and the same word which signifieth to heal signifieth to Worship because after healing men should Worship yet the Physitian is worthy of a liberal fee the Abderites when they wrote to Hippocrates for the cure of Democrates whom they thought distracted because he alwayes laughed at the rediculousness of mâ—ns lives sent him word Quicquid auri apud nos est libenter persolvemus etiamsi tota urbs nostra aurum esset it is a great mercy to be in a condition to administer help to the sick in their distresse the generallity being like the Priest and Levite if they see a man wounded though to death pass on the other side of the way nay like Hazaels wet cloth prove deadly to their friends lives and healths Sickness saith one is officina virtutis morum disciplina the shop of virtue the school of manners the tide time of devotion King Alfred was wont to say I alwaies find my self best in soul when worst in body CHAP. LXXXIX BEnhadad the King of Syria an enemy to goodness in his health will send to Elisha with a large present and submissive expressions in his sickness a sick bed being the highway to the grave makes men serious The Rabbies say that when Adam eat the forbidden fruit his head aked 't is clear sin is the original of sickness when we are chastised with pain upon our beds and the multitude of our bones with strong pain then the Almighty seals up our instructions and the sick bed becomes a pulpit in which the Spirit of God preacheth to us many serious truths and convinceth us of our sin folly our Redeemer is said to bear our sicknesses because he bears our sin in his body on the tree yet so incorrigible are some under Divine corrections that having been smitten they have revolted yet more and more and like Jeroboam been worse after his hand was withered and will not acknowledge the soveraignty of God as Naaman did after his recovery that when ther are ten cleansed we may well say where are the nine that return thanks such is the power of infidellity and Ingratitude CPAP. XC A healthful life is a right hand blessing Prov. 3.16 Adam the first man lived near a thousand years after his creation 930 years being then a perfect man we may reckon him nearer a thousand years than Methusalah when he dyed There might be many reasons consigned for the long lives of the patriarchs as that mankind might be multiplied that Arts and sciences might be perfected and that men might be acquainted and skilled in the course of nature having no books from which to collect observations but alass the case is not so with us fewand evil are the dayes of our pilgrimage and we cannot arrive at the years of our Fathers in the dayes of their pilgrimage we are but of yesterday and know nothing comparatively to what we might know because our dayes upon earth are but as a shadow indeed Adam in his sinless state might possibly have been Imortal and his eating of the tree of life might have conduced to the supplying of his radical moysture as fast as it suffered depredation by his vital spirit Moreover the tree of life in Paradise might be of a Sacramental signification that perseverance in a state of Evangelical obedience unto the father by the son through the Spirit is the most effectual way to obtain a long and a healthful life in this world so far as it conduceth to the creatures good and the Creators glory and a blessed Immortallity in the next FINIS ERRATA'S Courteous Reader thou art desired to correct with thy pen these following Errata's or any other if thou observest them PAge 8. line 4. read pretious p. 9. l. 5. r. prejudicial p. 10. l. 12. r. thought p. 16. l. 7. r. nutritive p. 24. l. ul r. then p. 42 l. 21. r. paratur p. 50. l. 21. r. gluttony p. 75. l. 8. r. shalt p. 76. l. 11. r. errand p. 82. l. 8. r. for not read only p. 107. l. 14. r. all men are Abels vain
Leper Lord if thou wilt thou canst make me whole and Christ did it I will Be thou clean Thou art my King command deliverances for Jacob said David when the water-spouts came pouring upon him Vnto God the Lord belong the issues from Death CHAP. LXXII WHat a great impiety is it to go to Witches or Wizzards or such as have familiar Spirits nay to the Devils for cure A thing absolutely forbidden in Scripture A sad thing for a man to procure the Devils blessing with Gods curse It is called Idolatry and Whoredom It is a violation of our Baptismal Covenant Shall not a Nation seek to their God in Covenant Our Saviour abhorred to worship them and shall his members do it They use good words the better to deceive the ignorant They use charms circles spells words and other signes which have no naturall virtue nor can we with any ground pray for a blessing upon these The Devil being herein God's Ape for As God hath made a Covenant with his people and hath appointed signs and Seales upon the faithfull use of which he is present to perform what he hath promised So the Devil makes a Covenant with Witches upon which he hath given signes and tokens that if they use the one he wil perform the other Let such as are guilty in this kind repent and pray that the thoughts of their hearts may be forgiven them as the Apostle counselled Simon Magus The power of Christ is the same now in Heaven as when on earth in his hand our breath is and all our wayes in him we live and move and have our being we live not by bread alone but by the word of blessing out of his mouth Many a man loseth his life for want of asking it We are apt to blame this means and that accident but seldom say as she did Lord if thou hadst been here My Brother or Sister had not dyed the means alone are but like Elijahs staff it will not doe unlesse he come himself By fervent prayers we should invite Omnipotence to our beds sides And call for the Elders of the Church to pray for us All second causes are but the instruments in Gods hand to lengthen or shorten as He pleaseth CHAP. LXXIII THere are three general second causes of the death of all men assigned in 1 Sam. 26.10 As some inward corrupt Humour or Disease that smites the vitals extinguisheth Nature's lamp as a Lamp goeth out when the oyle it putrefied or corrupt as Asa's Gout Jehoram's bloody-flux the plague of Leprosie the womans child's Headach and those diseases mentioned in the 28. of Deuteronomy Another second cause is some external accident as a Lamp is putout by the Wind so the unbelieving lord kil'd in a crowd Ahab slain with an arrow the Captain of fifty with Lightning Jobs children with the fall of a house the good Prophet by a Lion Absolom hanged in a tree by the hair Sodem by fire the fifty two children by the Bears The old world by water the Rebels against Moses the earth swallows up CHAP. LXXIV ANother second cause is when the naturall heat and radical moysture is consumed as in old age as Jacob when a man comes to his grave in a full age as a shock of corn comes in its season as a Lamp must go out when there is no more oyle to feed it Yet Providence hath a hand in all these second causes so that men provoke God by their impieties to cut the thred of their their lives and by Piety and Obedience they may prevaile with Him to lengthen their days if he see good CHAP. LXXV ANother means towards the procuring the concurrence of a Divine blessing with the means is To act faith and a holy confidence in God with the use of proper means one touch of faith will cure our faith will make us whole therefore trust in the Lord for ever for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength I had failed unless I had believed said David Faith is the best cordial in quietness and confidence lyeth our greatest strength why should we be cast down let us hope in him who is the health of our countenance What time we are afraid we should trust in God and beware of slavish fear and carnal confidence former experience is a good ground of confidence He hath delivered and in him we trust he will deliver us Stand still and see the salvation of God is good counsell towards recoery of health it is a sign of carnall confidence in the means when we are continually trying new experiments and run from one thing to another and leave rationall and experimental remedies CHAP. LXXVI REpentance and humiliation is another means towards recovery from sicknesse if we humble our selves under the mighty hand of God he will exalt us in due time the way to hasten the cure is to hasten repentance our desire of life should be in order to our preparations for death if we break off our sins by righteousness it may be a lengthning of our tranquillity Nineveh's repentance spared their lives if men will not reform then God resolves to make them sick with smiting them as the Prophet speaks The last means to procure a Divine blessing it is a patient waiting the good pleasure of God without murmuring and repining They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength God hath his times for deliverance It is goad for a man to hope and quietly to wait for the salvation of God and not to say This evil is of the Lord why should I wait for him any longer God hath his time to an hour as our Saviour intimates Father save me from this hour The Promise is that Women shall be saved in child-bearing if they continue in faith and patience and it is of force in all other dangerous distempers A meek and a quiet spirit under all Divine chastisements is a very great ornament Some make Afflictions seem amiable by a pious and a patient Deportment CHAP. LXXVII MUrmuring is a dangerous sin we have the Jews for an example who were destroyed thereby A dreadful thing when a mans body is so weak that he cannot rise up in his bed yet his corruptions are so strong as to rise into an uproar against Gods will and Authority It may be some in Sickness may let fly their discontented spirits against their children or relations but they may answer as Moses to the Israelites What are we your murmurings are not against us but against the Lord. Some men practise what Jobs wife attempted viz. curse God and dye Murmurers shall be judged at the last day as ungodly men as Jude speaks Some in sickness howl upon their beds when they should be blessing God In all sickness we should say with Naomi Truly the hand of the Lord is against me and not in a stupid senseless way cry out Indeed I am not well but I shall shake it off it is only a flight distemper I wil work
it out This is like the Jews Truly this is my grief and I must bear it as well as I can thus men put from them the evil day and talk as if they were but beginning to live when they are ready to dye and boast as if they made a covenant with death It highly provokes God that when his hand is lifted up they will not see it Frowardness exasperates our calamities Now there are several considerations that may move Christians to patience and a willing submission unto the hand of God in sickness as to consider That it is laid upon us by a loving and wise Father and this may compose our spirits Shall we not drink the cup which our Father hath given us to drink we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of Spirits and live they chastened us after their own pleasure but He for our profit CHAP. LXXVIII SIckness it is a pledg of our Adoption God afflicts in faithfulness He aims at our good thereby and in making sore he binds up faithful are the wounds of such a friend when the righteous God smites he doth us a kindness we are not in heaviness except need be let us not say We are sick so as to complain if sin be pardoned Again Consider how many years of health you have injoyed formerly this may compose the spirits And shall we receive good at the hand of God and not evil Again Consider that it might be worse It is a mercy we are not utterly consumed that we are out of hell that we are scourged with rods not with scorpions that our calamity is a natural infirmity not a wounded spirit for that is intolerable Again consider that if our sickness be never so painful we brought it upon our selvs We should therefore bear the indignation of the Lord because we have sinned against him CHAP LXXIX A Gain the best of men in all ages have been exposed to the same distempers of body Lazarus whom Christ loved was sick It is nothing but what is common to man and we may take the Prophets and Apostles for our examples in suffering affliction of the like kind and of patience Lastly look beyond all these sorrows and sickness the Time is short the Coming of the Lord draws nigh Heaven will make amends for all take a prospect of the Land of Promise where there shall be no more crying nor pain but sorrow sighing and sickness shall fly away And these Rules being observed in sickness would be an effectual way to procure the concurrence of a Divine blessing with the means that are used towards the preservation of natural life A serious contemplation of Heaven and a future State where these vile weak languishing bodies shall be made like the glorious body of Christ in spiritual agility and immortallity may exhilarate the spirits of a Christian when his flesh upon him is so in pain as to cause his soul with in him to mourn Spiritual peace is the best cordial to chear up the heart against bodily pains the inhabitants of Sion complain not of sickness if sin be but pardoned Our bodies are like Nebuchadnezzar's Image whose feet were of clay our foundations are in the dust and it is as natural for our bodies to be out of frame as for a Watch to be irregular in its motions nay far more natural besides our indispositions depend upon supernatural causes Sometimes sickness and divine wrath are concomitants as Solomon intimates and then its sad indeed and sometimes it comes to good purposes if Naaman had not been Leprous he would not have given the Prophet a visit Detrimenta Corporis incrementa virtutis Be mercifull unto me O Lord for I am weak and my bones are sore vexed saith holy David when Gods chastning was upon him The sickness of the body many times brings the body of sin into a Consumption and the holiness of the heart is many times promoted by the weakness of the body when Jacob's thoughts were in Heaven he minded not his Thigh being out of Joynt Surely it is a mercy that God hath abridged so much of the term of mans life in these last days wherein so much of Heaven is discovered that it would put a Saints patience to it to know so much of the upper worlds glory and yet to be kept so long from it as the Fathers in the first Ages were Such is the Saints state in this world that their very life and the pompous entertainments of it are but their cross because they detain them from their Crown CHAP. LXXX VVHen we seriously consider and reflect upon the nature of man in this State of mortality and observe the wonderful composure of our Bodies the Scituation of the Parts the circulations of the Blood the secret meanders of the Veines and Nerves and the curious distributions and digestions of our aliment into Blood and Flesh and take notice how small an obstruction in any part will discompose our health and stop the current of our ease how small an inflammation will transport us into an other world as if we went in a fiery Chariot how mean a putrifaction is able to crumble us into our first Original These things considered may not only compose our spirits under sickness but fill us with admiration that we live an hour in health and ease Did we but consider our frame and remember we are but dust how should we wonder that every blast of aire doth not blow us into our sick beds and graves We are as naturally exposed to trouble and sickness as the sparks are to fly upwards why then should we not be thankfull that pains and anguish are not our constant companions CHAP. LXXXI VVEre it possible for a man to stand upon one of the Battlements of Heaven and with one glance of his eye to behold all the wounds and Diseases and so hear all the groans and complaints of all the sick persons in the world how would the blessing of health be prized by such a one how uneasie a place is a sick bed when the man is full of tossing to and fro until the dawning of the day when it is day withing t were night and when it is night wishing for day imploying his time in telling the Clock and entertaining melancholy apprehensions of the blackness of the night Sick men as Seneca observes Aegrotantes mutationibus ut remediis utuntur use changes as if they were remedies How miserable in outward appearance is that mans case whose flesh is cloathed with worms as holy Jobs was Some Criticks do observe that the word translated flesh it springs from a root which signifieth to bring glad tidings and the Gospel is exprest by it Evangelium and they give this reason for it because there must be a taking off Flesh viz. the incarnation of Christ which would bring the best news the world ever heard of CHAP.