonstrate
their joint influence and concurrence in the production either of Health or Diseases Therefore wee see that Joy which is an Affection of the Soul is as it were a Medicine to the Body and food to the Natural heat and moisture in which two qualities life chiefly consisteth And for this cause Physicians frequently advise their Patients to nourish that Affection in them and to avoide the contrary namely Sorrow and Sadness which last being cold and dry and so hindering the circulation of the Blood debilitating the Animal and Natural vertues and obstructing the distribution of due nourishment becometh an Enemy to life by the consequent Consumption of the Body Now upon this agreement and Sympathy between the Body and Soul the Current of this Discourse mainly though not only proceedeth In which you have the best and yet the cheapest Physick that can be prescribed brought unto you not from the Apothecaries Shop but the Treasury of the Scriptures the Closet of the Holy Ghost and all this not with a design of destroying the bodily Physician 's Practise for when all is done there will be still need of him at one time or other but of assisting him by a more Divine and expeditious Method in his Cures as well as preventing some unnecessary trouble and charge to the Patient And so I conclude desiring thee to cover the Imperfections and Errata's of this Work which may happen through the Author's inadvertency or the Printer's negligence with the mantle of Candour and Charity and to take that in good part which is so well intended by Thy well-wishing Friend J. H. To the ingenious Author Mr. J. H. Upon his DIVINE PHYSICIAN WHat in thy serious studies may we meet When even thy recreations are so sweet Thy Book is Grace and Nature bound together Take it which way you will it answers either So prettily so piously compact Divinity and Physick keep one Act. Strange Treatise I can reach down from my shelf Consists of Soul and Body like my self Thou shew'st thy self believ 't in thy Design A good Physician and a good Divine And that Physician to the Mark comes close That cures both Soul and Body with a Dose Go on and prosper fourth and fifth Edition Till John like Luke be the belov'd Physician M. S. The Author to his Book Go little Book and try thy fortune where More good thou may'st for least thou can'st do here Whil'st to a private shelf thou art confin'd Thou as to publick good art still behind Then venture forth and freely shew thy skill In curing such as shall thy Rules fulfil I would have sent thee in a better dress Before thou should'st have tumbled into Press But want of time and hast ' pon Life and Death May plead for thee when thou art out of breath Howe're termed Fool or a Physician As suits best with Carpers disposition Yet let thou Momus know a Fool in Print May sometime give to wiser Men a hint How dextrously to finish and compleat What e're in ruder draught is not so feat And to Accomplish what in thee 's design'd In brief A Body sound with a sound Mind THE DIVINE PHYSICIAN THE FIRST PART Demonstrating by Natural Reason and also Divine and Humane Testimony that vitious and irregular Actions and Affections do prove often occasions of most bodily Diseases and shortness of Life THE INTRODUCTION BEcause Method is Mater memoriae The Mother of memory and words must be placed as at a Feast and not as at an ordinary in this respect I shall observe some order in the following Tract First Then let us consider the excellencies and commodities of Health and long Life that so by their Encomiums we may be drawn and encouraged to follow after the best means in order to the attainment or enjoyment of them Health then in the first place is the greatest bodily blessing which God bestoweth upon any in this life though in regard of its commonness it be little regarded The benefit of this most sweet sause of all other goods is scarcely discerned by them that enjoy it till sickness come For then not only Orpheus his song but much more our own experience teacheth us that Nothing is available to men without health neither Riches nor Honour nor the greatest delights which Solomon's walk can afford Yea life it self which is so precious that skin for skin yea all that a man hath will he give for it Job 2. 4. as Sathan answered the Lord even that becomes uncomfortable without health Besides health is a special furtherance help to us in the service of God and in the performance of the duties of our Callings the want of it a great obstruction impediment to us therein For these reasons the beloved Apostle did earnestly wish his well-beloved Gaius prosperity and health Beloved I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health 3 Ep. John 2. This is that blessing which the Lord promiseth to the obedient The Lord will take away from thee all sickness that blessing which the Apostle Paul thought worthy to be preserved carefully as appeareth Acts 27. 34. likewise 1 Tim. 5. 23. In a word that blessing whose sweetness is so well experimented and relished after the bitterness of sickness that it were but to light a Candle before the Sun to bring forth any further testimony in the praise of it Secondly Long life may be accounted as another blessing which by its magnetick and attractive vertue may not only draw our affections as a Load-stone but also by its acuminating power set an edge upon our endeavours as a whetstone Long life is a blessing he that shall account it less doth not only forget his own natural desires but also God himself and his Commandment which promiseth length of dayes as a reward of dutifulness to Parents Natural Civil or Ecclesiastical It was a blessing of God upon Israel that being in the Wilderness forty years their garments did not wear as the garment of the Gibeonites So if in many years some Mens bodies which are as the garmentss of the Souls hold out longer than other mens as though with the Eagle he did renew their youth and God did add certain years unto their dayes as he did unto Hezekiah Isa. 37. 5. this is a great blessing For though we Christians as the Lord Verulam saith in his Epistle of the History of Life and Death do continually aspire and pant after the Land of Promise yet it will be a token of God's favour towards us in our journeyings thorow this worlds wilderness to have our shoes and garments I mean those of our frail bodies little worn or impaired Surely as it is a curse upon the wicked not to live out half his dayes Psal. 55. 23. A plague upon the ungodly that they die in their youth Job 36. 14. A punishment upon Eli and his Sons for their sins that there should not be an old man in his house for ever but
18. But most especially and most notably in that fearful Commination 1 Cor. 6. 10. where we are informed that Drunkards shall not inherit the Kingdom of God And yet something they shall inherit namely diseases not a few contracted upon them partly perhaps from their Parents voluptuousness but chiefly and most certainly from their own habituated disorders Drunkenness saith one dolores gignit in capite in stomacho in toto corpore acerrimos Breeds grievous diseases in the head in the stomack and in the whole body Now by Drunkenness we must understand all excess in drinking with its degrees as it is taken in Scripture Phrase For overcoming of or being overcome with strong drink Isai. 5. 22. Jer. 23. 9. which tend to the alienation of the mind dulling or clouding of the understanding inflaming the blood and confounding of health In these and the like respects Solomon makes this Interrogation who hath wo who hath sorrow who hath babling who hath wounds without cause who hath redness of eyes Prov. 23. 29. And 't is answered in the following Verse They that tarry long at the wine they that go to seek mixt wine More fully we may consider the effects of Drunkenness as they are described by Physicians to whose learning and experience we owe no small honour and credence And they are resolution of the Nerves Cramps and Palsies Inflation of the Belly and Dropsies Redness and Rheums in the Eyes tremblings in the hands and joynts inclination to Feavers and the Scurvy Sicknesses at Stomack and sower Belchings Pains of the Head and Teeth Crudities in the Stomack and weakness of the Stomack Pain in the Eyes or dimness of Sight trembling of the Heart weakness of the Liver Distillations the Cough a corrupt Breath Tumours Gouts These and many more are the bitter fruits that grow upon that unhappy Tree And as this vice produceth almost innumerable diseases and distempers so consequently it shorteneth life The Cup kills as many as the Canon and therefore those srothie Companions that pretend such kindness in a too free and frequent drinking their Friends health do prove miserably unkind to their own Bodies as well as Souls while they drink themselves out of health and life in the conclusion For this cause Drunkenness is said to oppress Nature and hasten death by consuming the natural moysture and also by its superfluous moysture drowning the natural heat And thence it is that Willows and such like whose natural place is the Rivers side and whose natural property is as it were to be alwayes drinking are of short continuance Hence it is that this vice by Matrobius is called Cita senectus A sudden old age because they that are often drunk soon grow old Or if some will say it is a preventer of old age it must be in its cutting Men off before they can attain to it Instances for the illustration of this truth are not few in History Alexander the Great in the flower of his age drunk himself to death and killed forty-one more by excessive drinking to get that Crown of one hundred and eighty Pounds weight which he had provided for him that drank most Plutarch Erasinus for the same cause hath called Eccius Jeccius For as he lived a shameful Drunkard so being non-plu'st at Ratisbon by Melancthon he drank more than was fit that night at the Bishop of Mundina's lodgings who had store of the best Italian Wines and so fell into a feaver whereof he died Jo. Man L. Com. pag. 89. The same Author Jo. Manlius tells us of three abominable Drunkards who drank so long till one of them fell down stark dead and the other two escaped not altogether free from distempers A Modern Author in his Book entitl'd The Mirrour of Examples setteth down two or three remarkable Stories to our present purpose At a Tavern in Bread-street certain Gentlemen drinking healths to the Lords on whom they had dependance one of them with an Oath drinks off a Pottle of Sack to his Lord after which he could neither rise up nor speak but falling into a sleep dyed within two hours after At a place near Mauldon five or six appointed a drinking Match laying in Beer for the purpose drank healths in a strange manner whereof all of them died within a few weeks after Also at the Plough in Barnwel near Cambridge a lusty young Man with two of his Neighbours and one Woman in their Company agreed to drink up a Barrel of strong Beer which accordingly they did but within twenty-four hours three of them died and the fourth hardly escaped after great danger and sickness Now the events of these Men's lives and their untimely ends are not to be accounted so much accidental as natural effects occasioned by their foul enormities and frequently attested by the experience of every age though not prevalent enough with the sensual and stupified Drunkard whom Austin brings in saying Malle se vitam quam vinum eripi He had rather lose his life than his liquor But did Men seriously while they are sober consider how injurious this sin is to the health of Body and Soul how it shormeth Men's lives lengthneth their punishment here and aggravates it hereafter how it fills Men brimful with diseases Spiritual and Corporal they should methinks respect their welfare better than to buy so small a pleasure at so dear a rate But in respect of bodily well-fare some may object that Avicenna Rhasis and Averrhoes advise the use of Wine Usque ad ebrietatem Even to drunkenness pretending it to be Physical as it is a Vomitory to evacuate these ill humours in the head and stomack which are the causes of most diseases and that Seneca indulgeth thus far Sen. de Tranquill. 15. Nonnunquan ad ebrietatem veniendum non ut mergat nos sed ut deprimat Eluit enim curas ab imo animum movet ut morbis quibusdam ita tristititiae medetur Now then we may drink more liberally even unto drunkenness its self not to overwhelm our parts but only to depress them a while For it washeth away cares exhilarates the mind and as it cureth certain diseases so likewise sadness To which this answer may be returned that herein many Men foolishly erre esteeming the cause of a hundred sicknesses to be the Medicine of one and the poison of the Soul to be good Physick for the Body no good Bodily Phisician will prescribe it no Spiritual Physician will allow it Cum turpis est Medicina sanari pudeat When the Medicine is so filthy and odious let us be ashamed to make use of it When it is so sinful let us be afraid to make trial whether the destruction of the Soul be the preservation of the Body Let us not do evil that good may come Rom. 3. 8. Much less when nothing but evil comes from thence as may be still made to appear in this vice in respect of bodily distempers For drunkenness is so far from
with the Sheep which is seldom to ten years and though he be a Creature more nimble and of somewhat a firmer flesh and so should be longer liv'd yet because he is much more lascivious that shortens his life How many Examples of Goatish short-liv'd Men could I extract out of History But being confined to brevity I must hasten to answer an Objection And it is this Some diseases are cured by Incontinency and Venereal evacuations as Anorexia viz. queasiness of Stomack Hysterical fits or suffocation of the womb Spermatick Feavers most vehement pains of the Head Priapismus Satyriasis Furor Uterinus c. Diseases felt and understood by such unmarried Persons whose blood is in its Meridian and as by this means such diseases are sometimes cured so consequently life is prolonged To which I may return a threefold Answer like a threefold cord which is not quickly broken Eccles. 4. 12. First Let all be supposed which is here objected yet surely it is but an ill Method to cure the Body by destroying the Soul or to endeavour the prolonging the Natural life by shortning of the Spiritual the life of grace We must not as I said before in respect of drunkenness do evil that good may come No necessity of health or life ought to persuade hereunto Ludovicus a King of France undertaking a long Pilgrimage and his Queen not being with him his health began to impair which his Physicians observing and knowing the reason of it perswaded him in the absence of the Queen to take unto him another Woman because his health safety required it which he did utterly refuse protesting he had rather die then have his Liie preserved by such an ungodly means Secondly Let the Objection still be enforced yet there is no necessity to make use of an unlawful cure when there is a lawful one provided for every one that will in that excellent and Divine Institution of Marriage which as it is intended a good prevention of all lustful and unlawful burnings 1 Cor. 7. 2. so by a more warrantable course it hath probably effected some Natural Cures upon the bodies of some and also by confining the Senses to one particular object far less exhausted the Spirits and so consequently seldomer occasioned diseases than a licentious indulgence and extravagant and insatiable Luxury hath done But because all this doth not directly meet the Objection or fully correspond to the design of my present undertaking therefore in the last place I would answer more pertinently that if any of the asore-mentioned diseases have been cured or prevented by such unlawful evacuations I verily believe as ill or worse have been introduced and nestled into their room or in stead of them So that still the stream runneth clear from the fountain viz. that sin more particularly the sin of Incontinency and Uncleanness is a cause of diseases and consequently of shortness of life as I have sufficiently demonstrated unto any whose reason doth not too much truckle under sense SECT IV. Of Idleness Sloth and Sluggishness IDleness was the sin of Sodom Ezeck 16. 49. a sin reproved by the Similitude of the Labourers in the Vineyard especially in those words Why stand ye here all the day idle Mat. 20. 6. The slothful and wicked Man join hands and go together as one in the Parable of the Talents Thou wicked and slothful Servant c. Mat. 25. 26. God puts no difference betwixt Nequaquam nequam An idle and an evil Servant The Sluggard or he that is slothful in his work were there no other respects is in this much the worse and that is in the condition of his estate as well as soul for and by reason of the non-improvement of his temporal Talent For as Solomon saith He is brother to him that is a great waster Pro. 18. 9. and therefore is he reproved by the Wise man and sent to School to the Ant Prov. 6. 6. 10. 12. to learn prudent industry and diligence I could shew you how the afore-named sins do frustrate the end of our Creation become the sinks of all mischief and evil and so odious and detestable that the very Devils in Hell are not guilty of them But my design is onely to point out sin briefly and then more largely to prove it to be an occasion of bodily diseases and shortness of life And of all sins Idleness Sloth and Sluggishness are not the least occasion being the sediment and collection of excremental superfluities For as standing waters soonest putrifie so do the humours of the body in stagno the Pool of Idleness The Lacedemonians would suffer none of their Subjects to spend their time in Sports or Idleness and when their Magistrates were told of some that used to walk abroad in the afternoons they sent to them requiring that leaving their Idleness they should betake themselves to honest labours and imployments For say they it becomes the Lacedemonians to procure health to their bodies by labour and exercise not to corrupt them by Sloth and Idleness Idleness saith a Modern Author not only stupifieth the mind but also groweth upon the body and blood and betrayeth them to discomplexion sickness and to many infirmities Yea search the Physicians Library and observe their Conclusions upon the six Non-naturals more particularly upon Motion and Rest and you may find the discommodities of this sin namely Crudities obstructions and a multiplication of excrementitious humours and so consequently a languishing loose slabby infirm body Hence it is that such Persons corrupted with this vice are unavoidably in continual Physick have need of Issues and other artificial helps for the evacuation and exiccation of those superfluous moistures contracted upon them by a sedentary and slothful life But especially those Women who have passed their youth undisciplin'd and have been bred up in such a delicacy that they know no other business but their pleasures I say those find sensibly the pernicious effects of an idle life in those diseases it particularly disposeth them too as Obstructions of the Liver Spleen Womb and Breast and in that grievous inconvenience it produteth viz. Long travail difficulty and danger in Childing as might easily be confirmed by reason but that probably a great part of this Sex is sooner convinced by an Argument drawn from sence and their own dear experience which is most commonly the Mistress of Fools I might add hereunto that they which â—ead sedentary lives bear weak and sickly Children and also demonstrate such VVomen to be injurious not only to themselves but also their Posterity But I must hasten to shew you another natural effect of Idleness even in both Sexes and that is a disease which is the leaven of diseases viz. Melancholly which proceedeth oft-times from this vice and excremental superfluities gathered together in the body For no greater cause of Melancholly than Idleness as Democritus Jun. in his Treatise of that subject doth largely shew in place thereof and most compendiously conclude in another
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
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.
Knowledge These are the consequences of that Wisedom which is foolishness with God as the Spirit of God terms it 1 Cor. 3. 19. But again we will consider all the above-mentioned Enormities and irregularities in this Section as they cause shortness of Life The condensation of the Spirits as the Lord Verulam in his History of Life and Death p. 227. writeth is effectual to long life and therefore especial care must be taken that the Spirits be not too often resolved for attenuation goeth before resolution and the Spirit once attenuated doth not very easily retire or is condensed now resolution is caused by over-vehement Affections of the mind over-great Cares and carpings and anxious expectations Not without reason then is that Proverbial Sentence Care will kill a Cat though it be said to have nine lives or that observation of the Son of Sirach Carefulness bringeth age before the time Eccl. 30. 24. Cura facit canos Care brings gray hairs i. e. it antidates old Age and so consequently shorteneth life Hence it is that almost in every Village we shall find a Covetous Muck-worm drooping and at length dropping into his Grave not with pure old age but beaten down and overwhelmed with too much Sollicitude and carking Care before that he can arrive to that Maturity Also immoderate Study by its subtil acute and eager inquisition after humane learning shortens life for it tireth the Spirit and wasteth it Solomon hinteth as much to us in these words And further by these my son be admonished of making many books there is no end and much study is a weariness of the flesh Eccles. 12. 12. That is as Bishop Hall paraphraseth upon the place by these Divine words O my Son do thou content thy self to be admonished not roving in thy desires after multitude of other Volumes whereof there is no end in the compiling and reading of which there is much toil and weariness of the flesh and much expence of the Spirits Finally Many other irregularities and enormities there are but as most of them may be reduced to one or other of the above-mentioned Sections so the like consequential effects may be deduced from them And so I conclude the whole Chapter having largely shewed and demonstrated that Many sins are natural causes of bodily Diseases and shortness of Life CHAP. III. Containing an Enumeration of sundry Sins as they are accidental causes of bodily Diseases and especially of shortness of Life THat we may term an accidental cause which produceth its effect not naturally and immediately by it self but by accident or chance or fortune as the Logicians define it Now how many sad accidents do sometimes result from sundry sins which expose Men to divers Diseases and also to shortness of life may appear by this following accompt which the greater part thereof I must crave leave to draw from and illustrate by a Collection of several Instances in History First In relation to Gluttony and Drunkenness we find these following recorded and adapted to our present purpose Gregory of Tours reporteth of Childerick a Saxon that glutted himself so full of meat and drink over night that in the morning he was found choked in his bed Anacreon the Poet a grand Consumer of Wine and a notable Drunkard was choked with the husk of a grape Philostrates being in the Bathes of Sinvessa devoured so much Wine that he fell down the Stairs and almost broke his neck with the fall Martid lib. 11. Alexander the Son of Basilius and Brother of Leo the Emperour did so wallow and drown himself in the Gulf of pleasure and intemperance that one day after he had stuffed himself too full of Meat as he got upon his Horse he burst a vein within his Body whereat upwards and downwards issued such abundance of blood that his life and soul issued forth withal Melanct. lib. 4. Within few years of my own knowledge saith mine Author three not far from Huntington being overcome with drink perished by drowning when being not able to rule their Horses they were carried by them into the main stream from whence they never came out alive again but left behind them visible marks of God's justice for the terrour and example of others Beard 's Theater of God's Judgments Holofernes while he besotted his senses with excess of Wine and good chear Judeth found means to cut of his head Judeth 13. Yea woful experience doth make manifest almost every day in one corner or other of this Land that the Lord punisheth many with sudden death and destruction even in the midst of their drunken fits although some again to shew his delight is in Mercy and not in the sudden destruction of his Creatures he punisheth with some lingring distempers whereof this vice of Drunkenness is often an accidental cause by exposing such Persons to heats and colds the adventitious causes of most Diseases to falls bruises fractures dislocations wounds contusions combustions c. which are the occasions or accidental causes not only of many Organical Diseases but also Similar as might be made apparent if right reason or mature experience were consulted And therefore let that Proverbial Sentence Drunken folks seldom take harm be hereafter exploded by all sober Persons considering how harmful and prejudicial this enormity hath been declared to be both to Soul and Body And now because Vina parant animos Veneri Whoredom is usually ushered in by Drunkeness we will in the next place consider Lust Adultery Fornication Uncleanness c. as accidental causes of Diseases but especially of shortness of Life And here I might shew how all immoderate and unseasonable use of Venus doth impede Concoction and so consequently produce Diseases But I shall rather touch upon it as a contingent cause of Venereal Pox which as in the former Chapter we considered as a Natural effect in respect of the virulent Contagion communicated so in this we look upon it as contingent and accidental in respect of the Persons communicating in the above-mention'd sins But I shall choose rather to insist upon those sins as accidental causes or occasions of shortness of Life and to that end shall illustrate the Point by these ensuing Instances Shechem the Son of Hamor the Hivite ravished Dinah Jacob's Daughter for which cause Simeon and Levi her Brethren revenged the injury done unto their Sister by slaying Shechem and with him all the Males that were in the City Gen. 34. In the 19th and 20th Chapter of Judges we read that the Levite's Wife having forsaken her Husband to play the whore certain Moneths after he had again received her to be his Wife she was given over against her will to the villanous and monstrous lusts of the men of Gibeah who so abused her for the space of a whole night together that in the morning she was found dead upon the threshold Which thing turn'd to a great destruction and overthrow not only of those Children of Belial in Gibeah which committed such lewdness
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
performed as the instrument Whereunto are annexed about sixty Testimonials of several credible Persons most of them eminent and worthy of the chief matters of fact therein related Which printed Certificates being examined and compared with the Original Testimonials which were left in the hands of Mr. Starkey the Stationer to that end namely for a certain evidence to Mr. Boyle and for the full satisfaction of all those that are any wise scrupulous that they might see that they were verbatim the same In this respect I suppose it unreasonable to interrogate with Nicodemus How can these things be John 3. 9. seeing there is such a clear demonstration de facto of what was seen done I confess saith a learned modern Author of our own I cannot see any reason why God may not yet for the conviction if Insidels employ such a power of Miracles although there be not such necessity of it as there was in the first propagation of the Gospel Yet God may please saith he a little after out of his abundant provision for the satisfaction of the minds of men concerning the truth of Christian doctrine to imploy good men to do something which may manifest the power of Christ to be above the Devils Dr. Stillingfleet's Origines Sacrae pag. 270. To be short as our Saviour being in the flesh had power on Earth to cure incurable Diseases miraculously that is without Natural means so being in Heaven his power is no less but rather greater over all bodily Diseases to cure them with or without means whensoever he will So that this may comfort us in time of dangerous sickness though our Disease be incurable by Physick or any Natural means yet in this case we are to remember the absolute power of Christ Jesus our Lord who can heal us without means if he see it expedient for us And that his will doth in this case frequently concur with his power note further that Man's extremity is God's opportunity where Man's help faileth Christ's help beginneth Let us then seek to him by Prayer and rest on him by Faith not neglecting ordinary means by a too frequent dependance upon or expectation of miraculous Cures nor yet forgetting that if the means fail or cannot be had his power is not tied to means but is above them and can and doth sometimes recover us without them when he seeth it good for us I conclude the Point then thus that Gods blessing upon the Natural means and his blessing without means are each received most successfully and comfortably by the hand of Faith which is the extraordinary means conducing to the health of Body as the ordinary to the health of Soul Fourthly Repentance if true and sincere doth in the same extraordinary way conduce to the health of Body and prolongation of Life And this may be proved First in express terms and Secondly by consequence First In express terms by sundry Texts of sacred Writ Miriam by repentance was freed from the Leprosie Num. 12. 11. 21. 7. The Israelites repenting obtained a remedy against the fiery Serpents and thereby were delivered from imminent death David after the death of seventy thousand of his People by repentance prevented the destruction of Jerusalem 2 Sam. 24. 16 17. Rehoboam and the Princes repenting at the preaching of Shemaiah were delivered from destruction 2 Chr. 12. 7. Hezekiah having received a message of death upon his repentance had his life lengthened by a Lease from above two lives more in our Law Isay 38. v. 1. 10. 6. Secondly By consequence For sublatâ causâ tollitur effectus the cause which is sin being taken away the effect which is bodily sickness and shortness of Life as I have fully declared and evinced in the former part of this Treatise must needs cease and be removed or prevented and avoided And therefore Repentance as you see may rationally be concluded effectual for the health of the Body and the prolongation of a temporary Life as it was alwayes granted propitious to the health of the Soul in order to ever lasting Life To summ up all let us not think it incredible that these vertues and graces should in such an extraordinary manner conduce to the preservation of bodily health removal of sickness and prolongation of Life when we consider the power of God with whom all things are possible Mat. 19. 26. and the manifestation of that power not only in the sundry miraculous cures of bodily Diseases recorded in the Old and New Testament but also in some such cures or very like them taken notice of in our modern History and experience The miraculous Cures in both Testaments the Reader may take notice of at his leasure I shall instance now only in Humane Story and modern Evidence A late intelligent Author and faithful Relator telleth us that to the Kings of England quatenus Kings doth appertain one prerogative that may be stiled super-excellent if not Miraculous which was first enjoyed by that pious and good King Edward the Confessor that is to remove and to cure the Struma or Scrofula that stubborn Disease called The Kings Evil. Which manifest cure saith he is ascribed by some malignant Nonconformists to the power of Fancy and exalted Imagination but what can that contribute to small Infants whereof great numbers are cured every year Dr. Chamberlain in his present State of England The manner of the Cure is briefly thus related There is an appointed short Form of Divine Service wherein are read besides some short Prayers pertinent to the occasion two portions of Scripture taken out of the Gospel and at these words They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover the King gently draws both his hands over the sore of the sick Person and those words are repeated at the touch of every one Again at these words That light was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world pertinently used if it be considered that that Light did never shine more comfortably if not more visibly than in the healing of so many leprous and sick Persons At those words the King putteth about the neck of each sick Person a piece of Gold called from the impression an Angel because in value about two thirds of a French Pistol Thus far He. Now the effect is clear de facta and from experience and cannot therefore be rationally denyed and 't is as clear that the cause must be super-natural in regard that neither the hands of the King not the piece of gold given by him have any natural or accidental power or tendency in themselves to effect or produce such a Cure especially in Infants whose imagination cannot be wrought upon and disposed for the furtherance of it by such outward applications as are then used Another Instance to our present purpose we may find in a modern Collection being true and faithful Relation of one Samuel Wallas who was restored to his perfect health after thirteen years sickness
have written large Encomiums of this vertue of Temperance Lastly I might instance in the reading of good Books in the good society of Friends their honest and wholesom Discourses exhortatory and consolatory in time of sickness which are very commendable and agreeable to Sacred Writ and so more largely shew that these very things as Seneca saith Medicinae vim habuerunt Have the vertue of Physick Et quicquid animum erexit etiam corpori prodest whatever hath raised and comforted the mind hath also been profitable to the Body Seneca Epist. 79th And also might by many examples illustrate these things more especially by that of Alphonsus King of Naples who being abandoned of his Physicians as in a desperate case and calling for Quintus Curtius took such delight to hear him read that he recovered his health again obtaining that by a little consolation and delight which could not be procured by Physick But to avoid prolixity I shall here desist and conclude the whole Chapter having as I suppose sufficiently proved and demonstrated that vertuous and regular actions and affections do naturally conduce to the health of body and length of life CHAP. IV. Shewing that vertuous and regular actions and affections do through the blessed influence of Divine Providence upon means prove often occasions of bodily health and long Life IT is the duty of a Christian to depend upon God in his Providential administrations For happy is that people whose God is the Lord Psal. 144. 15. And this happiness consisteth partly in that degree of peculiar Providence which respecteth the temporal salvation and preservation of the Children of God from imminent dangers more particularly those of mortal Diseases and sudden death and also in the ordination and disposition of means in order to the recovery of bodily health and the proroguing of life And though there be swarms of contingencies that might be thought to hinder the success of means yet Divine Providence for the welfare of the righteous so hiveth them and disposeth of them in such order as they unite and combine together to produce the honey of health and long life For it must be understood that as sometimes for the punishment of sin the hand of Providence may be seen in rendering the means used for health successless a Colledge of Physicians being Physicians of no value when and where the Lord the great Physician withdraws his manutenancy or succeeding hand of Providence Witness this in Asa 2 Chr. 16. 12 13. who had his Physicians but not his cure So sometimes the same Providence for the encouragement of the Godly is displayed in raising Persons from the graves mouth and recovering them when mortally sick in the judgment of the most accurate Physicians and this sometimes by bringing to light such means which are very improbable to Man's reason though very proper for the recovery of the Patient who like Epaphroditus was sick nigh unto death but God had mercy on him Phil. 2. 27. Also sometimes it is displayed in a fortunate concurrence of all needful contingencies in order to the end here designed which some call the Blessing upon the means as namely when God by the method of his Providence putteth it into the heart of the Patient or some Friend about him if the Disease be dangerous to make a timely and seasonable address to a judicious and experienced Physician whose heart is providentially as it were inspired and his memory prompted with such seasonable adaequate and proper prescriptions as by the Patients observation thereof together with the use of other means represented to the mind by the hints and intercourse of the same Providence become very advantagious to health and long life In this respect though chiefly in a Spiritual I suppose that of the Apostle holds good All things work together for good to them that love God Rom. 8. 28. And that which the Wise man attesteth is no less true The preparations of the heart in man and the answer of the tongue is from the Lord Prov. 16. 1. Also A man's heart deviseth his way but the Lord directeth his steps Vers 9. Likewise the peculiar distinguishing Providence of God in the preservation of the lives of his Children is seen thorow the glass of these following Instances The King of Israel a wicked Person disguiseth himself and hath his armour 1 Kings 22. yet an arrow finds its passage between the joints of his harness On the other hand Jehoshaphat King of Judah a good King who was in the same fight and in greater danger than King Ahab is preserved It came to pass saith the Text when the Captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat in his Royal robes they said It is the King of Israel therefore they compassed about him to fight But Jehoshaphat cried out and the Lord helped him and God moved them to depart from him 2 Chron. 18. 32. How often did Saul hunt David's life as a Partridge on the mountains But the hedge of Divine Providence alwayes hindred Saul's game and secured David Yea though Saul had hedged him in round about and gotten him in such a snare as there was but a little distance betwixt David and death yet Saul could not accomplish his designs Providence by way of diversion had procured another hunting-match the Philistines had invaded the Land wherefore Saul saith the Scripture returned from pursuing after David and went against the Philistines 1 Sam. 23. 18. Paul the Apostle and Servant of Jesus Christ how oft was he in the suburbs of death By perils of waters perils of robbers perils by his own country-men perils by the heathen perils in the city perils in the wilderness perils in the sea and perils among false brethren 2 Cor. 11. 26. Yet how often did the Lord preserve his life by a happy concurrence of Providential contingencies and casualties When the Jews went about to kill him their design was ineffectual and Paul giveth the reason thereof saying Having therefore obtained help of God I continue unto this day Acts 26. 21 22. Which place hath reference to another where it is recorded that As they went about to kill Paul tidings came unto the chief captain of the band that all Jerusalem was in an uproar who immediately took souldiers and centurions and ran down unto them and when they saw the chief captain and the souldiers they left beating of Paul Chap. 21. 31 32. An admirable example of God's good Providence who delighted to reserve his hand for a dead lift to rescue and save those that are forsaken of their hopes Yea sometimes even by the hands of such a Person as had no such intention as we may see in the following words vers 33. Again we read in another place Chap. 23. of a combination of above forty Conspiratours who had bound themselves with direful curses that they would eat nothing until they had killed Paul But Providence revealed the plot and conspiracy to Paul's Sisters Son and a sweet
be drawn from the skill of Chiromancy or Palmistry which undertaketh by marks and lines in the hands especially by the line of Life to measure the extent of every Man's life with the time and degree of every dangerous Disease incident thereunto and so thereby maketh void the use of all means tending to the temporal end of this Discourse Solut. In the confutation of this error let the Testimony of a late Author suffice The lines in the hands saith he which are counted Nature's Manuscripts are but the folds of the skin when the hand bends inwardly neither proper to any who have their feet alwayes extended by the same reason we have not those now which we had in our infancy but by accidents Diseases and labour are changeable A Book fit for Justices to discover idleness Dr. Robinson in his Miscellanious Treatise Lastly Another Objection is from those that pretend Wizards and Witches c. the Oracles of the Devil can prophecy or predict the certain term of Man's life with the manner of his death and if so say they then how can vertue prorogue or vice abbreviate Man's life Solut. I answer briefly that Sathan though he can give a notable intelligence to some who are his Oracles yet his knowledge for the most part is but conjectural Indeed his experience as he is an old Serpent and his knowledge as he is an Angel are both very great He can quickly take cognizance of the position of matters how things are in their precedent causes both Natural and Moral Thus supposing that it was the Devil in Samuel's Mantle that did fore-tell the precise time of Saul's death 1 Sam. 28. 19. yet it doth not imply the absolute certainty of the Devil's prediction or the fatal necessity of Saul's death nor is it any wonder if the Devil speaks as he doth For David was anointed Saul grows worse and worse and now the top-stone sin was laid on namely his going to a Witch and a battel was at hand to be fought all the prodromi or fore-runners of his approaching ruine The Conclusion And now to conclude the Result of the whole is that of the Philosopher Ex sanitate in Anima sit sanitas in Corpore From health in the Soul ariseth health in the Body Arist. lib. 7. Meta. Or if you will taste the summ and substance of the whole Treatise in the words of an eminent Author T. H. R. E. Fellow of the Royal Society in his late Discourse of the Excellency of Theology p. 130. which just now saluted mine eye and gave me such a fair Prospect in parvo of my preceding Discourse as I will not let them pass but shall here insert them both for strength and ornament thereunto He who effectually teaches Men to subdue their Lusts and Passions saith he does as much as the Physician contribute to the preservation of their Bodies by exempting them from those vices whose no less usual than structive Effects are Wars and Duels and Rapines and Desolations and the Pox and Surfeits and all the train of other Diseases that attend Gluttony and Drunkenness Idleness and Lust which are not Enemies to Man's life and health barely upon a Physical account but upon a Moral one as they provoke God to punish them with emporal as well as Spiritual Judgments such as Plagues Wars Famines and other publick Calamities that sweep away a great part of Mankind And a little further he addeth Those Teachers that make Men Virtuous and Religious by making them temperate and chaste and inoffensive and calm and contented do help them to those Qualifications that by preserving the mind in a calm and cheerful temper as well as by affording the Body all that Temperance can confer do both lengthen their lives and sweeten them Thus He. Wherefore since Righteousness as the Wise man saith tendeth to life and he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death Prov. 11. 19. let our chiefest care be ut sit mens sana in corpore sano That a healthful mind be in a healthful Body that as by the soundness of the one we enjoy the sweetness of our Temporal life so by the soundness of the other we may have the happy fruition both of Temporal here and of Eternal life hereafter FINIS AN ALPHABETICAL INDEX A Dultery Fornication Uncleanness c. sins destructive to Soul and Body and an Objection for the use thereof answered 33 c. Ambition and the evils thereof in respect of Soul and Body 73 77. Anger and its discommodities when in excess 48 c. Astrology judicial the vanity thereof and that neither the certain time of sickness nor term of Man's life can be rationally predicted thereby 194 c. B. Blasphemy vide Swearing C. Care excessive and immoderate hurtful to Soul and Body 75 Covetousness Ibid. Chiromancy and the vanity thereof shewing that the time and degree of Diseases and the extent of life can not be infallibly or rationally predicted thereby 197. D. The Devil how far he can cause diseases 110. Diseases sometimes cured without Natural means 136 137. Diligence in our Calling vide Labour Drunkenness prejudicial to the health of Soul and Body and also long life 25 c. An Objection for the use thereof answered 31 c. E. Envie a cause of diseases and shortness of life 51. F. Faith a powerful means of bodily health and this in a super-natural way 138 c. Also in a natural way 149. Fear if slavish and excessive dangerous to Soul and Body 66 c. Fasting a religious duty and both preventive and curative Physick to the Body 166 to 174. G. Gluttony the evil effects thereof in Soul and Body 18 to 25. God when Natural means fail by his Almighty power can cure diseases without them 140 144. Grief if wordly and immoderate an enemy to health and long life 54 to 62. H. Hatred vide Envie Health its Encomium and the commodities thereof 2. It cometh from God and therefore thanks to be returned to him for it 147 148. Healing the gift thereof whether ceased in the Church 135 c. Hope very advantagious to health and long life 151 c. I. Idleness how injurious to health 42 c. Joy sensual and immoderate injurious to Soul and Body 63 to 66. Joy moderate and well-grounded a promoter of health 153. Imagination the power thereof in relation to health 150. Intemperance and the many discommodities thereof 17 c. K. Kings and Princes why commonly they arrive not to any great age 152. The Kings Evil miraculously cured and the manner thereof described 140 c. L. Labour the benefite thereof to the Body as well as Soul 154 to 158. Laughter vide Sensual Joy Learning vide Study Long life a great blessing 3. Whether the bounds of Life be predetermined with an Answer to an Objection 187 to 193. The Lord's day prophaned what judgments have ensued upon the Offenders 99. Love how it becomes advantagious to the health both of Body and Soul 153. M. Means natural means must not be neglected in the cure of diseases nor altogether relied upon 138 145. N. Nature in Man's Body under God the best Physician yet stands in need of outward assistances 163 164. O. The Ordinances as the Word of God and the holy Sacraments Baptism and the Lord's Supper being contemned or abused what bodily plagues temporal destruction have followed 92 to 99. Obedience to Paronts rewarded with long life 117 118. And how the promise of long life is to be understood 119. Also what is meant by Obedience to Parents 121 122 P. Perjury vide Swearing The Physician learned and conscientious worthy of double honour and his skill to be made use of with good success but yet with a proviso 147. Prayer being devout and zealous a powerfulpromoter of bodily health and long life 122. Of annointing the sick Body as a Ceremony annexed to Prayer and the judgment of our Church concerning it 127 c. Some Objections against the use of Prayer answered 129 c. Pride punished with bodily plagues and destruction 104. Divine Providence the manner of its influence in procuring health and long life to the Godly 178. R. Repentance how it procures health and long life how it prevents diseases and destruction 138. Religion or a religious life how it becomes advantagious to health and long life 149. S. Sin in general an occasion of bodily diseases and shortness of life and this in a super-natural way 6. Also how it is a Natural cause of diseases 16 17 c. Item how an accidental cause 83. The Sacrament of the Lord's Supper unworthily received how dangerous to Soul and Body vide The Ordinances Sacriledge the punishment of it declared in corporal plagues and destruction 100. Saints the long lives of many Prophets and Saints in Holy Scripture and the cause imputed 145. Sloth and Slugishness vide Idleness Society and good company how sometimes advantagious to health by consolatory discourses 177. Sorrow vide Grief The Soul and Bodies Sympathy and mutual concurrence in the production of diseases 111. Study if immoderate and unseasonable an enemy to health and long life 78. Swearing Blasphemy c. how punished 101. T. Teachers and Preachers how much they contribute by their wholesome Discourses towards the health and long life of their obedient Auditors 199 200. Temperance and the many commodities thereof in relation to the prevention and cure of diseases and to the proroguing of life 158 c. The bounds of Temperance 174. V. Vain-glory vide Pride Vertue and vertuous actions and affections explained 144. W. Witches and Magicians how they can sometimes cause diseases and death 110. They cannot predict the certain term of Man's life with the manner of his death 198. FINIS Fuller's Comment on 11 Chap. of 1 Cor. p. 79. H. Brook in his Conservatory of Health Hector Boeth History of Scotland H Brook's Conservatory of Health p. 187. 2d Part of the French Academy p. 262. D. Charton's Exercitationes Path. p. 112. Vid. Des-Cartes de Passionibus Artic. 106. Dr. Bernard upon his Life and Death in a Funeral Sermon p. 27 This is true when the sore is in the glandules of the neck but when it is elsewhere it is said by some that have been often touched that the King gently toucheth only the cheeks of the party grieved
conferring any thing towards bodily health that it rather produceth sickness even by that which amongst some sottish Physicians is pretended as a cause of health namely vomiting which is a symptome of sickness and also sometimes a cause of dangerous distempers when it succeedeth a nauseous over-charging the stomack with drink So that whatever be the effects of an evacuation by other kind of vomits this by drunkenness is often a cause of many distempers seldom or never a cure of any unless it be of the present sickness of stomack which this vice first caused But how many other distempers and diseases doth it cause which it never cures So that you see drunkenness is a certain cause of many diseases and of shortness of life but seldom a cure unless it be by accident of any SECT III. Of Adultery Fornication Uncleanness c. THe works of the flesh saith the Apostle are manifest which are these adultery fornication uncleanness lasciviousness Gal. 5. 19. And they which do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God Verse 21. Now as these sins are very injurious to the Soul so also to the body Ezeck 16. 28. For Lust not satisfying such Persons as are tainted with it they soon fall into immoderation and excess which hath these damages attending it A dissolution of strength and spirits decay of sight tainture of the breath diseases of the nerves joynts as Palsies all kinds of Gouts weakness of the back involuntary flux of seed bloody Urine But then as a Modern Physician saith if to immoderation be added the base and sordid accompanying of Harlots and impure Women what follows but a Consumption of Lungs Liver and Brain a putrifaction and discolouration of the blood loss of colour and complexion a purulent and violent Gonorrhea an ulceration and rottenness of the Genitals noysom and malignant Knobs Swellings Ulcers and Fistulaes in the head face feet groin and other glandulous and extream parts of the body These and many more being the effects of that detestable sin when it meets with that detestable disease the Venereal Pox which by God's just judgment hath assailed Mankind not only in France but in most parts of the World as a scourge or punishment to restrain the too wanton and lascivious lusts of impure Persons causing them to receive in themselves that recompence of their errour which was meet as it is in the Apostle's Phrase Rom. 1. 27. though in a different sense To this purpose Mr. John Abrenethy in his pious and ingenious Treatise of Physick for the Soul thus writeth p. 369. This burning lust spendeth the Spirits and Balsom of life as the flame doth wast the Candle whereupon followeth corruption of humours rotting of the marrow the joints ache the nerves are resolved the head is pained the gout increaseth and oft-times as a most just punishment there insueth that miserable scourge of Harlots Lues-Venerea the French Pox. Also Carnal Love or fleshly lust in young Inamoratoes whose affections are stronger than their reason is a branch of wantonness that is fruitful in the production of such diseases and distempers as do extreamly afflict and weaken the Persons captivated as may appear in that Example of Amnon who was sick with love 2 Sam. 13. 1. 2. as the cause with a consumption as the effect being lean from day to day by reason of his fair Sister whom he loved And hence it is that in such Persons the heat abandons the parts and retiring into the brain leaves the whole body in great distemperature which corrupting consuming the blood makes the face grow pale and wan causeth the trembling of the heart breeds strange Convulsions and retires the spirits in such sort that they seem rather Images of death than living Creatures who are possessed with it Now for further illustration of this matter and to revive the mind of the Reader I shall briefly and compendiously recite these two instances The first is of King Perdiccas whom Hippocrates observing and finding him to be in a Chronical sickness which made his body to languish exceedingly after long inquiry perceived his pining away to flow from a Spiritual disease for the love he had to Phila his Fathers Concubine Saran in vita Perdic. The other is of Antiochus Son of King Seleucus who burning with an unspeakeable desire and lust for Stratonice his Stepmother and being mindful what dishonest fires he carried in his breast concealed his inward wound and smothered the flame so long till it reduced his body to the uttermost degree of a Consumption and thus lying in his bed like a dying Man his Father was presently cast down with grief as thinking onely of the death of his only Son and his own miserable condition in being made Childless Plutarch Now how these two Perdiccas and Antiochus were cured of their languishing distempers is inconsistent with my present purpose to declare Also Sodomy Polygamy and self-pollution are sins of uncleanness that by transgressing the rules of Temperance do prove frequently occasions of many distempers Yea likewise the immoderate and unseasonable use of the Marriage bed which is a breach of some Divine Precepts 1 Thes. 4. 4. Lev. 18. 19. is too fruitful in diseases not only in respect of those derived to Posterity but also of those propagated on the Parents themselves For according to the judgment of Laevinus Lemnius and other learned Physicians it can hardly be expressed what Contagîon and mischief comes thereupon when such immodest and impure conjunctions are indulged For where the right ends of Marriage are not observed there Persons of both Sex at last pay dearly for their unruly lust when their bodies are tormented with the Leprosie or Pox Gouts Aches or other distemperatures And therefore one adviseth That in the private acquaintance and use of Marriage there be a seasonable restraint with a moderation that so the pleasure therein be inter-mingled with some regard to the rules of health and long life To both which those fore-named sins of Wantonness and Uncleanness are foul Enemies Moreover these sins do shorten and contract life For those that are defiled and corrupted by them do very much sin against their own Bodies wasting their strength in pleasure as the flame consumeth the Candle and therefore are like Sparrows which Aristotle saith do therefore live but a short time because of their insatiable copulation And I read that the Romans were wont to have their Funerals at the gates of Venus Temple Plut. to signifie that lust was the Harbinger and hastener of death Yea the wisest of meer Men doth in his Proverbs teach us the praedatory and destructive power of all uncleanness in these words And thou mourn at the last when thy flesh and thy body are consumed Prov. 5. 11. It is a fire saith Job that consumeth to destruction Job 31. 12. The Lord Verulam in his History of Life and Death p. 57. makes this observation That the Goat lives to the same age
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
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
But I shall now proceed to something more proper and adaequate unto the present purpose and that is to lay down a Plat-form of the succeeding Argument In the next Chapter I shall demonstrate in general and particular that vertuous and regular actions and affections are in a super-natural sense conducing to the preservation of health and prolongation of life and in the third Chapter shall shew you that such actions and affections do in a Natural sense conduce to the same end of health and long life and in the fourth Chapter prove that the same means through the blessed influence of Divine Providence do become occasions of the same Natural effects and in the last Chapter shall answer some Objections briefly and then conclude the whole CHAP. II. Shewing in general and particular that vertuous regular actions affections are in a super-natural sense conducing to the preservation of health and prolongation of life IF we search the Scriptures we shall find a great Cloud of witnesses and testimonies ushering in this truth viz. that a life led in Religion vertue and the fear of God doth conduce much to the health of Body and also length of dayes As for instance it is written Ye shall serve the Lord your God and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee Exod. 23. 25. Also long life is promised as a blessing unto them that keep the Commandments in these ensuing words That he turn not aside from the Commandment to the right hand or to the left to the end that he may prolong his dayes in his Kingdom Deut. 17. 20. Also in these That thou mayest love the Lord thy God and that thou mayest obey his voice and that thou mayest cleave unto him for he is thy life and the length of thy dayes Cap. 30. vers 20. Again health is promised upon like conditions Be not wise in thine own eyes saith Solomon fear the Lord and depart from evil It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones Pro. 3. 7 8. Thus Jesus Christ the grand Exemplar of innocency and integrity was without sin and therefore without sickness More particularly these blessings are held forth as temporal rewards of sundry Moral Civil and Religious acts and duties and this may appear both by Divine and Humane Authority First then in respect of obedience to Parents we find long life promised as a motive to it in the fifth Commandment Honour thy father and thy mother that thy dayes may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee Exod. 20. 12. Which the Apostle calleth the First Commandment with promise Eph. 6. 1 2. viz. the first affirmative Commandment or the first in the second Table or the first of all the Ten with promise in particular to them that keep it Which promise sheweth that a more plentiful blessing in this kind followeth from our obedience to this than to the other Commandments And yet I confess obedience in general meets with the same blessing as the Psalmist doth denote unto us What man is he that desireth life and loveth many dayes that he may see good keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile Depart from evil and do good seek peace and pursue it Psal. 34. 12 c. However there lieth a special Emphasis upon the particular observance of the aforesaid Commandment by an express and particular promise of long life But doth this promise alwayes hold Yes surely it holdeth generally and for the most part in comparison of the wicked who do not live out half their dayes Psal. 55. 23. and if it fail it is but rarely and then in exchange for the better that as the Prophet saith The righteous may be taken away from the evil to come Isay 57. 1. I say but rarely it fails for to say otherwise were to make the promise of no effect and the tenor of the Commandment very ambiguous But do not the disobedient live long also truly they have no promise for it and commonly they are cut off by an untimely death or if some of them be reprived until old age they are but comparatively few being reserved only as so many examples of God's mercy and forbearance as the rest being many are soon cut off as examples of his justice Long life then is most commonly the reward of obedience and piety to Parents And it must needs be so when Divine Providence which is more then a Wall of brass to encircle and secure us taketh such especial care in the protection and preservation of such as are endued with that eminent vertue as appeareth by what Aristotle telleth us viz. how that from the Hill Aetna there ran down a torrent of fire that consumed all the houses thereabout yet in the midst of those fearful flames God's especial care of the Godly and obedient shined most brightly For the River of fire parted it self and made a kind of lane for those who ventured to rescue their aged Parents and pluck them out of the jaws of death Ipse dixit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist. de mundo cap. 6. If Providence then wrought so much in a miraculous way for the preservation of the lives of Heathens to reward their duty shewed towards their Parents surely Christians the Children of God whose obedience to Parents springeth originally from their obedience to their Heavenly Father may with much more confidence depend upon the same Providence for the like preservation and so by consequence the prolongation of their lives as a reward of the same duty Now though I have insisted upon the afore-mentioned Commandment in a literal sense yet by the rules of extension requisite for the interpretation thereof we are to understand there not only our Natural Parents but as Spiritual Fathers 1 Cor. 4. 15. as Ministers and political Fathers Gen. 45. 8. as Magistrates and oeconomical Fathers 2 Kings 2. 12. 5. 13. as Masters and matrimonial Fathers as Husbands Eph. 5. 22. to all which a respective obedience may I suppose claim a share or portion in the promise of long life In the Second place devout and zealous Prayer in a super-natural way procureth bodily health and so by consequence length of dayes to enjoy the same Sick Abimelech was sent to Abraham a Prophet to be healed by prayer Now therefore saith God restore the man his wife for he is a Prophet and he shall pray for thee c. Gen. 20. 7. So Abraham prayed unto God and God healed Abimelech v. 17. So then Abimelech was healed by God as the supream and efficient cause by prayer as the instrumental Hence it is the Son of Sirach adviseth us My son in thy sickness be not negligent but pray unto the Lord and he will make thee whole Eccles. 38. 9. And also soon after sheweth us that the good success of Physicians depends upon something beyond the Sphaere of Natural means and that is prayer unto the Physician of Physicians the
Lord omnipotent There is a time saith he when in their hands i. e. the Physicians there is good success For they shall also pray unto the Lord that he would prosper that which they give for ease and remedy to prolong life Ibidem v. 13 14. This excellent issue of devout Prayer is further declared in these following Instances Hezekiah being arrested by a violent and dangerous distemper for some arrears due to the great Landlord of Heaven and Earth was further afflicted by a sad message of being turn'd out of the tenement of his Body by death But by his humble supplication and mournful prayer unto his merciful Lord he had a Lease of his life granted him for 15. years subscribed with a promise according to God's own order and sealed with a miracle to confirm it further upon the dial of Ahaz as you may see more fully by a recourse to the sacred Text 2 Kings 20. 1 c. I have read that on a time there was a meeting appointed at Haganaw upon the Rhine where the Reformed Divines were to meet and in a friendly manner to debate differences But as Melancthon was going thitherward he fell sick at Vinaria Luther and Cruciger hearing of it by long journeys hasted to him and as soon as Luther saw how miserably he was wasted with his Disease with sighs and tears he brake out into this speech Alas how precious and profitable an instrument of the Church is miserably weakened and ready to perish And therewithal falling upon his knees he prayed most earnestly for his recovery And afterwards Melancthon confessed that if Luther had not come he had died Clark's Lives of the Fathers p. 247. Yea it is written of this Luther that by his prayers he could prevail with God at his pleasure Praying for the recovery of Myconius he let fall this transcendent rapture of daring Faith Fiat voluntas mea Let my will be done And then comes off sweetly Mea voluntas Domine quia tua My will Lord because thy will Beatus est qui habet quicquid vult nihil male vult Blessed is he that hath what he will and wills nothing but what he should Also I find recorded that the Lady Ann Henage lying sick of a violent feaver which her Physicians deemed to be mortal Mr. Fox was sent for to be present at her ending and when by instructions and prayer he had prepared her for death he told her that she had done well in thus fitting her self for her dissolution yet that she should not die of that sickness A Knight her Son-in-law being by told him in private that he had not done well in thus discomposing her mind with hopes of life To whom Mr. Fox answered That he said no more then what was commanded him for it seemed good to God that she should recover Which also came to pass as an effect of fervent prayer which prevailed when Natural means failed Idem 794. King Edward the Sixth as he was constant and fervent in his private prayer so was he as successful therein witness this Example Sir John Cheek his Schoolmaster fell desperately sick of whose condition the King carefully enquired every day At last his Physicians told him that there was no hope of his life and that he was given over by them for a dead Man Nay said the King he will not die at this time for this morning I begged his life of God in my prayers and obtained it Which accordingly came to pass and soon after Sir John beyond all expectation wonderfully recovered Ful. History of the Church p. 424. It is said of St. Augustin in a Relation of his life that he was alwayes powerful in prayer so that sometimes thereby he cast out devils and sometimes restored sick Men to their health It would perhaps be tedious to the Reader to annumerate any further instances to this purpose as by demonstrating what a wonderful decrease there hath been sometimes observed in the weekly Bills of mortality in several Places of this Kingdom graciously succeeding upon the humble and devout prayers of God's People And therefore I shall content my self to insist only upon St. James his Canon Is any sick among you let him call for the Elders of the Church and let them pray over him annointing him with oil in the Name of the Lord And the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up and if he hath committed sins they shall be forgiven him James 5. 14 15. By the Elders of the Church we may understand the Pastors or Ministers of the Church who are to be sent for by the sick that they may pray for him and with him And their faithful prayer shall be a means ordinarily to save that sick Person from the danger of his Disease and whereas sins are the cause of his sickness even those sins of his shall upon humble and devout prayers be done away and forgiven Now as concerning the Ceremony of anointing the sick Body with Oyl in the Name of the Lord this was an extraordinary thing communicated to those which had gifts of Miracles used by them as an outward Symbole and sign of the Spiritual healing and so we deny not but it was an extraordinary temporary Sacrament but now that Miracles are ceased in the Church still to retain the outward sign is a vain supertitious imitation although St. James his Oil and the Popish Ointment do much differ See Fulke on the Rhem. Test. Again this usage as a bare Ceremony was not instituted by Christ or any way commanded to be continued by the Apostles or their Successors in the Church even while the gifts of Healing did continue amongst them but was by the Apostles themselves very frequently omitted in their working of Cures as the learned Dr. Hammond hath observed in his Annotations Prayer then you see was the more yea the only effectual and substantial performance or means in the Cure and the Ceremony of annointing may now reasonably be omitted Obj. But against the use of prayer some may object the words of Job Job 7. 1. Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth are not his dayes also like the dayes of an hireling What need then of prayer when every Man's time upon Earth like the Sea is bounded so as hitherto shall it come but no further I answer only hereunto at present that this may be a general Objection against the use of all other means as well as Prayer in relation to the cure of Diseases and prolongation of life and therefore shall be answered in its proper place designed A 2d Object Against some lukewarm Christians may object further and say I have often prayed upon the account of health for my self and others in time of sickness but all my prayers have like Arrows shot up to Heaven returned upon my own head without doing their errand Solut. To this I answer Our prayers many times come short of Heaven because
they are not winged with zeal and importunity It is the importunate Beggar that getteth an Alms They that faint in their prayers have such a faint heart as never winneth a fair blessing And therefore as a Corroborative against such faintings let us consider how oft we use a Medicine for the Body before it can be whole how many stroaks on Oak must have before it will fall how over and over again we plough our Lands and delve our Gardens before we can have our expectation and also how frequently Earthly Kings must be attended upon before Suiters can obtain their suite Surerely favours and mercies even from the King of Kings would be slighted and undervalued if fetched with a faint word And therefore let us vis unita fortior join force to force prayer to prayer and so by a holy violence of zeal besiege the Kingdom of Heaven and in time it will surrender its self to our lawful desires and requests For saith the Apostle the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much James 5. 16. Indeed if our prayers be without life or come out of fained lips or be distracted with wild and wandring thoughts or if they be tainted with hypocrisie pride or incredulity we can look for no favourable audience from Heaven For God heareth not sinners but if a man doth his will him he heareth John 9. 31. God heareth not Sinners that is wilful presumptuous and impenitent Sinners But if a man doth his will by active and passive obedience him he heareth that is either explicitely by granting the individual or particular thing requested or interpretatively by granting that which is aequivalent or far better Now if a righteous Man prayeth for health and a prolongation of his temporary life and God still continueth him upon his Bed of sickness and within a short time by death giveth him Eternal life in exchange for his temporary herein is no severe repulse or denyal but a more favourable audience more satisfactory concession and more Princely donation But you will urge that this last way of granting Requests doth not fully answer the scope of the present Point Hereupon I must reply that though the return of our most faithful prayers must be determined and their success limited by the will of our Heavenly Father according to the words of Christ Jesus Nevertheless not as I will but as thou wilt Matth. 26. 39. yet we must understand that it is the will and usual favour of the Almighty to grant the very things we desire and stand in need of commonly by means and herein chiefly and principally by faithful prayer which without Natural means is often found more effectual then Natural means without it And to encourage us to make trial of such excellent means we have a promise from Truth its self I say unto you whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them Mark 11. 24. And this brings me to propose or prescribe In the Third place Faith as an excellent means conducing likewise to the health of Body and consequently prolongation of life and this in a super-natural way also There was a Woman vexed with an uncomfortable Disease twelve years She suffered many things of Physicians Mat. 9. 20. some torturing her with one Medicine some with another none did her good but much hurt She had spent all her living upon them Luke 8. 43. and herein saith Erasmus was Bis misera Her sickness brought her to weakness weakness to Physick Physick to beggary beggary to contempt Thus was she vexed in body mind and estate yet Faith healed her Her wealth was gone Physicians gave her over but her Faith did not forsake her Daughter be of good comfort thy faith hath made thee whole Mat. 9. 22. There was a Woman bowed down with the Spirit of infirmity eighteen years Luke 13. 11. yet loosed There was a Man bedrid eight and thirty years John 5. 5. 9. a long and miserable time when besides his Corporal distress he might perhaps conceive from that Eccl. 38. 15. He that sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hand of the Physician that God had cast him away yet Christ restored him But may some say it is not mentioned that either of thâ—se two last were cured by Faith I answer that doubtless Christ saw the seed of Faith in them though it were but as a grain of mustard-seed and so rewarded them accordingly Again we may instance in the Samaritan whose Leprosie though hard to cure yet Faith was able to do it Thy faith hath made thee whole Luke 17. 19. But may some say it was not properly his Faith but Christ's vertue that cured him Why then doth not Christ say Mea virtus and not Tua sides My vertue not thy Faith hath made thee whole True it is his vertue only cures but this is apprehended by Man's Faith The miraculous Cure was attributed to Mans Faith not as to the efficient cause for that was Christ's Divine vertue but as to the instrumental cause or means by which he apprehended and applyed to himself that Divine power by which he was healed Thus in the afore-mentioned place or instance in the 9th of Math. it is written that the Woman which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years came behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment For she said within her self if I may but touch his garment I shall be whole And in Mark 5. 30. we read that when that diseased Woman had touched him Jesus knew in himself that vertue had gone out of him and he turned him about in the press and said who touched my clothes Yet speaking to the Woman he mentioneth not his vertue but her Faith Daughter thy faith hath made thee whole Mark 5. 34. Object But here some may object that the gifts of Healing with other miraculous Gifts are ceased in the Church and so consequently Prayer and Faith must needs be ineffectual to the Cure of bodily Distempers without the conjunction of Natural means Answ. To which I answer 'T is true the Doctrine of the Gospel having been long since sealed and confirmed by so many Miracles in the Primitive Church there is now the less need of them more particularly of the gift of Healing and therefore I shall not urge those Miracles which the Church of Rome boasteth of as wrought of late times by some of her Sons or with her extend the promise of our Saviour Mark 16 17 18. to all future times and Ages of the Church yet thus much I may avouch that as God is still able to work Miracles so he hath sometimes even in this latter Age wrought miraculously for the convincing the present times of Atheism and the further confirmation of our Faith in the Gospel And this Mr. Valentine Greatraks in his Printed Letter to the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq maketh appear Wherein he giveth an Account of divers strange Cures by himself
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
are very powerful to long Life Unto which if we add that austere diet which hardneth the mass of the Body and humbleth the Spirits no marvel if an extraordinary length of life do follow such as was that of Paul the Hermite Simeon Stilita the Columna Anchorite and of many other Hermites and Anchorites Now hereunto I may add that by the same rule or reason that such a life doth conduce to long life it doth likewise become propitious to bodily health More particularly and plenarily these following graces and vertues Religious acts and dispositions are to be considered as effectual in some measure to the end designed First Faith as it is attended with a confidence of recovery hath naturally a powerful influence upon the Body For confidence as Galen saith doth more good then Physick And this it doth through the strength of imagination Now such is the force of imagination and a Man's conceit in working effects in the Body that Hippocrates exhorteth Physicians if two kinds of Meat were to be ministred to a Patient the one healthful and the other a little hurtful or not so good as the other that they should prefer this being much desired before that not so well liked And generally both Philosophers and Physicians maintain that the opinion and confidence of the Patient importech much for the cure of any maladie The reason is plain for the imagination herein though erroniously conceiving things better then indeed and really they are causeth a vehement passion of hope wherewith followeth an extraordinary pleasure in the things Which two passions awake or rouse up the purer Spirits and unite them together qualifying and refining them in the best manner which thus combined do most effectually co-operate with Nature and strengthen her in the performance of any Corporal action or vital operation in order to the mastery and expulsion of noxious humours Which brings me to say somewhat In the Second place of Hope which of all the passions is most advantagious for health and long life in regard the Spirits therein which corroborate and quicken all the parts are moderate she stops and keeps them back that they cannot dissipate nor make any vehement agitation for if the Spirits be too active and violent in their operations they may produce strong actions but it shortens our dayes because those Spirits easily scatter and so consume the Natural moisture which Hope useth not to do because I say it keeps the Spirits in a temperate motion and preserves them from wasting too fast Therefore as the afore-cited Lord Verulam saith they which fix propound to themselves some end as the mark and scope of their life and continually and by degrees go forward in the same are for the most part long-liv'd in so much that when they are come to the top of their hope and can go no higher therein they commonly droope and live not long after We may add hereunto that this may be one reason why Kings Soveraign Princes are not commonly so long-liv'd as others because they have fewer things to hope for and more things to fear Now if hope in general as it is a Passion of the Soul be so effectual in this kind much more is true Christian Hope which is at anchor upon more firm ground in as much as the Object thereof is more sure certain and more durably satisfactory and delightful cherishing and encouraging then can be fix'd upon in the alone expectation of any terrene temporal enjoyment Thirdly Love which is â—n the sense it may be understood a duty often inculcated in sacred Writ and is Custos utriusque tabulae The fulfilling of the Law Rom. 13. 10. is also by reason of that strict tye between the Soul and Body a great promoter of bodily health For it is observed by an eminent modern Philosopher That when this affection is alone that is when it is not accompanied with extream Joy Desire or Sadness the beating of the pulse is even and much greater and stronger than ordinary that a Man feels a gentle heat in his breast and quick digestion of meat so that this Passion is profitable for the health Mr. Des-Cartes in his Treatise of the Passion of the Soul Artic. 97. And now I proceed to another Passion which being managed with wisdom will alwayes be found in the track of vertue Fourthly Joy being regulated and moderated by its steers-man Reason and sanctified by the Holy Spirit is a gracious disposition alwayes seasonable in a Christian course Rejoyce evermore saith the Apostle 1 Thess. 5. 16. Yea alwayes seasonable because alwayes healtful to Soul and Body to the Body in this respect namely because by dilating and sending forth to the outward parts it enlivens them and keeps them fresh and active it beautifies the complexion preventeth Consumptions and some other Distempers by assisting the distribution of salubrious nourishment to every part From these considerations then we may understand that Christianity doth not teach us a Stoical Apathie or take away our Passions but only rectifies them and being thus rectified they conduce not only to the health of the Soul but also of the Body and its longaevity Fifthly Labour Industry and Diligence in a lawful calling is no less healthful to the Body then Soul For as by the old sanction we are taught to labour for our bread Gen. 3. 19. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread Yea as Paradise that was Man's Store-house was also his Work-house He was put into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it Gen. 2. 15. As also by the fourth Commandment it is implied as a duty That we should labour six dayes and do all that we have to do Lastly as a provident industrious and seasonable care and employment is so good and warrantable that in this very thing the Wise man prescribeth the Pismire Prov. 6. 6. for our imitation And in this the Apostle placeth not only necessity 2 Thess. 3. 10. but also Religion 1 Tim. 5. 8. so is the same very commendable in respect of bodily health it being the Salt of humane life which drieth up those crudities which otherwise would prove offensive and preserveth the humours from putrefaction Yea the commodities of moderate excerise are many principally these following 1. The increase of Natural heat and Spirit 2. It assists the distribution of our nourishment 3. It discusses vapours and fuliginous excrements by the Pores or Spiracles of the skin and adds colour and vivacity to the whole Body 4. It makes the juices of the Body hard and compact and so becomes propitious to length of life 5. and Lastly By consuming and exiccating superfluous moistures in the Body it preventeth most Diseases So that indigent People as one observeth have this recompence to their poverty that their necessitated labours keep them much in health and without the need trouble and charge of Physick I may add hereunto that active and industrious Persons be they poor or rich
as they are longest free from Diseases so also most commonly from the long continuance of those Diseases the material cause thereof being consumed in such manner by former labour and exercise as there wants sufficient Iewel to maintain the Distemper which like the external fire soon dieth and is extinct for want of nourishment and thereby Nature in its Sphaere the greatest agent in bodily cures being exonerated of obnoxious humours is ever in a tendency to reduce the Body into its pristine and symmetrical Constitution Moreover it hath been observed that Epidemical Diseases as Pestilential Feavers Cathars Small Pox Flux c. do much easier seise upon such as by contracting an evil habit of Body through a sedentary and idle course of life have rendred themselves more obnoxious and disposed thereunto in whom likewise they are more difficultly cured And now before I conclude this Point I would in kindness admonish those of the foeminine and teeming Sex that they would accustome themselves to moderate exercise to diligence and industrie in some lawful and commendable employment thereby to preserve their health and facilitate their delivery For it is observed that those Women which are used to labour endure Child-bearing with far more ease and the Irish Women because of their stirring and active lives are quick in delivery and here in England also the industrious laborious Women in City and Country are very quick at their labours and allow themselves a very short retirement comparatively with others of a contrary inclination So that in this particular also the active and stirring life is of no small advantage I conclude with the wholesom advice of Syrach My son hear me and despise me not and at the last thou shalt find as I told thee in all thy works be quick so shall there no sickness come unto thee Eccl. 31. 22. Sixthly Temperanco a fruit of the Spirit Gal. 5. 23. and a vertue here considerable only as it consisteth in the moderation or regulation of the appetite in eating and drinking according to the standard of Nature which is content with a little is of all vertues the most conducible to bodily health and long life That saying of the Wise man It is not good to eat much honey Prov. 25. 27. sheweth unto us that even the most wholesom and nourishing Meat of all other will prove dangerous and hurtful to our health if it be not soberly and measurably eaten Temperance as one saith being not only the Carver but also the Commander at our tables should alwayes have a room thereat Timotheus having supped with Plato and eaten contrary to his custom very moderately slept very quietly that night finding neither Cholick to awake him nor belchings in the morning to annoy him wherefore as soon as he awaked he brake forth into this exclamation with a loud voice How sweet how sweet are Plato's suppers which make us in the night time to sleep and in the morning to breath so sweetly Marsil Fic de Sanis slud tu Yea the benefits of Temperance are many 1. Freedom from almost all sicknesses 2. Length of life and death without much pain 3. A mitigation of incurable Diseases Instances of these or some of these there are not a few in History Socrates is said by sobriety to have had alwayes a strong Body and to have lived ever in health and that by the good order of his diet he escaped the Plague at Athens never avoiding the City nor the company of the infected though the greatest part of the City was consumed by it Aelian lib. 13. It is also reported of Galen that famous Physician that he lived one hundred and fourty years and that after he was twenty eight years old he was never grieved with any sickness except the grudge of a Feaver for one day His rule was not to eat or drink till he had an appetite nor to eat and drink till he had none This rule he observing was seldom sick and lived as Sipontinus writeth to the abovesaid age Cyprian relates that Maximinian the Emperour seldom used to drink betwixt Meals and therefore lived in health to the end of his life Queen Elizabeth was famous for this vertue King Edward the Sixth called her by no other name then his sweet Sister Temperance Cambd. Eliz. She did seldom eat but one sort of Meat rose ever with an appetite and lived about seventy years which is beyond the ordinary Period of Princes and Princesses who seldom attain to summ up experimentally Moses his Arithmetick in that Psalm Psal. 90. 10. appropriated to him We read that the Sect of the Esseans amongst the Jews did usually extend their lives to an hundred years Now that Sect used a single or abstenious diet after the Rule of Pythagoras Metaphrastes in the life of Saint John writes that he was so abstenious in the use of meats and drinks that he took no more then would suffice to maintain life He lived as ancient Record mentions ninety three years St. Paul the Hermite lived an hundred and thirteen years Now his diet was so slender and strict that it was thought almost impossible to support humane Nature therewith But most memorable is that of Cornarus the Venetian who being in his youth of a sickly Body began first to eat and drink by measure to a certain weight thereby to recover his health this cure turned by use into a diet that diet to an extraordinary long life even of an hundred years and better without any decay in his senses and with a constant enjoying of his health 'T is a common Proverb which were it commonly observed would make most Physicians sick and preserve their Patients a long time sound Use mederation and temperance and desie the Physician A saying that taken with a grain of allowance doth favour much of truth though little of Urbanity No less observable is that Proverbial Rithme Gulaepone metas ut sit longior tibi aetas Which may thus be Englished To thy appetite set some timely bounds For so the longer age to thee redounds That Intemperance is the Extinguisher and Temperance the Prolonger of the Candle of our life was long ago taken notice of by the Son of Sirach in these words Be not unsatiable in any dainty thing nor too greedy upon meats Eccles. 37. latter part For excess of meats bringeth sickness and surfetting will turn into choler By surfetting have many perished but he that taketh heed prolongeth his life Temperance then as may be gathered from the preceding Instances is not only instead of preventive but also curative Physick For as many by Intemperance have relapsed into their old Distempers so by Temperance some have dispossess'd their lingring maladies and recovered their former state of health And therefore the best Physicians do alwayes remember to prescribe to their Patients a temperate diet for the accomplishment of their Cures as knowing that Temperance alone proves commonly more effectual to that end than all their prescriptions
and applications without it For it is to be understood that the perfect cuting of the diseased Body requireth not only the external but also the internal Physician The internal Physician vulgarly is called Nature but more properly it is that Interna Mumia seu Balsamum internum Our native liquor of life and inbred balm of vital spirit This in all Men is the best and greatest Physician without the which no Medicine can avail no malady can be cured This is that which doth digest concoct maturate deopilate purge corroborate expel emitigate restore avert and dispatch all sort of bodily griefs unless it be over-burdened by Intemperance or extreamly debilitated by any other impediment or defect The outward or external Physician with all his Art Method Simples Compounds Antidotes Catharticks Minoratives Diaphoreticks Corroboratives Anodynes c. is only but a Servant and all his endeavours but service unto the internal Physician viz. Nature As then in curative Physick the principal method of wise Physicians whose Canon is Cito tuto Suddenly and safely consists in purgation and corroboration thereby first disburdening and then strengthening Nature which in its operations hath a constant tendency to the more benigne constitution so long as it is able to resist the morbifick humour So Temperance which consisteth in the use of a temperate diet no way burdening Nature which not over-burden'd will in time work out the noxious and superfluous humours but gradually strengthening it may worthily be esteemed a great promoter of health though not so expeditious as when it is conjoined with the assistance of external means By Temperance alone then it may seem probable to effect a Cure and experience hath put it out of doubt that many who have been unwilling or unable to undergo the trouble and charge of Physick have yet by the strength of Nature and a temperate diet in a reasonable time safely recovered their former health Aurelianus is said to have cured all excess by abstinence and therefore to have had no Physicians And I read of the Indians and other barbarous People who wanting or at least neglecting the means of Physick have yet many of them by Temperance giving Nature its free course recovered of dangerous Diseases and also attained to a great age Yea legimus quosdam sayes an ancient Father St. Hierome morbo articulari podagrae humoribus laborantes proscriptione bonorum ad simplicem mensam pauperes cibos redactos convaluisse We have read of some saith he who being sick of the Gout through abundance of humours did recover their health being forced to a poor and slender diet by consiscation of their goods Not that hereby I would derogate from the honour due unto the judicious Physician or detract from the use of Medicines which the Lord hath created out of the Earth For he that is wise will not abhor them saith the Son of Sirach Eccl. 38. 4. but at present my design is only to enhance the price and esteem of Temperance which doubtless is the Mother of health though it often stands in need of the Midwisery of Natural means to assist it in its productions To Temperance may be referred Fasting which when it is Religious is thus desined Jejunium religiosum est voluntaria abstinentia à cibo potu religionis causà Hommius Disput. i. e. Religious Fasting is a voluntary abstinence from meat and drink for a Religious end And thus understood our Saviour Christ supposed it as a duty sometimes to be performed when he gave directions to avoid vain-glory in it Mat. 6. 17 18. and also assured us that if it be performed as it ought not to please Men but God it will surely be rewarded by him This duty he taught us by his own example as well as doctrine For not to mention Divine Record so well known to most Philo saith of him that he seemed to transform his flesh into the nature of his Spirit by fasting and watching And in imitation of Christ's act in fasting we read elsewhere that the Christians of the Primitive times were generally very frequent in the practise of it Now though this Religious Fasting differeth from that which is Moral in respect of the ends Moral fasting being nothing else but temperance and moderation in eating drinking yet in respect of the natural effect produced in the Body they are the same and do equally conduce to bodily health and consequently length of life not only as preventive but also curative Physick First as preventive and this will appear by this following Demonstration deducted from the observation of the most judicious Physicians The deflux of an humour from the brain is called a Rheume which is the Mother of most Diseases For sometimes it taketh course to the eyes and thereof cometh a dropping and inflamation of the eyes and a dimness and loss of sight sometimes it taketh course by the nose and is called the pose sometimes to the mouth and causeth great expuition and spitting and the falling of the Uvula and tooth-ach sometimes to the wind-pipe and thereof cometh raucedo the hoarsness sometimes to the lungs and causeth exulceration or putrifaction or some great obstruction which bringeth a difficulty of breathing and strangulation sometimes it taketh course by the stomack and causeth lack of appetite and ill digestion and if to the guts then falleth out the flux of the belly called a lask sometime it setleth in the brain and groweth into a gross and thick substance either in the fore part as in the nerves optick which are the conducts whereby the power of seeing doth come unto the eyes and causeth either dimness or loss of sight or in the conducts that convey the power of hearing unto the ears and there causeth a dulness of hearing or deafness Also if it settle in the fore-part obstructing the cells or ventricle◠of the brains three ill Diseases do grow thereupon called three of the dead sleeps Caros coma apoplexia Also if this gross Rheumatick matter do settle in the hinder part it causeth the Lethargy another of the dead sleeps and the Palsy and the Falling-sickness and the Convulsion and Oblivion or loss of memory And if it come down backward into the neck it causeth a kind of Convulsion called teranos when as the neck cannot turn to nor fro but it standeth stiff and stark without motion If it flow down to the back it causeth another kind of Convulsion called Opisthotonos wherein the head and the heels are made to meet backward If it flow forward into the muscles of the breast another Convulsion is caused called Emprosthotonos wherein the head and the feet are drawn together forward If it go to the joynts it is Morbus articularis the joynt-gout if to the hands and fingers it is Chiragra the finger-gout if to the knees it is Gonagra the knee-gout if to the feet and toes it is Podagra the feet-gout Also if it fall upon the kidnies then the
Murders Robberies and the like and so the wanton Onans roaring Duellers Drunkards and all others that are loose in their lives and disorderly in their diets or behaviours may be said to be cut off each one of them In die non suo Before his day that is before that day Ad quem per naturam juxta hominum opinionem pervenire poterat To which nature in the judgment of all men might have brought him if he had not prevented the same by his unseasonable death Vel gladio vel morbo vel aliquâ aliâ causâ violentâ morte non sua Either by the sword or disease or some other violent cause as Mercerus saith Mercerus in Job 14. 5. Or if that Answer sufficeth not consider this following God Almighty who is the Creator and Conservator of all things in the Universe hath appointed to every created thing both a beginning and end or termination of subsisting and moving and doth take notice not only of principal but also of subsequent causes of things governing moderating disposing and ordering them according to his free will and yet all this government is void of fatal violence and most commonly cometh to effect mediately and from deputed causes which vulgarly are called second causes which the Divine Majesty doth employ as the instruments of his will so long as he doth so govern all things which he hath created as also himself may suffer them to exercise their proper motions for the will of Man by Divine ordination is the original of humane actions freely electing what seemeth best for it self especially in externalls and herein the causes so answer the effects as if the effects be necessary the causes are also necessary and if contingent the causes are contingent nor doth the praescience or fore-knowledge of God which is certain and not to be deceived abolish the contingency of Natural events but the future effect is disposed as it were by a Divine Providence necessarily or contingently nor doth it null the freedom of the agent nor is the Creator obliged to the necessity but moderateth all things freely according to his free will and pleasure and though his Omnipotency can dispose of causes and life with every kind of death at his own free pleasure yet it will not urge any Person to accept that term of life for a fatal determinination but for a Divine ordination of various causes which by the Election of the will that as Des-Cartes saith Can never be constrained prove occasions either of sustaining or destroying life In brief if still the curious Objector remains dissatified I wish him convinced Potius verberibus quam verbis Rather with stripes than stress of words and the indicative Story which I have read of may apologize for me in my Optative mood A discontented Gallant having drowned himself and being much lamented by the Spectators for youthful comliness amongst them was one of this erronious opinion who was pleased to read a lecture to them of the inevitable decree of the Almighty and not by him to be avoided nor by them lamented Hereupon a young Man of the contrary education gave her a great blow over the face which made her challenge him of base cowardise and as great incivility to the Feminine Sex Who returned her in answer that it was the inevitable will of God it should be so and a truth according to her own Doctrine which caused her to stagger in her opinion Let us not then scorn the means For as Solomon saith Judgments are prepared for scroners and stripes for the back of fools Prov. 19. 29. Obj. 2. Another Objection is of those whom we call Star-peepers Nativity-casters and Fortune-tellers who by Birth-stars that is by Stars which arise at every ones coming into the World pretend an infallible prediction of the certain time of their health sickness recovery what shall chaunce unto them and of the time and manner of their death and so thereby endeavour to overthrow the use of all means tending to the preservation of health and prolongation of life Solut. Indeed we deny not unto that noble Science which they name Natural Astrologie the knowledge of Nature's order and the motions of Heavenly Bodies But we utterly disallow their Superstition who professing judicial Astrology for with this great and glorious title they deck and garnish their superstition do measure and predict conjecturally every Man's fortune and success as touching sickness life and death by the hour of his birth For while these Nativity-casters and Fortune-tellers confess that recourse must be made from the time of bearing to the time of begetting what do they else but bewray their own vanity For it is not possible that they should hear and know for certain the very time of Conception So that though it be granted that the Stars have some influence and power upon our Bodies in respect of health and sickness life and death yet notwithstanding it may be rationally denyed that they can be certainly fore-told by any such judicial Astrological predictions Because amongst many other reasons of the uncertainty of the time of Conception or instant of begetting Let not Men then search into their Almanacks to calculate a Nativity and in the mean time neglect their Bibles which will never be out of date But let them as our Saviour adviseth Search the Scriptures John 5. 39. and they may read Judg. 8. 18. of many thousands dying a violent death nigh one and the same time And if an Astrologer had been consulted before that time it is likely that he would have fore-told the instanious deaths of an hundred and twenty thousand when most of them without question had divers and sundry Birth-stars Again had he read of Esau Jacob twins born would he judge them to have been of the same temper and constitution and to have died at the same instant of time It is like he might but surely not without error Yea it may be inferred and proved also by strict observation that other Children besides twins have been born at one instant of time who notwithstanding died at several times Furthermore if the time and kind of death depend upon the Stars then by consequence shall sins depend upon them too for these are the proper cause of that and the promises of God in respect of bodily health and long life be of no effect Which Consequences whoever grants as Conclusions without further examination of the Premisses I fear will scarce ever be directed to Christ by a Star I shall therefore direct the eyes of such to the reading of that sacred Irony in Isaiah Let now the Astrologers the Star-gazers the monthly Prognosticators stand up and save thee from the things that shall come upon thee Isay 47. 13. And also of that dehortatory Lesson in Jeremiah Thus saith the Lord Learn not the way of the Heathen and be not dismayed at the signs of Heaven for the Heathen are dismayed at them Jer. 10. 2. Object 3. A third Objection may