The Cause of the Disease Sin implyed in these words and turn from their wicked ways Thirdly The Medicine to be used which is Compounded of three Ingredients 1. Humility 2. Prayer 3. Repentance Fourthly The Physician prescribing this Medicine God I will hear from heaven c. I begin with the Disease of which I need say but little since it speaks so much for it self But something I must say lest I seem to pass that over that passeth by few in a house or City where it comes The word is sometimes rendred Pestilence and sometimes Plague from the Latine word Plaga which signifies a Stroke but by reason of the Streightness of our English Tongue they are promiscuously taken The Plague in other Languages extends further and notes any extraordinary Stroke that comes from God the Prophets under that Word contain these four Famine Pestilence Wild Beasts and the Sword which per eminentiam are called the four plagues of God 'T is true God creates every thing both light and darkness Isa 45.7 good and evil as the Prophet speaks but because Strokes if they be private particular or ordinary have no great operation on us we observe their second and not their first causes and so we neither reverence God's Justice nor discern his hand nor fear his power Upon this Score when mens sins cry aloud and peircing the Heavens mount to the very throne of God it is fit likewise that God's loud Justice should peirce the heavens Heb. 1.21 descend upon man and like the voice of Sinai make poor mortals quake and fear The plague is a Stroke able to extort from any man the confession of Pharaoh's Enchanters Ex. 8.19 This is the Finger of God It 's an Arrow of his own shooting 2 Sam. 24.15 and may better be called Morbus Sacer then the Falling Sickness And therefore in our Language we style the Pestilence the Visitation of God and the Tokens thereof God's Marks and upon our Dores write LORD HAVE MERCY VPON VS By which we clearly confess whilest the Angel executeth divine wrath we all stand at God's Mercy And thus I come from the Disease it self to the Cause of it which is God's anger enflamed by Sin I know there are some that following the Sentiments of Physicians will needs ascribe it to the Infection of the Aire to gross and unwholsome Diet or to the predominancy of corrupt humours But Physicians may be excused if they say something when they see an Angel As I will not deny but in all Diseases there may be something of natural so I may likewise affirm there is in this something divine and above nature 1. For the natural part First The Infected Aire may contribute very much and therefore we read that by casting the Ashes of the Furnace towards heaven Ex. 9.8 the Aire became Infected and the plague of Botches and Blains spread it self over Aegypt Secondly Corrupt humours may do the like for to them doth King David ascribe the cause of his Malady when he complains that his Moisture in him was corrupt Psal 32.4 dryed up and turned into the drought of Summer Thirdly The contagion comeing from the Sick Thus we see by the Jewish Law the Leprous person for fear of Infecting others was commanded to cry aloud Vnclean Lev. 13.45 46 52. Vnclean by which he gave the Sound warning they should not approch nigh for fear of Contagion He was besides to have his dwelling alone and the garments he wore were to be washed and if the plague was spread in them the Priest was to burn them Yea the very house walls in which the Leper dwelt were to be scraped and in some cases the house it self to be pulled down The Learned Fernelius more judiciously confesses this Disease hath a hidden beginning some secret principle that occultly wounds and we may assure our selves that though things ab extrâ contribute to its progression yet the real cause is the latent Corruption within us Sir Tho. More Epigr. Nugamur mortemque procul procul esse putamus At mediis latet haec abdita visceribus But let us come to the supernatural Cause of this Disease and that will not require a Physician so much as a Divine And I suppose many of them think it a difficult point that they go into the Country to study it and by their absence expound S. Paul's words thus We preach not our selves i. e. our Curates or who else will preach for us But to the supernatural Cause the Scripture observes it as a crime in King Asa that in the time of his Sickness he look'd more after the Physician than after God He did not consider the Infirmity of his Soul was to be healed as well as that of his body and therefore look'd for natural remedies only But if we would avoid his fault we must acknowledge the hand of God in this Sickness and something above nature For if we observe the way of inflicting it we shall find it oftentimes done by Spirits Thus we see an Angel a destroying Angel in the plague of Aegypt Exod. 12.13 Another in the plague that destroyed the host of the Assyrians under Senacherib We find a third in the plague at Jerusalem under King David and St. John in the Revelations brings in a fourth pouring his Vial upon Earth Rev. 16.2 and there fell a noisome plague upon Man and Beast So that God is the great Agent in this Calamity But how Not willingly his anger must first be enkindled by our Sin for as the Psalmist saith Psal 106. They provoked him to anger with their Inventions and then the plague brake in amongst them Thus Deut. 28.21 God says Because of the wickedness of thy doing whereby thou hast forsaken me the Lord shall make the Pestilence cleave unto thee And Hosea cries Hos 14.6 O Israel return unto the Lord thy God for thou hast fallen by thine Iniquity The perdidit te in the Prophet doth not proceed from neighbours become Enemies or from the Locust Caterpiller Mildews and such other things as cause Famine and Pestilence but from the corruption and Sin hatch'd in these Israelites and therefore in the second verse he counsels them as the only way to recover their former happiness to Take with them words and turn to the Lord and say unto him take away all Iniquity and receive us graciously So that sin which is the plague of the Soul begets the Plague of the Body This viperous Mother brings forth a child so like it self that it 's hard to know the one for the other I shall shew you in a few particulars their Similitude and Agreement First They are alike in Nature The Corporeal Pestilence aims not at the more ignoble parts of the body but at the very Source of Life the vital Spirits and by its contagious quality oppresses them The like doth Sin by its secret Malignancy to the Soul It blinds the understanding
his holy Spirit to guide your Souls in the Path of Holiness here and bring you to the Palace of Happiness hereafter So prayeth The earnest desirer of your Souls welfare Rich. Kingston From my Study at St. James Clerkenwell Octob. the 18. 1665. PILLULAE PESTILENTIALES 2 Chron. cap. 7. v. 13 14. If I send Pestilence among my people If my people which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways Then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their Sin and will heal their Land GOD that from all Eternity was happy in himself created the World and Man the most glorious part of it not out of necessity but a diffusive Goodness by which he would have some Beeings represent his Supremacy and receive the Style of the Sons of the most High Other Artificers either out of Ambition or Profit transmit to the World their Skill and Knowledge only He induced by a charity proportionable to his own Nature resolved to bring light out of darkness and constitute a Lieutenant upon Earth that should largely speak the grandeur of his Maker Thus Adam sprung bright and glorious out of the Chaos imbued with those perfections which We his posterity since his transgression can never hope for His Patrimony was large and he might have left it to his Heirs who now by sad experience find that he not only became bankrupt himself but entayled his misery upon them He came into the World its Lord and Master and left his children Peasants and Vassals and the truth is with so much unhappy fertility they have improved his Crime that being but one at first the Eating the forbidden Fruit it 's now become infinite and able to puzzle the Arithmetick of Angels Upon this score one might justly wonder that God should say IF I send the Pestilence amongst my People If is a Word of Uncertainty and argues an irresolution One would rather have expected the Lord should have sworn by himself that since this Darling this Peâ—â—â—ker of his divine Excellencies will ever be abasing them and choose rather the Livery of the Devil than that beautiful Vest of Innocence with which he came clothed into Paradice that therefore he would send his Plenipotentiary the Plague and without compassion cut off his Favourite But by this doubtful way of Expression we are taught how unwilling he is to give his justice a full draught which he will and must do where Impenitency stops the Progress of his Mercy The Heathen could say Val. Max. Lento gradu ad vindictam sui divina procedit ira tarditatemque supplicii gravitate compensat We shall find this Truth cleer if we consider the Series of his proceedings against Sin Adam no sooner sins but is whipp'd out of Eden Cain kills his brother and becoms a Fugitive Sodom grows luxurious and burns with un-natural Lusts and fire descends from heaven to extinguish those hellish flames Jerusalem a City grac'd with more privileges than any in the World as being the place in which God would have his name in a more particular manner called upon the Seat of the Temple and the Metropolis of that Nation which he owned above all others Jerusalem I say that heard the Prophets yea Christ himself preach and saw his Miracles is now for her Sins nothing but a heap of Rubbish and as Adrichomius observes One may seek Jerusalem in Jerusalem and not find her The Eastern Church whose couragrous Martyrs whose General Councels whose Prelates those burning and shining lights are so highly celebrated is now for her Arrian Heresie and other Sins with which she abounded enslaved under the Turkish Yoke and hourly tormented with the Impieties of the Impostor Mahomet Neither can We of the Latin-Church here in Europe say our Sins have been hid and Divine Justice as it were asleep during their Committing In what a field of Miseries hath the whole German Empire been this last Century Nay if we have a mind to look nigher home what a calamitous Scene can Great Britain and Ireland show you for twenty years where fulness of Bread and a long Peace begot stiff Necks and obdurate hearts and these pull'd down the former and this present destruction so that We may well conclude that there is no Nation or Countrey so graced with privileges so crowned with blessings and so beloved by God but Sin will beget a deadly quarrel between them and cause the Subversion of the most flourishing States and Empires Let the Epicure ascribe the alterations unto Fortune the Stoick to Fate Plato and Pythagoras with the learned Statesman Bodin to Number Aristotle to a Symmetry or Disproportion Copernicus to the Motion of the Centre and Cardane with the Generality of Astrologers to the Malignant Influence of the Errattick Stars We that have bin otherwise built up in the most Holy Faith are taught by the Divine Oracles that Sin only causes this Controversie between God and Man and therefore whilest they like Ixion in the Fable embrace only a Cloud of palbable darkness instead of the Juno of bright and clear Truth let us since we know the True cause of Gods wrath endevour to avoid it by newness of life which is holyness in the Inward Man And indeed it is but fit if we will offend that God should right himself Nec enim Lex aequior ulla est Quam necis Artifices Arte perire sua We have Sinned and God justly strikes our heads with giddiness drawes paleness on our faces and dyes our Skins with purple The Prophet Amos saith C. 4. v. 10. God sent the Pestilence among the Israelites after the manner of Aegypt and he hath now sent the Plague amongst the English after the manner of Israel Israel's Calamity in the time of King David is England's Case in the Reign of King Charles Facta est narratio de te Anglia mutato nomine cum numero Change but the Names of the Countrey with the Circuit together with the time that Plague lasted and the number of peo it consumed in that space and we are parallel Repentance was their only Balsam and it must be ours for as the great Bishop of Hippo sayes St. August Mutet vitam qui vult accipere vitam We must by resolution of better obedience blunt the Edge of that Sword that causes so great a Mortality amongst us And thus I come to the words of my Text If I send the Pestilence amongst my people In which Words we have a Gracious promise of God unto his Church or a direct Answer to Solomon's Prayer which he made at the finishing of the Temple assuring Penitent Souls that if they turn from the Evil of their ways he will turn from the Evil of his wrath and free them from destruction I will hear from heaven and forgive their Sins Where we may observe four particulars First a Disease the Pestilence si miserò Pestilentiam in Populum meum Secondly
many are there in the World that pass from month to month yea from year to year that scarce ever pray as if there were neither a God to reward nor a Devil to be his Executioner and yet if you tell them they are not Christians they will esteem you the most injurious persons in the world But we must not be content with the bare name of Christianity and think it is enough that our Parents brought us to the Font and that there we received our Christian Livery We must come up to the life of christianity which is Prayer it is that in the Soul which Springs are in Clocks and Watches if they be broke the motion of all the Wheels ceases and if we devote not our selves to prayer all our Theological virtues are idle and as it were pinnion'd in us and therefore St. Chrysostome says excellently Tom. 1. de fide as when a Queen enters a city not only a great Retinue but an amass of Wealth comes along with her so likewise when the Soul is enflamed with a love of prayer all other virtues croud and throng in upon her Of Men it makes us the Temples of Christ Now as gold and precious stones and the richest Marbles constitute the Palaces of Princes so Prayer builds up these Temples of the Son of God that he may dwell in our hearts as in a Sanctum Sanctorum the noblest Seat of his Residence That we may therefore pray aright and like good christians that God may cease the plague and heal our wounds I shall show you what qualifications are necessary First then Our Prayer must be an earnest fervent Prayer it is St. James his character The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much indeed it peirceth heaven and is Clavis Coeli as St. Bernard speaks the Key that unlocks the Treasuries of heaven that it may showre down its blessings upon us We may learn the Nature of this effectual Prayer from the Royal Prophet when he says Ps 141.2 Dirigatur Oratio mea sicut incensum in conspectu tuo Let my prayer be set before thee as Incense in which words he briefly comprehends all the requisites of a fervent prayer by comparing it to Incense First In the Incense was Frankincense Onyx Galbanum Oyle of Cinnamond or Myrrh and Mastich so our Prayer if it be effectually fervent must be mingled with Faith Humility Charity Confidence in God and Patience these as lesser Stars must wait upon this Queen and Mother of virtues this Breviary of the Gospel Secondly This Incense was appropriated to the Temples and lodged in the Holy of Holies so likewise the Soul of Man is the Temple and House of God as St. Paul speaks 1 Cor. 3.16 Know ye not that ye are the Temple of the Holy Ghost we therefore must burn this Incense of Prayer in the inward'st and purest part of this Temple Thirdly This Incense was to be offered by none but the High Priest so likewise all our prayers must be offered up by our High Priest Christ Jesus if we hope they shall prevail for upon this account the Church teaches us to conclude all our prayers with this clause Through Iesus Christ our Lord. Fourthly This Incense was to be fir'd before its grateful perfume could be sented If the High Priest flung never so many handfuls of it on dead coals there came forth no odour so our Prayers are altogether frigid and no way pleasing until kindled by the flames of the Spirit where heat and fervour is wanting in him that prays the very Soul of prayer is absent Fifthly says David Dirigatur Oratio mea c. let it mount let it tend towards thee he that will pray fervently and effectually must have a good end a sincere intention and a constant attention he must not pray like Pharisees to be seen of men that he may purchase the Repute of Religious and holy he must make God and his interest his ultimate end and therefore our Lord the Great Master of Prayer says When thou prayest enter into thy closet and when thou hast shut thy dore pray to thy Father which is in Secret By which he would teach us rather to acquit our selves to God than Man God only being able to reward our Integrity with better blessings than vulgar applause can afford Secondly But in the second place as our Prayer must be earnest and fervent so it must be without ceasing If we would have a Truce with God's judgments it is an argument of an evil heart to proportion our Prayers to the increase or decrease of Judgments for though the rule in Philosophy be That Oratio is quantitas discreta yet in Divinity it is most certain That Oratio ought to be quantitas continua according to the Apostle's Maxime Pray continually and indeed now 1 Eph. 5.17 if ever we had need to be constant in Prayer when thousands dye in a week and every parish yea every street is the fatal Theatre of so many sad Tragedies Is not this a time of trouble when the rich and abler sort are fled citè longè tardè and the poorer through necessity are oblieged to tarry notwithstanding infinite dangers surround them their Servants and their poor children Is it not a time of trouble when Tradesmen become poor and poverty enforces beggary and that unhappy profession cannot keep them from Starving Is it not a time of trouble when trade in general is so Dead that the Sexton and the Grave-maker have the most Employment in the parish Surely this is a time of trouble and this time is our time O therefore let us take up holy David's Resolution and give neither sleep to our eyes nor slumber to our Eyelids till the Lintells of our dore-posts are annointed with the blood of sprinkling that the destroying Angel may pass over our habitations Ask and give not over till you find seek and leave not till you find knock and cease not till a dore of Salvation be opened unto you 3. But thirdly We must lift up pure hearts and holy hands unto God in Prayer It is the work of the Seraphims to be continually crying Holy Holy Holy Lord God of Sabbaoth to express the ardent affection in them and the ready adoration of the Holyness so repeated by them it being that noble attribute that indeed is only proper to God Now if we would take a part in this Seraphick Consort we must endevour to have holiness and purity in our hearts and hands and then our addresses will be musical in God's Ears To this purpose the Schoolman Victorinus observes That a reasonable Soul is the chief and principal glass wherein to see God Ric. Victor lib. de Patriar This the Israel of God must continually hold wipe look on hold lest falling down it sink to the Earth in love wipe lest it be sullied with the dust of vain thoughts look on that it divert not the eye and intention to vain
Angels veil their faces by whose only Fiat the Chaos was un-masked and to whose bounty all the several species of creatures owe their Beeing I will hear from heaven forgive and heal your Land Other Physicians either out of hope of gain or to buoy up their credits and repute in the World promise those cures which they can never perform But here is one whose Word is his Deed that Archetypal verity who having the Issues of Life and Death in his hand when he promises Life cannot be guilty of a Lye and when he threatens death upon impenitency will surely inflict it So then here is a Conjunction of the whole Trinity in the Cure promised the perfection of which will appear in three particulars 1. God will cure us corporally When he sent his beloved Son to preach the Gospel of Eternal Life many heard him but were little moved with the Excellency of his Embassie but when he came to those sensitive and ocular demonstrations of his power the healing of the Sick and feeding the Multitude by miracle many then were induced to believe in him S. Matthew tells us that he healed all that were Sick At his word the Blind found eyes the lame flung away their Crutches the Paralytick and such as were troubled with an effusion of Blood found that virtue proceeding from him which effected their cure If the touch of his garment were so balsamical that of his voice had a greater power for Lazarus though rotting four days in his grave at Christ's first call quitted his cold Mansion and conquered Death surrendred his Prisoner at the Command of this great Prince The Platonist say Lumen est Vmbra Dei Light is but the shadow of God and I may very well affirm that the Learned'st Physicians are but shadows of this Sun of righteousness when he appears with healing in his wings Have we the plague spots upon us If God will be our Physician their very redness shall serve for a blush to confess their impotency when he bids them vanish Does a Feaver burn us or a Dropsie drown us One word of his mouth will prove a Julip to cool our veins and a Sluce to let out that Lake of humours which would engulph us If we be once penitentially quallified He will hear us He will heal us Let us therefore look upon this Visitation with a Spiritual eye Let us that God yet spares learn to be better lest those Princes of Peru in America meer Heathens at the day of Judgment rise up against us who accounted Sickness Nuncios coeli quibus se ad Deos acciri dicebant God's Messengers by which he would draw them to himself as Nierembergius reports He brings us into the School of Affliction Hist Nat. that we might learn Wisdome And as he will heal us so he will the diseases in the creatures that contribute to the maintenance of our Lives Is the Air infected He will purge it Is the fruit blasted He will stop Mildews and what ever hinders a plentiful Vegitation Doth the Murrain consume Cattle That shall likewise cease In a word whatever impleads our temporal enjoyments upon our Repentance like Dust shall be driven away before the Wind. 2. God will cure us Spiritully The wounds of the Soul are infinitely more considerable than those of the Body and therefore David who as St. Chrysostom speaks was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 One that lived as strictly in his Kingly Pallace as in a Cloyster cries out Ps 41.4 Heal my Soul for I have sinned against thee And indeed he had great reason to do so for he that had victoriously encountred the Lyon the Bear Goliah and an host of Men was now broken by a feminine temptation and become guilty of those Soul-wounding Sins Adultery and Murther Now as David made his Address to God the only Soul-Physician so let us for he can certainly restore and heal This Soul-cure he will perform First By healing our irregular affections which can by no less powerful means be effected than the communication of his Grace For if Adam in Paradice richly furnished with supernatural gifts continued but a poor while in that purity and excellent condition how much less can nature wounded with Sin without the assistance of supernatural endowments recover her former purity I shall not deny but a vigorous reason may help a man to acquire those virtuous habits which may cause a promptitude in the affections to virtuous actions yet those Acts of virtue will be so poor and imperfect that they can never bring him to eternal felicity Actions that spring from Grace do as far excel those that are the Issue of Nature though never so morallized as fruits that are ripened in the woods and fields by the beams of the Sun do those that are brought forth by artificial fires Grace changes the affections powerfully and renders them as it were new affections according to St. Paul If a Man be in Christ he is a new creature Not that our affections in this life are totally healed by grace there will be lusting of the Flesh against the Spirit in the most gracious persons but those Insurrections and Tumults are rather suffered by God as a Tryal than a destruction to his children Inordinate affections shall be so healed in this life that they shall lose their Empire though not their Beeing when they begin to rebel Grace will be able to subdue and triumph over them Secondly By healing our Vnderstanding At first when man enjoyed his Integrity the Vnderstanding did naturally apprehend truth with the greatest facility and as when our eye looks upon some curious piece of Painting Sculpture or any other beautiful object it is highly pleased so the Vnderstanding when it look'd upon Truth received great Satisfaction and the more sublime and excellent the Truths were the nobler caresses she found in the contemplation of them But novv alas a dismal chaos hath invelop'd the Vnderstanding yea that Science that vvas so brisk and sparkling in our first Parents and should have been the inheritance of all their posterity is utterly lost Our ignorance is such that vve are not able to judge of supernatural Truths and therefore God vvill cure this defect in us by Divine Illumination He vvill set up in our Souls the bright Tapers of his grace vvhereby the fogs and mists of Infidelity shall be dispell'd and such a certainty vvrought in us as is essential to true Faith Thirdly By healing our Wills The Phylosopher's Maxim is here true Corruptio Optimi est pessima The Will being the supreme faculty of the Soul had once a natural power to love God but being novv wounded by Sin the wounds in it are of a deadlier nature than those of the other faculties Thus Sins of Malice are deeper wounds than those of Infirmity or Ignorance and therefore one excellently said That nothing fri'd so much in Hell as the perverse wills of Men. God will heal this wounded part also by his
corrupts the Will and so poisons all our Intellectual faculties that we cannot see the light of Faith or ardently love God or do any other Act that may speak us living Christians and in a State of Grace Secondly They are alike in their Infection The reason why we shut people up that are Infected and avoid their Company is because they easily communicate their Disease to those that are in health it is so with sin it insensibly creeps upon us The often seeing wicked men repeat their crimes first takes from us the hatred we should bear them and afterward by undiscerned progressions so far work on us that we begin to love and commit the same The Historian observes That Augustus soon perceived the Inclination of his two Daughters by the Company they kept The one affected none but the grave Senators and worthy personages of Rome and the Other none but the loose and debauch'd Gallants We cannot touch pitch but we must be defiled and we cannot converse with wicked men but we shall be tainted with their Impurities Thirdly They are alike diffusive Thucidides in his Description of the Plague of Athens tells us it began in Africa march'd from Aethiopia into Aegypt and so took its course for Athens which was a vast progress And hath not Sin done the like Hath not the Sin of Adam in Paradice spread it self over the whole World and so seized upon the mass of Mankind that we must all confess we are Vnclean and there is none of us righteous no not one Fourthly They are both terrible What a dismal sight is it to see an Army enter by force into a pleasant City and there in a moment by the licentious fury of the Soldiers view those streets floating with the blood of the Inhabitants which in time of Peace used to be strewed with flowers Yet when heat of blood is over some mercy is usually hoped for and many times obtained But the Plague like another Attila the Scourge of God sweeps all before it and seldom gives Quarter Sin does the like yea in a more terrible manner for it erects its Trophies upon the ruine of Souls The destruction of the body is but a momentary pain but that of the Soul is commensurate to the duration of it which is to all Eternity How much reason have we therefore to pray to be delivered from this Executioner that like another Nero loves to perpetuate misery and strikes a wretch ut sentiat se mori Fifthly They are alike in their Symptomes When a man begins to feel some distemper in his head stomach belly or other parts though we apprehend some danger yet we think him not past the benefit of Physick and a possibility of Recovery but if once his body begin to be purpled and the plague spots discover their dismal hue we then quit all hopes and think nothing less than a miracle can recover him Sin also hath her spots and they are as ill boading to the Soul as the other to the body V. 23. and therefore St. Jude in his General Epistle styles wicked men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spots in their feasts of Charity Lastly They are both of a quick dispatch Other Diseases seem to give us some warning that we may set our house in order and by repentance blot out the Score of our sins prodigality but the pestilential sword like the Italian Stilletto carries death upon the point and at its first entrance summons the wounded to his Funeral so that we may now sing in a mournful Dirge Our pleasures cease our joys are flying Death is alive but Life is dying Hence it is that Galen calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of its Mortal quality and Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because of its spreading nature This deadly disease we see lays heaps upon heaps and if the Almighty power puts not a stop to its violent proceedings it will in a short time scarce leave living enough to bury the dead Where God gives it a Commission it runs like fire in a Corn field That passage in Samuel is very remarkable 2 Sam. 24.15 where it is said So the Lord sent a Pestilence upon Israel from the Morning even to the time appointed Some think this appointed time was six hours and of this opinion is St. * Super Psal 37. Ambrose * quaest 37 Theodoret and the Jewish Historian Josephus Others think this appointed time was until night and that at the beginning of the Evening Sacrifice it ceased which St. Hierome followes V. Casp Sanctium inâ—l Others with Tostatus Abulensis think it lasted three dayes However all agree that it was but a short space in which this Tragedy was acted although the quamdiù is not certain Upon this account the Septuagint reads the Words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If I send Death amongst my people to signifie other diseases by Medical herbs and the skill of Physicians may be Cured but this is an infallible Executioner as sure as death it self And doth not Sin do the same with the Soul Gen. 2.17 In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt dye not a year after but in the very day thou breakest my Commandement thy sin will prove deadly So Annanias and Sapphyra no sooner lyed to the holy Ghost but at St. Peter's Examination their Consciences became their condemning Jury and their Sentence a sudden Death We have now seen their agreement I shall only say there is this happy dissimilitude that whereas the Cure of the Bodily plague is uncertain that of the Soul plague is infallible if we fly to Christ with a due sense of our misery and seek from his Merits that Alexipharmacon that is an Antidote against the greatest Crimes But I shall desist from speaking any longer indefinitely of Sin and come to those particular ones that in so high a degree have drawn this plague upon us First then The sin that leads the van is our Sabbath-breaking How loud doth this cry in the Ears of God! A sin more frequent impudent and unpunish'd than in those late black days when the greatest were justified by a Law This blessed day is now as much mangled and broken as once the Lord of it was And as the Poet deriding the immoderate dress of a wanton Girl told her that she was minima pars sui so is this day so divided that it is now become the least part of it self and you may seek for a Sabbath in a Sabbath and not find it And whereas it ought to be the greatest Festival and holy Rest now other days are more innocent then this Those we spend upon our Callings and this the more is our shame on our sins In the Primitive times sanctifying the Lords Day was an eminent Character that Christians lived in the purity of their profession When the Question was asked Servasti Dominicam The Answer returned was Christianus sum intermittere non possum I am a Christian and may not