Day of Salvation says Isaiah and that day reacheth from the time that Remission of sins is preached in the bloud of Christ unto the end of the world Now as the Text is common to all Evangelical Days so there is one Day that lifts up its head above them all the most memorable Day of our Saviour's Resurrection then it was verily fulfilled as Peter urg'd it that the Stone which the Builders refused became the head of the corner St. Chrysostom Nyssen and almost who not pitch upon Easter-day for the particular application of this Text that was the Day wherein God did bring forth a more eminent work than in other common days and upon every Sunday in the year for that Day 's sake the Church hath appointed sacred Assemblies that we may rejoyce and be glad Well then of Davids Day first and from thence how particular Holidays may be ordeined to magnifie Gods extraordinary benefits next of the blessed Age of the Gospel wherein we have great cause to rejoyce and be comforted for Christ hath wiped away all tears from our eyes And last of all I shall take the right opportunity to speak of the glorious Feast of the Resurrection and how the Church doth keep the weekly Feast of the Lords day to rejoyce and be glad in it And first the Holy Ghost hath left it written for the honor of the Lords Anointed This is the Day which the Lord hath made There is one thing in that form of speech which jarrs a little against the ear how can it be said that God did make one day more than another for he hath framed all Times and Seasons alike the Sun knoweth his going down and he maketh it return again every morning to give light unto the World In the Hymns of the Heathen he is called Diespiter the Father of all days indifferently it is he that sets the Heavens in perpetual motion and makes the hours run on and when he calls back his word the Plumbets shall go down and time shall be no more It is granted therefore that he giveth continuance and being to all days after one sort and for the Phrase of my Text a new Writer hath well exprest himself Non includitur mensura temporis sed conditiones tempori incidentes it is not meant of the Day which the Sun makes with his diurnal motion but of the great Work which was wrought in that Day that is not that God made that Day more than others but that He made more in that Day than in others It is vulgar to impute the condition of things which fall out in some certain dayes to the days themselves per metonymiam adjuncti although a day as it is meerly a space of time cannot possibly be capable of such Attributes We take liberty to call this a cold or a moist day not for its own sake but because coldness and moisture happen in the day so for the contingency of glorious things we call the day it self glorious and to renown the memorable acts of the Lord we have got a use to speak thus This is the day which the Lord hath made In 1 Sam. 12.6 according to the Original and that 's pointed at in our Margent it is said that the Lord made Moses and Aaron why are not all that are born of a woman the works of his hands as well as Moses and Aaron therefore our Translation hath rendred the sense rather than the word that the Lord advanced Moses and Aaron In like manner we may read my Text thus This is the Day which the Lord advanced for he made it remarkable with an extraordinary favour and thereby gave it a Dignity and Exaltation above its fellows The going out and the return of every year are from the Almighty with the store and abundance that it brings forth but when the clouds drop fatness with unusual plenty then the Prophet says that he crowns that year with his goodness Psal lxv 11. So some principal Days are crowned above the rest as this Day wherein through the sun shine of his mercy he set a Crown of pure Gold upon the head of David his Servant Piety forbid that we should not thankfully receive the most vulgar benefits I know that common things are commonly neglected but learn to see God in small things or you shall never see him in greater If I had learnt it of no other yet I find enough in Seneca for that use Communia negligenda non sunt c. neglect not to give thanks for common and quotidian favours for life and health and suppeditation of food that the Sun doth shine upon us that we have the air to breath in that the Sea doth ebb and flow for navigation There are days of small things as Zachary calls them chap. iv 10. but those small things are to be consider'd of us with a grateful heart who are less than the least of all his mercies but how much more requisite is it then to observe those days wherein some eminent blessings are confer'd upon us what a behooveful thing it is every man for his own part to keep a Calender of the famous Acts of the Lord for our Birth for our Baptism for great Preservations and to represent them before us at the return of every year with grateful acknowledgment from the bottom of our heart and when God doth see that we are so mindful of a prosperous Day he will grant us many prosperous Years and for the period of joy a most prosperous Eternity that shall never have a period This is made as plane then as you can wish upon what special Prerogative the Lord is said to make a particular day because he doth appoint some special favour to fall out upon it and the Wise-mans Question is answered Ecclus. xxxiii 7. Why doth one day excel another when as all the light of every day of the year is of the Sun It is not the material light which distinguisheth the nobleness of Dayes but he that made the Sun more excellent than the other Stars of the Firmament hath made Princes glorious as the Sun in the Orb of the Common-wealth and a Day of a Princes Exaltation is like a Prince among Days and in that capacity to be magnified Such a day is said to be made by God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because God himself and none else is the Author of the Power of Kings He and none but He took David from following the Ews great with young and set him over the Princes of his People In a word since the Day is taken for the Work of the Day the real meaning of the first words of my Text is this is the King which the Lord hath made Samuel anointed him the People shouted and cried God save him but the Lord did constitute him the Ruler of the Twelve Tribes and gave him his Sovereign Authority the Crowns of Glory in Heaven and the Crowns of Dignity upon Earth are both held by
faln into it for where almost shall you find that men had not rather themselves should overcome than a good cause Always more studious of victory than of truth When Christ askt the Pharisees whether the Baptism of John were from heaven or from men though they could not deny it was from God yet they would not say so that the quarrel between them and Jesus might be endless Timentes lapidationem sed Magis timentes veritatis confessionem says St. Austin they were afraid to be stoned of the people for their obstinacy but they were more afraid to confess the truth What a fond affected glory is this Men account it among the flowers of their reputation not to be conquered in an arguement though it be never so absurd Like the two Harlots before Solomon nothing in their pleadings but clamour and reiteration the one said Nay but the living child is mine and the dead is thine the other said Nay but the dead is thine and the living is mine This is it which hath pluckt the Church of Christ into so many Schisms and Heresies that proud wits when they are in the wrong will never sit down quiet as if they were convicted and which is the calamity that our sins have justly deserved the Church must stay for peace till Sophisters and contentious have nothing to say that is when they shall be brought before the Tribunal of God and have not one word to answer for the crime of their invincible obstinacy Of pertinacious busie-bodies that will not be convicted when their errors be made apparent there are many sorts How stiff we are in civil brabbles never condescending to pacification every corner of the Kingdom is full of examples Do you know what you mean by that common Proverb of violence You will not lose your will though it put you to cost Not lose it said you O that you knew what will this is that you stand upon and you would never keep it It is the fuel of all cruel provocation the Gum that stiffens your anger the infernal fury that makes deadly fewds the defiance of love and charity the cross-bar of brotherly agreement nay it is Satans best advantage to make you miserable like himself in everlasting fire Is this that will for whose sake you will spend your estate to maintain it Is it not enough to lose your soul but that you will pay costs for damnation The heathen Greek Authors were very tart in their Proverb when they spoke of them that contended only for contention sake 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they strived for no more than the shadow of an Ass And Lucian who is a profest flouter says it is upon this occasion An Athenian was to ride to Delphos and hired an Ass to carry him In the heat of the day he reposed himself behind the Ass and made benefit of the shadow to keep his body from the Sun the Owner that went along to bring back the beast would not suffer it but demanded to sit in the shadow himself for he let out his Ass but not the shadow the Contention says Lucian went so far that it came into the Court. This is the Story somewhat light I confess but good enough to warn brabbling persons that they strive not about the shadow of an Ass Away with obstinacy therefore which is the endless repulse of godly Union and let truth prevail for what should prevail but that which is stronger than all things The greatest Learning in the world must be a slave to Faith and the greatest Majesty in the world must be a slave to Reason Plato writes to Dion the Ruler of Syracusa Pervicaciam tanquam solitudinis parentem fuge Fly obstinacy and wilfulness it will beget you a solitary melancholy life for all your friends will forsake you Creon in Sophocles would follow his own mind hearken to no admonition and so brought all to ruine Tiresias speaks to him not to be stiff and stubborn for it was ever the fore-runner of great calamity and hath these two similitudes First When a torrent of water breaks into a place the little Willows that bend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are not removed they that will not give way are rooted out of their place 2. When the Pilot of a ship will not turn his sail to the winds nor observe how to let a turbulent wave pass by him he splits his vessel therefore the conclusion of the Point shall be with Solomon An haughty spirit goes before a fall and it savours much more of a Christian mildness to be easily drawn off from our own imaginations than to hold a stiff opinion in our teeth in despite as it were of all wise perswasions To be wedded to our own will and fancy is very bad in temporal affairs but an inflexible perverseness is ten times worse in spiritual purposes It was a just invective wherewith St. Stephen reviled the Jews Vncircumcised in hearts and ears you do always resist the Holy Ghost First the heart is uncircumcised full of swelling and pride Such a distempered heart pollutes the ear and will not hear of wholsom Doctrine and when the ear is not tractable to receive the truth then follows the resistance of the Holy Ghost The great opposers both of Law and Gospel in holy Scripture were Sorcerers men that were bewitched as St. Paul says of the Galathians that they would not obey the truth such as could not endure to hear there was any divine wisdom revealed from above which was above their own magical Philosophy and as some of our adversaries have said blasphemously that they had rather err in some things with their Pseudo-Catholick Church than be in the right Cause with the Reformed So those Magicians when their senses were convicted that the finger of God was with Moses and the Apostles yet had they rather err in their own hellish way than go uprightly in the way of God Simon the Sorcerer what did he see in Peters Apostleship to oppose it Elymas the Sorcerer what did he hear from Pauls mouth to contradict it Only they must not seem to be overcome lest their name should be diminished among such as admired them God did smite the Magicians of Pharaoh with blains for resisting the truth and yet you never read that they repented twice their skill prevailed to imitate Moses and to do wonders like unto his in the third Plague they failed and were not able to perform it Moses turned the waters into bloud they did the like Moses brought abundance of Frogs upon the Land the Magicians did so with their inchantments At the third time Moses smote the dust of the ground and made it become Lice over all the Land of Egypt at this the Magicians were at a gaze and could not perform it St. Austin notes upon it In signo tertio defecerunt fatentes sibi adversum esse spiritum sanctum They failed in the third sign as who should say the Holy Ghost the third
you have made your Covenant with Hell by forgery false witness perjury corruption subornation and with all the forms of damnable iniquity beside God will start an Objection which was never foreseen that shall unmasque all their villany You cannot stop your gaps so close but he will break open your hedge for here is a president in my Text the wittiest Jugler in the world and the Father of devices he could not wind up his reasons so well but Christ did easily find an end to unravel them Jesus said unto him it is written again Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God The answers of our Saviour grow stronger and stronger before he replied affirmatively Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God Here he decides the Objection with a Negative Rule and Negative Precepts are stronger than Affirmative tenent ad semper they bind a man at all times at every minute of his life Again Christ answered to the first tentation Non est necessarium he might have made stones become bread but there was no need of it Unto this Tentation he answers Non est bonum not it may be spared and left undone well enough but it must not be done it is unlawful But at both times our Saviours answer was a true Elench most pat against that which the Tempter urged and that in two respects First here is Christs Scriptum est against Satans Scripture to counter-poise Scripture he censures the Devils malicious interpretation of Scripture by Scripture truly applied Again it is written Secondly Satan blew the coals of presumption Cast thy self down c. Christ puts them out with the still waters of Siloah with godly fear and circumspection Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God These are the contents of the Text which you shall make yours by attending unto them and I by opening and enlarging them Will a Thief sue a true man in the Law whom he hath robb'd and despoiled by violence No surely he will avoid the Law if he can shift it for it will certainly condemn him Yet Satan hath perswaded Christ to rebel against heaven he hath robb'd God of his honour and yet pleads his cause out of the holy Scriptures and flies to them Our Saviour was glad to catch him there and holds him hard to Scripture whether he would or no Rursum Scriptum est again it is written The evil Spirit perceived his own errour that it was unadvisedly done to deal with those Tools and remove his suit out of that Court in the next Tentation And because he was once beaten upon that ground he would never meddle more with Scriptures But Christ goes them over and over Again it is written for the oftner you use the Word of God you shall speed the better with it If any thing in the Prophets or Apostles be strange unto you blame your self if it be for want of acquaintance every man will be to seek in the way where he goes but seldom The more you use that sharp Sword of the Spirit the more expert you will be to handle it Threaten the Devil that you will lay this stone in his way if he shall approach you that you will betake you to the Testament of God again and again if he come against you and while the Scripture lasts there is no conquering of a righteous man for his defence is impregnable But after what sort doth Christ meet his enemie in the face Again it is written What doth he knock Scripture against Scripture Is there civil discord in the Word of God within it self Are there Twins of several natures and conditions in it like Esau and Jacob in the womb of Rebeckah Not so Beloved Christ alledgeth Moses against the place of the Psalm which the Tempter quoted not as we say to drive out one nail with another but by way of Harmony and Exposition to shew that the Devil did misalledge the Psalm of David because he gave it a sense repugnant to the Text of Moses It was a blasphemous assertion of Pighius let his Pew-fellows salve it as they will that the Sacred Bible without the Gloss and Exposition of the Church was like a Nose of Wax you might pull it straight or turn it which way you would If it speak not clearly of it self but be obnoxious to a good sense or a bad by mens interpretations they might pass that censure upon it which is horrid to be spoken that a man of a clear notion and stile might endite a Book of less danger to give offence than that which was inspired throughout by the Eternal Spirit Aristotle could say there was no use of an Indefinite Rule because there was no certainty in it Such says he was called a Lesbyan Rule it was made of lead flexible and would bend to any thing that you would measure with it To settle reason by the example of mens actions and not to reduce mens actions to the notions of common reason were it not ridiculous To apply the Law to mens manners and not to make mens manners be directed by the Law were it not preposterous So let the Scripture expound unto men the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven But if men will teach the Scriptures how to expound themselves were not that most arrogant and most blasphemous If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the Battel says St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 18. The Scripture is the Trumpet of God that Trumpet of which St. Hierom speaks that it always sounded in his ears Surgite mortui venite ad judicium Arise ye dead and come to judgment And how uniform the sound of it is no way dissonant from it self I read it in an Allegory Num. x. 2. God spake unto Moses Make thee two Trumpets of silver of one whole piece shalt thou make them that thou mayst use them for the calling of the Assembly The two Trumpets are the two Testaments they call the Assemblies together all Nations from the East unto the West to serve the Lord and they are made of one whole piece because they do no where vary or contradict themselves As the whole world before the confusion of Babel was of one Speech and of one Language So the whole mass of Scripture is of one consent and one harmony they may make discords in it indeed that are building Heresies in their own fancy like the Tower of Babel I recollect all this to one Head That Christ replied out of the Law to confound that which Satan quoted out of the Psalms not as if Scripture were made to jossle against Scripture not as if it were a fencing School that had foyls for the Challenger and for his Antagonist that answered him for then we should never have peace but to shew that the Devil had stained the true Word of God Christ produced another place of the Word to parallel it and if this Text do prohibit
continue as Pillars for Ages to come Burial did not abolish the memorial of his trespass as it was engraven upon the Monument of an Egyptian King that went down with much sorrow to his grave because of his sacriledge In me quis intuens pius esto He that looks upon my Sepulchre let him learn to be religious You read of Lots Wife in the same Gospel where you read of Mary Magdalen of her Pillar of salt as well as of the others box of Ointment There she stood congealed in the open field and never went down to the dead that she might be always in the remembrance of the living So the Brazen Serpent did exhibit those mortal Serpents which annoyed Israel in their journey Like to like And this the Lords of the Philistines had heard of and did imitate it 1 Sam. vi 4. For they sent home the Ark with a trespass-offering five golden Emerods the very figures of the diseases wherewith they were chastised I know no pattern that could lead them into that fancy but only this in my Text. The right use of it whether the Philistines knew it or no I am uncertain is this That when a punishment is exemplified in a figure and resembled to the life it is a deprecation that God would with-hold it from us and mitigate his wrath but so that we cannot be ignorant that his Arrow is still in his Bow and he hath not removed away his hand but is ready to send his Army of Serpents again if we return unto our sins And now according to the exact method of mortification having done our duty to set our sins and our punishment before us we may look towards the Serpent as a remedy And it shall come to pass that every one that looketh upon it shall live Num. xxi 8. A welcom sign to that poor People of the old Law the delights of the Synagogue for which they lifted up their hands to Heaven were length of days health and sound habit of body poor accessories of a transitory happiness they rested in such favours more than in better things that concerned their Spirit and their Soul wherein they succeed them that value the benefit of their Physician above the blessing of their Bishop But God did time it with them according to their imperfection and gave them a new Salve for a new Malady that their flesh might rejoyce in the living God The Land by which they passed was full of noxious Vermin Who led thee through the Wilderness wherein were firy Serpents and Scorpions Deutr. viii 15. If God had kept them from the teeth of this venemous brood â—equid erit pretii should he have gotten any thank for his protection affliction unfelt is unregarded It was better to have some sense of a wound that they might know what a Deliverer was in the experience of a Cure Or if Dictamnuâ— and the secret vertue of other herbs had relieved them as Moses was skilled in all that Science the work of Nature and not the God of Nature had been magnified But Discorides says that an hot venom namely that of the Dipsas and Causon are incurable therefore in a desperate case when all secondary causes were unprofitable nothing but a Miracle made them whole that were diseased And that which was most abhorr'd a Serpent was hanged up as if it were not enough to be cured but they triumpht over that which annoyed them Out of their mischief came the mitigation of their pain as cunning Leaches confect Treakle out of Vipers and Oil of Scorpions out of Scorpions a Serpent was the Instrument both of death and life for it is God that kills and makes alive again as a Whale devoured Jonas and a Whale cast him alive upon the shoar Again here was no application per contactum to the green Sore which is the ordinary course of Chirurgery not so much as an Unguent besmeared upon the substance of the Serpent the new device of Vnguentum armarium not so much as the touch of Moses hand upon the part ill affected as many of the Strumosi are toucht this day by God in the finger of the King No more was requir'd of them that languisht but to bestow the cast of their eye upon the Figure that God only might have the glory in the Medicinal operation For he that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing which he saw but by thee O God the Saviour of all Wisd xvi 6. Yet more strange the Remedy having no congruity with the relief of the Disease God did supply the efficacy but this was like spittle and clay upon the eyes of the blind man fitter to make him blind than to make him see Rabbi Joseph says I say it upon his credit that to look upon polisht Brass is present death to him that is bitten with a firy Serpent To reconcile these enmities in nature to make antipathies afford friendship to turn destruction to be preservative to overcome one death by another it doth not only lighten my thoughts to the incomprehensible power of our Creator but it breaks me off from this object before I am aware to consider Christ and his Passion wherein these effects are gloriously conspicuous he is the Serpent lifted up in the Wilderness A Similitude of great humiliation Non solum per hominem sed etiam per pecudem est figuratus says St. Austin the mighty one by whom the Worlds were made did not only take the form of a Man but is disguised in the figure of a Beast and among Beasts if any be more filthy than another we all know it is a Serpent Yet thus much we must abate in him from the nature of that pestiferous brute 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 says Nazianzen it had the shape but not the poison of a Serpent God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh but no more than in the likeness and condemned sin in the flesh because no iniquity was found in him all that came out of his mouth was an antidote and not a venom His Maligners call'd him Carpenter in scorn they could not call him Sinner dicunt habet daemonium non dicunt habet peccatum they slandered him and said he had a Devil but their tongues would not let them lie nor permit them to say he was a Transgressor a Dove was not more innocent than this Serpent No Heresie methinks is more incredible if St. Austin had not faithfully reported it than that of the Ophitae who kept a Serpent under the Altar to creep out and lick their Oblations which they brought to God as if a noxious Dragon were a seemly imitation of this Image in my Text that had no offence in it What agreement was there between poison and no poison Nay between that which wounded and that which healed Between a Destroyer and a Saviour It must be harmless at least which stood in his stead that came not to condemn the world but that the world
that Wolves and other stout Beasts of the Forest have beaten men quite out of their Country in some Stories A Town in Greece is well known upon record where Bats resorted in such number that young and old fled away and left their Habitation desolate God can go lower and do as much by Flies as by Lions The Canker-worm and the Caterpillar my great Army will I send among them Joel ii 25. This is the very threatning of Isa xlvii 3. Thy shame shall be seen and I will take vengeance and not meet thee as a man But how then even in the form of mean and despicable creatures to plague thee But the meanness of the instrument was no lessening of the pain their sting inflamed the Israelites as if they had been in a furnace Calidâque incendit viscera tabe while their flesh rosted and fell away by piece-meal from their bones Naturalists and Poets fill it up with much more horror which I leave to the Sons of Art to consider and will not amplifie it One Epithet includes it all Deut. viii 15. God led thee through the Wilderness wherein were firy serpents Praejudicium ante diem judicii a representment of the fire of Hell wherein the worm dies not and the fire is not quenched I like them that observe that the brazen Serpent that was erected for their cure in the next verse is called a firy Serpent because there was a fire of coals burning in it continually to strike a terror into all that saw it before it healed them as if the fire of Hell were annexed to the grace of healing that came from Heaven The Sword of justice was put into the Scabbard of mercy and they were never asunder They had need have had bodies of brass that did endure it Extreme diseases must have extreme remedies Some pains were no more than as a pricking Briar to the House of Israel and a grieving Thorn Ezek. xxviii 24. but the biting of the Dipsas or Causon is so violent that it makes the ill-affected some with madness a judgment correspondent to the sin to make coals of vengeance scald the tongue of the murmurer Pigeons may be applied to the languishing of a common Fever but I have known hot Brickbats laid to the feet of a sore Calenture So this People suffered outragiously that they might pray more penitently for in the way of thy Judgments have we waited for thee Thirdly it was exemplum sine exemplo no Age before or since did ever know the like as the Prophet says Isa xliii 19. Remember not the former things neither consider the things of old behold I will do a new thing to kill a transgressor with such a death as never any before Moses bad it be noted in Core and the Rebels Numb xvi 19. If these men be visited with the common visitation of all men the Lord hath not sent me but if the Lord make a new thing then ye shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord. So here must be a singularity of sin because of the singularity of the judgment The lesson upon it is that God hath new blessings in store for some holy ones that were never known before and new judgments for his enemies that were never felt before A new way of nourishment found out for Elias in the Wilderness a new remedy to cure Hezekiah a new way to save Daniel in the Den of Lions a new way of Gaol-delivery to fetch Peter out of Herods Prison And as we are full of inventions and hit of fresh ways to serve the Devil such as were never heard before so God will fill the earth with new Plagues to correct them Nova febrium terris incubuit cohors Strange symptoms of diseases break out to put Physicians to a new study That Murrion or Morbus vervecinus of which thousands died in Germany and Italy anno 1580. was a mortality never heard of in the works of any Artist to that year The Sweating sickness called the English Sweat over all the World broke out no sooner than the Reign of Henry the Seventh Chronicles are silent of such a grief in nature before I need not remember you that Columbus his return out of America brought the first contagion of deserved loathsomness upon fornicators which for reverence to this place I will not name What say our Leeches to the rotting of horses three years together in Stables and Pastures nothing but observant Christians note that it began upon the jades that were stabled in the goodly Cathedral Church of St. Paul I hope it will be goodly again That barbarous profaneness whose like was not seen before was avenged upon no other Cattel in the field but only on that species that was kept at rack and manger in the House of the Lord. The end is this when a Plague is new unheard of like this of the Serpents lay it to conscience that it falls upon some new and matchless disobedience The fourth Plague and the worst of all is yet behind that it was incurable which I do not press from Dioscorides an old Writer upon the poison of serpents or Aldrovandus one of the latter that the teeth of the Prester and Causon the venemous brood of hot Countries make an irrecoverable wound yet they deserve credit as skilful men The Constat is from holy Scripture that the Patients saw the malady was helpless unless help came by the Prayer of Moses Else such a rugged natur'd People would not have been brought to that humility and submission as St. Chrysostom said they were that the People fell down on their faces before Moses and Moses fell on his face before God And then God referred it to nothing but a miracle to lift up a brazen Serpent most likely on the top of the Tabernacle then look upon it and be healed Which was Christ in a figure Joh. iii. 14. The Son of man was lifted up on the Cross and we poor sinners by faith are lifted up in that Machin and craned up as it were in the Cross of Christ to Heaven This is proved home that the wound of the murmurers was incurable not a salve for it in all the cunning of man O Israel thou hast destroyed thy self but in me is thy help saith the Lord Hos xiii 9. If God had never toucht them with a Serpent should he have got any thanks for his protection I trow none for affliction unfelt is unregarded When we miss the Disease we miss not the Physician By the sense of the wound they came to know the benefit of a cure Had it been but the prick of a wasp skin deep at the most why lightly felt had been lightly regarded Or if Moses had drest them by some Art and Chyrurgery which he had learnt in Egypt the work of nature not the God of nature had been magnified It was otherwise in part and in all A bitter misery was among them and invincible all the comfort of art and