turn his blessing into a curse Yea the same God who best knows the price of his own favours as he makes no small estimation of age himself so he hath thought fit to call for an high respect to be given to it by men out of an holy awe to himself Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head and honour the face of the old man and fear thy God I am the Lord. Hence it is that he hath pleased to put together the Ancient and the Honourable and hath told us that an hoary head is a crown of glory if it be found in a way of righteousness And lastly makes it an argument of the deplored estate of Jerusalem that they favoured not the Elders As therefore we too sensibly feel what to complain of so we well know what priviledges we may challenge as due to our age even such as nature it self hath taught those heathens which have been in the next degree to savage If pride and skill have made the Athenians uncivill yet a yong Lacedemonian will rise up and yeeld his place in the Theatre to neglected age §. 3. The advantages of old age 1. Fearlesnesse It is not a little injurious so to fasten our eyes upon the discommodities of any condition as not to take in the advantages that belong to it which carefully laid together may perhaps sway the balance to an equall poise Let it be true that old age is oppressed with many bodily griefes but what if it yeeld other immunities which may keep the scales even whereof it is not the least that it gives us firm resolution and bold security against dangers and death it selfe For the old man knowes how little of his clew is left in the winding and therefore when just occasion is offered sticks not much upon so inconsiderable a remainder Old age and orbity as Cesellius professed were those two things that emboldened him And when Castritius refused to deliver the hostages of Placentia to Carbo the Consul and was threatned with many swords hee answered those menaces with his many yeares And that wee may not disdain home-bred instances and may see that brave spirits may lodge in cottages In my time a plain Villager in the Rude Peake when theeves taking advantage of the absence of his family breaking into his solitary dwelling and finding him sitting alone by his fire side fell violently upon him and one of them setting his dagger to his heart swore that he would presently kill him if he did not instantly deliver to them that money which they knew he had lately received the old man looks boldly in the face of that stout Villain and with an undaunted courage returnes him this answer in his Peakish Dialect Nay even put fro thee sonne I have lived long enough but I tell thee unlesse thou mend thy manners thou wilt never live to see halfe my daies put fro thee if thou wilt What young man would have been so easily induced to part with his life and have been so ready to give entertainment to an unexpected death Surely the hope and love of life commonly softens the spirits of vigorous youth and disswades it from those enterprises which are attended with manifest perill whereas extream age teacheth us to contemn dangers §. 4. The second advantage of old age Freedome from passions Yet a greater priviledge of age is a freedome from those impetuous passions wherewith youth is commonly over-swayed for together with our naturall heat is also abated the heat of our inordinate lusts so as now our weaker appetite may easily be subdued to reason The temperate old man in the Story when one shewed him a beautifull face could answer I have long since left to be eyesick And that other could say of pleasure I have gladly with drawn my self from the service of that imperious mistresse What an unreasonable vassalage our youthfull lusts subject us unto we need no other instance then in the strongest and wisest man How was the strongest man Sampson effeminated by his impotent passion and weakned in his intellectuals so far as wilfully to betray his own life to a mercenary Harlot and to endure to hear her say Tell mee wherewith thou mayest be bouud to doe thee hurt How easily might he have answered thee O Delila Even with these cords of brutish sensuality wherewith thou hast already bound me to the losse of my liberty mine eyes my life How was the wisest man Solomon besotted with his strange Wives so as to be drawn away to the worship of strange gods And how may the firre trees howle when the Cedars fall who can hope to be free from being transported with irregular affections when wee see such great precedents of frailty before our eyes From the danger of these miserable miscarriages our age happily secures us putting us into that quiet harbour whence we may see young men perillously tossed with those tempests of unruly passions from which our cooler age hath freed us §. 5. The third advantage of age experimentall knowledge Adde hereunto the benefit of experimentall knowledge wherewith age is wont to enrich us every dram whereof is worth many pounds of the best youthly contentments in comparison whereof the speculative knowledge is weak and imperfect this may come good cheap perhaps costs us nothing that commonly we pay deare for and therefore is justly esteemed the more precious If experience be the mistresse of fools I am sure it is the mother of wisedome neither can it be except we be too much wanting to our selves but the long observation of such variety of actions and events as meet with us in the whole course of our life must needs leave with us such sure rules of judgement as may be unfailing directions for our selves and others In vain shall this be expected from our younger yeares which the wise Philosopher excludes from being meet Auditors much lesse Judges of true morality In regard whereof well might the old man say Yee young men think us old men fooles but we old men know you young men to be fooles Certainly what value soever ignorance may put upon it this fruit of age is such as that the earth hath nothing equally precious It was a profane word and fit for the mouth of an Heathen Poet That Prudence is above Destiny But surely a Christian may modestly and justly say That next to Divine Providence Humane Prudence may challenge the supreme place in the administration of these earthly affairs and that Age may claim the greatest interest in that Prudence Young Elihu could say Multitude of yeers should teach wisdom And the wise man Oh how comely a thing is judgement for gray hairs and for ancient men to know counsel Oh how comely is the wisdom of old men and understanding and counsel to men of honour In regard whereof the Grecians had wont to say that young men are for Action old men for Advice And among the Romans we
better eyes 239 Sect. 3. Comfort from the better object of inward sight ib. Sect. 4. The ill offâ—ices done by the eyes 241 Sect. 5. The freedome from temptations by the eye and freedome from many sorrows 243 Sect. 6. The chearfulnesse of some blind men 247 Sect. 7. The supply which God gives in other faculties 248 Sect. 8. The benefit of the eyes which once we had 252 Sect. 9. The supply of one sense by another 255 Sect. 10. The better condition of the inward ear 258 Sect. 11. The grief that arises from hearing evill things 260 Comforts against barrennesse 261 Sect. 1. The blessing of fruitfulnesse seasoned with sorrows 261 Sect. 2. The paines of child-bearing 263 Sect. 3. The misery of ill disposed and undutifull children 265 Sect. 4. The cares of Parents for their children 267 Sect. 5. The great grief in the losse of children 273 Comforts against want of sleep 276 Sect. 1. The misery of the want of rest with the best remedy 276 Sect. 2. The favor of freedom from pain 280 Sect. 2. The great favour of health without sleep 281 Sect. 4. Sleep is but a symptome of mortality 284 Sect. 5. No use of sleep whither we are going 286 Comforts against the inconveniencies of old age 287 Sect. 1. The illimitation of age and the miseries attending it 287 Sect. 2. Old age is a blessing 292 Sect. 3. The advantages of old age 1 Fearlesness 295 Sect. 4. The next advantage of old age Freedom from impetuous passions of lust 298 Sect. 5. The third advantage Experimentall knowledge 301 Sect. 6. Age in some persons vigorous and well-affected 306 Sect. 7. The fourth advantage of age near approach to our end 308 Comforts against the fears and pains of death 311 Sect. 1. The fear of death naturall 311 Sect. 2. Remedy of feare acquaintance with death 313 Sect. 3. The misapprehension of death injurious 315 Sect. 4. Comfort from the common condition of men 318 Sect. 5. Death not feared by some 320 Sect. 6. Our deaths-day better then our birth-day 322 Sect. 7. The sting of death pull'd out 323 Sect. 8. Death but a parting to meet again 324 Sect. 9. Death but a sleep 326 Sect. 10. Death sweetned to us by Christ 330 Sect. 11. The painfulnesse of Christs death 332 Sect. 12. The vanity and miseries of life 334 Sect. 13. Examples of the courageous resolutions of others 338 Sect. 14. The happy advantages of death 341 Comforts against the terrours of Judgement 347 Sect. 1. Aggravations of the fearefulnesse of the last Iudgment 347 Sect. 2. Comfort from the condition of the elect 350 Sect. 3. Awe more fit for thoughts of judgment then terrour 354 Sect. 4. In that great and terrible day our Advocate is our Iudge 356 Sect. 5. Frequent meditation and due preparation the true remedy of fear 361 Comforts against the fears of spirituall enemies 364 Sect. 1. The great power of evill spirits and their restraint 364 Sect. 2. The fear of the number of evil spirits and the remedy of it 368 Sect. 3. The malice of the evill spirits and our fears thereof remedied 373 Sect. 4. The great subtilty of evill spirits and the remedie of the feare thereof 376 The universal Reeeipt for all Maladies 385 I Have perused this excellent Treatise intituled The Balm of GILEAD containing in it many singular medicines and soverain Salves compounded and made up with so many sweet and spirituall Ingredients of holy and heavenly consolations as may be sufficient and effectual being rightly applied to cure and heal all sicknesses and sores of body and mind caused by the fearfull apprehension of imminent dangers or the sense of present evils unto which I subscribe my probatum est and do allow it to be Printed and Published JOHN DOVVNAME THE COMFORTER Comforts for the sick Bed The Preface WHat should we do in this vale of teares but bemoan each others miseries Every man hath his load and well is he whose burthen is so easie that he may help his neighbours Hear me my son my age hath waded through a world of sorrowes The Angel that hath hitherto redeemed my soul from all evill and hath led me within few paces of the shore offers to lend thee his hand to guide thee in this dangerous foard wherein every error is death Let us follow him with an humble confidence and bee safe in the view and pity of the wofull miscarriages of others § 1. Aggravation of the misery of sicknesse Thou art now cast upon the bed of sicknesse roaring out all the day long for the extreamity of thy pain measuring the slow houres not by minutes but by groanes Thy soule is weary of thy life through the intolerable anguish of thy spirit Of all earthly afflictions this is the soarest Job himself after the sudden and astonishing newâ—â— of the losse of his goods and children could yet beare up and blesse the God that gives and takes but when his body was tormented and was made one boyle now his patience is retched so farre as to curse not his God but his Nativity The great King questioning with his Cup-bearer NEHEMIAH can say Why is thy countenance sad seeing thou art not sick as implying that the sick man of all other hath just cause to be dejected worldly crosses are aloofe off from us sicknesse is in our bosome those touch ours onely these our selves here the whole man suffers what could the body feele without the Soule that animates it how can the soule which makes the body sensible choose but be most affected with that pain whereof it gives sense to the body Both partners have enough to doe to encounter so fierce an enemy The sharper assault requires the more powerfull resistance Recollect thy self my son and call up all the powers of thy soul to grapple with so violent an enemy § 2. 1 Comfort from the freedom of the soul. Thy body is by a sore disease consined to thy bed I should be sorry to say thou thy self wert so Thy soul which is thy self is I hope elsewhere That however it is content to take a share in thy sufferings soares above to the heaven of heavens and is prostrate before the throne of grace suing for mercy and forgivenesse beholding the face of thy glorious Mediator interceding for thee wo were to us if our souls were coffin'd up in our bosomes so as they could not stirre abroad nor goe any further then they are carried like some snail or tortoise that cannot move out of the shell Blessed be God he hath given us active spirits that can bestirre themselves whiles our bodies lie still that can be so quicke and nimble in their motions as that they can passe from earth to heaven ere our bodies can turn to the other side and how much shall we be wanting to our selves if we doe not make use of this spirituall agilitie sending up these spirits of ours from this dull clay of our
judgements of God denounced against sinners and laid home to the conscience hast thou not found thy heart pierced with them hast thou not shrunk inward and secretly thought How shall I decline this dreadful damnation When thou hast heard the sweet mercies of God laid forth to penitent sinners hath not thy heart silently said Oh that I had my share in them When thou hast heard the Name of Christ blasphemed hast thou not felt a secret horrour in thy bosom All these argue a true spiritual life within thee Motion is the most perfect discoverer of life He that can stir his limbs is surely not dead The feet of the soul are the Affections Hast thou not found in thy self an hate and detestation of that sin whereinto thou hast been miscarried Hast thou not found in thy self a true grief of heart for thy wretched indisposition to all good things Hast thou not found a secret love to and complacency in those whom thou hast thought truly godly and conscionable Without a true life of grace these things could never have been Are not thine eyes and hands many times lifted up in an imploration of mercy Canst thou deny that thou hast a true though but weak appetite to the means and further degrees of grace What can this be but that hunger and thirst after righteousnesse to which our Saviour hath pronounced blessednesse Discomfort not thy selfe too much son with the present disappearance of grace during the hour of thy temptation it is no otherwise with thee then with a â—ree in winter-season whose sap is run down to the root wherein there is no more shew of the life of vegetation by any buds or blossomes that it might put forth then if it were stark dead yet when the Sun returnes and sends forth his comfortable beames in the spring it burgens out afresh and bewraies that vitall juyce which lay long hidden in the earth No otherwise then with the hearth of some good huswife which is towards night swept up and hideth the fire under the heap of her ashes a stranger would think it were quite out here is no appearance of light or heat or smoak but by that time she hath stirred it up a little the bright gleeds shew themselves and are soon raised to a flame Stay but till the spring when the Sun of righteousnesse shall call up thy moisture into thy branches stay but till the morning when the fire of grace which was raked up in the ashes shall bee drawne forth and quickned and thou shalt find cause to say of thy heart as Iacob said of his hard lodging Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not Onely doe thou not neglecting the meanes wait patiently upon Gods leasure stay quietly upon the bank of this Bethesda till the Angel descend and move the water §. 11. Complaint of the insensibleness of the time and meanes of conversion I could gladly thou saist attend with patience upon God in this great and happy work of the excitation of grace were I but sure I had it could I be but perswaded of the truth of my conversion but it is my great misery that here I am at a sad and uncomfortable losse for I have been taught that every true convert can designe the time the place the meanes the manner of his conversion and can shew how neare hee was brought to the gates of death how close to the very verge of hell when God by a mighty and out-stretched arme snacht him away in his own sensible apprehension from the pit and suddenly rescued him from that damnation and put him into a new state of spirituall life and undefaisible salvation All which I cannot do not finding in my selfe any such sudden and vehement concussion and heart-breaking any such forcible and irresistible operation of Gods Spirit within me not being able to design the Sermon that converted me or those particular approaches that my soule made towards an hardly-recovered desperation My son it is not safe for any man to take upon him to set limits to the wayes of the Almighty or to prescribe certain rules to the proceedings of that infinite Wisedome That most free and all-wise agent will not be tyed to walk alwaies in one path but varies his courses according to the pleasure of his own will One man hee cals suddenly another by leasure one by a kinde of holy violence as hee did S. Paul another by sweet solicitations as Philip Nathaniel Andrew Peter Matthew and the rest of the Apostles One man he drawes to heaven with gracious invitations another he drives thither by a strong hand we have known those who having mispent their yonger times in notoriously lewd and debauched courses living as without God yea against him have been suddenly heart-stricken with some powerfull denunciation of judgement which hath so wrought upon them that it hath brought them within sight of hell who after long and deep humiliation have been raised up through Gods mercy to a comfortable sense of the divine favour and have proceeded to a very high degree of regeneration and lived and died Saints But this is not every mans case Those who having from their infancy been brought up in the nurture and feare of the Lord and from their youth have been trained up under a godly and conscionable Ministery where they have been continually plyed with the essectuall means of grace Precept upon precept line upon line here a little and there a little and have by an insensible conveyance received the gracious inoperations of the Spirit of God though not without many inward strifes with temptations and sad fits of humiliation for their particular failings framing them to all holy obedience these cannot expect to finde so sensible alterations in themselves As well may the child know when he was naturally born as these may know the instant of their spirituall regeneration and as well may they see the grasse to grow as they can perceive their insensible increase of grace It is enough that the child attaining to the use of reason now knowes that he was born and that when wee see the grasse higher then we left it we know that it is growne Let it then suffice thee my son to know that the thing is done though thou canst not define the time and manner of doing it Be not curious in matter of particular perceptions whiles thou mayst be assured of the reality truth of the grace wrought in thee Thou seest the skilfull Chirurgion when hee will make a fontinell in the body of his patient he can do it either by a sudden incision or by a leasurely corrasive both sort to one end and equally tend towards health trust God with thy self and let him alone with his own work what is it to thee which way he thinks best to bring about thy salvation § 12. Complaint of irresolution and uncertainâ—y in matter of our election answered All were safe thou saist if onely
I could be ascertained of mine election to life I could be patient so I might be sure But wretched man that I am here here I stickâ— I see others walk confidently and comfortably as if they were in heaven already whereas I droop under a continual diffidence raising unto my self daily new arguments of my distrust could my heart be setled in this assurance nothing could ever make me other then happie It is true my son that as all other mercies flow from this of our election so the securing of this one involves all other favours that concern the well-being of our souls It is no less true that our election may be assured else the holy Ghost had never laid so deep a charge upon us to do our utmost endeavour to ascertain it and we shall be much wanting to our selves if hearing so excellent a blessing may be attained by our diligence we shall slacken our hand and not stretch it forth to the height to reach that crown which is held out to us But withal it is true that if there were not difficulty more then ordinary in this work the Apostle had not so earnestly called for the utmost of our endeavour to effect it Shortly the truth is in all Christianity there is no path wherein there is more need of treading warily then in this on each side is danger and death Security lies on the one hand Presumption on the other the miscarriage either way is deadly Look about thee and see the miserable examples on both kindes some walk carelesly as if there were no heaven or if there were such a place yet as if it nothing concerned them their hearts are taken up with earth neither care nor wish to be other then this world can make them The god of this world hath blinded their mindes that believe not Some others walk proudly being vainly puft up with their own ungrounded imaginations as if they were already invested with their glory as if being rapt up with the chosen vessel into the third heaven they had there seen their names recoâ—â—ded in the book of life where as this is nothing but an illusion of that lying spirit who knows the way to keep them for ever out of heaven is to make them believe they are there It must be thy main care to walk even in a jusâ— equidistance from both these extremes and so to compose thy self that thon maist be resolute without presumption and careful without diffidence And first I advise thee to abandon those false Teachers whose trade is to improve their wits for the discomfort of souls in broaching the sad doctrines of uncertainty and distrust Be sure our Saviour had never bidden his disciples to reâ—joyce that their names are written in heaven if there had not been a particular enrolment of them or if that Record had been alterable or if the same Disciples could never have attained to the notice of such inscription Neither is this a mercy peculiar to his domestick followers alone but universal to all that shall believe through their word even thou and I are spoken to in them so sure as we have names we may know them registred in those eternal Records above Not that we should take an Acesius his Ladder and climb up into heaven and turn over the book of Gods secret counsels and read our selves designed to glory but that as we by experience see that we can by reflections see and read those Letters which directly we cannot So we may do here in this highest of spiritual objects The same Apostle that gives us our charge gives us withal our direction Wherefore saith he brethren give all diligence to make your calling and election sure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as divers copies read it by good works For if ye do these things ye shall never fall For so an entrance shall be ministred to you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Lo first our Calling then our Election not that we should begin with heaven and thence descend to the earth it is enough for the Angels on that celestial Ladder of Jacob to both descend and ascend but that we should from earth ascend to heaven from our Calling to our Election as knowing that God shews what he hath done for us above by that which he hath wrought in us here belowe Our Calling therefore first not outward and formal but inward and effectual The Spirit of God hath a voice and our soul hath an ear that voice of the Spirit speaks inwardly and effectually to the ear of the soul calling us out of the state of corrupt Nature into the state of Grace out of darkness into his marvellous light By thy calling therefore maist thou judge of thine election God never works in vain neither doth he â—ver cast away his saving graces what ever become of the common But whom he did predestinate them also he called and whom he called them he justified and whom he justified them also he glorified This doubtless thou saist is sure in it self but how is it assured to me Resp. That which the Apostle addes as it is read in some copies By good works if therein we also comprehend the acts of believing and repenting is a notable evidence of our election But not to urge that clause which though read in the vulgar is found wanting in our editions the clear words of the Text evince no less For if ye do these things ye shall never fall here is our negative certainty And for onr positive So an entrance shall be ministred unto you abundantly into the everlasting Kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Lo if we shall never fall if we shall undoubtedly enter into the Kingdom of Christ what possible scruple can be made of the blessed accomplishment of our election What then are these things which must be done by us Cast your eyes upon that precious chain of graces which you shall finde stringed up in the fore going words If you adde to your faith vertue and to vertue knowledge and to knowledge temperance and to temperance patience and to patience godliness and to godliness brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness charitie If you would know what God hath written concerning you in heaven look into your own bosom see what graces he hath there wrought in you Truth of grace saith the divine Apostle will make good the certainty of your election Not to instance in the rest of that heavenly combination do but single out the first and the last Faith and Charity For Faith how clear is that of our Saviour He that believeth in him that sent me hath everlasting-life and shall not come into condemnation but hath passed from death to life Lo what access can danger have into heaven All the peril is in the way now the believer is already passed into life This is the grace by which Christ dwells in our hearts and
in grace It is thine own fault if thou gettest not more strength Wherefore serves that heavenly food of the Word and Sacraments but to nourish thy soul to eternal life Do but eat and digest and thou canst not but grow stronger God will not be wanting to thee in an increase of grace if thou be not wanting to thy self He offers his Spirit to thee with the means it is thy sinful neglect if thou separate them Thou knowest in whose hands is the staff of bread pray that he who gives thee the food and the mouth would also give thee appetite digestion nourishment § 8. An incitement to more caution anâ— faster adherence tâ— God Thy grace is weak It concerns thee so much the more to be cautious in avoiding occasions of temptation He that carries brittle glasses is chary of them that they take not a knock whereas strong metal fears no danger He that hath but a small Rush-candle walks softly and keeps off every air Thou art weak thy God is strong Dost thou not see the feeble childe that findes hee cannot goe alone how fast he clings to the hand of his mother more trusting to her helpe then his owne strength Doe thou so to thy God and say with the blessed Psalmist Hold up my goings in thy pathes that my footsteps slip not Hold thou mee up and I shall bee safe Vphold me according to thy Word that I may live and let me not bee ashamed of my hopâ—â— Peter was a bold man that durst step forth and set his foot upon the liquid face of the waters but he that ventured to walk there upon the strength of his faith when hee felt the stiffe winde and saw the great billow began to sinke in his weaknesse but no sooner had Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him then he takes courage and walks now with the same confidence upon the Sea that hee wont to walk on the Lâ—nd Together with a check hee receives more supportation from Christ then his owne legges could afford him Feare no miscarriage through thine own weaknesse whiles thou art held up by thatâ— strong helper Comforts against Infamy and Disgrace § 1. Comforts from like sufferingsâ— of the holiest yea of Christ himself NExt to our body and soul is the care of our reputation which whoso hath lost is no better then civilly dead Thou sufferest under a publike infamy I do not ask how justly He was a wise man that said It was fit for every good man to fear even a false reproach A good name is no less wounded for the time with that then with a just crimination This is a sore evil my son and such as against which there is no preservative and for which there is hardly any remedy Innocence it self is no antidote against evil tongues Neither greatness nor sanctity can secure any man from unjust calumny Might that be any ease to thy heart I could tell thee of the greatest of Kings and holiest of Saints that have grievously complained of this mischief and yet were not able to help themâ— selves Thou hast the company of the best that ever the earth bore if that may be any mitigation of thy misery Yea what do I speak of sinful men whose greatest purity might be blurred with some imperfections Look upon the Lord of life the eternal Son of the ever-living God God cloathed in flesh and see whether any other were his lot whiles he sojourned in this Region of mortality Dost thou not heare him for his gracious sociablenesse branded as a man gluttonous a Wine-bibber a friend of Publicanes and Sinners Dost thou not heare him for his powerfull and mercifull cure of Demoniacks blazoned for a fellow that casts out Devils through Beelzebub the Prince of the Devils Dost thou not heare him sclandred to death for treason against Caesar and blasphemy against God Dost thou not heare the multitude say Hee is madd and hath a Devil Dost thou not heare him after his death charged with Imposture And can there bee any worse names then Glutton Dtunkard Conjurer Traytor Blasphemer Mad man Demoniack Impostor Who now can henceforth thinke much to bee sclandered with meaner crimes when hee heares the most holy Sonne of God in whose mouth was no guile in whom the Prince of this world could finde nothing laden with so hainous calumniations § 1. Comfort of our recourse to God Thou art smitten with a foule tongue I marvell not if it goe deep into thy soule That man gave an high praise to his sword that said it was sharper then sclander And if a rasour bee yet sharper such did David finde the Edomites tongue And if these weaâ—pons reach not yet farre enough he found both spears and arrows in the mouthes of his traducers Lo thou art but in the same case with the man after Gods own heart What shouldst thou do but for Davids complaint make use of Davids remedy I will cry unto God most high unto God that performeth all things for me He shall send from heaven and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up God shall send forth his mercy and his truth Do by thy slander as Hezekiah did by the railing lines of Rabshakâ—h spread them before the Lord and leave thy quarrel in the just hands of that great arbiter of heaven and earth who will be sure in his good time to revenge thy wrong and to clear thine innocence and will requite thee good for these causless curses § 3. Comfort from the clearness of our conscience In the mean while thou sayst I stand blemished with an odious aspersion my name passes thorow many a foul mouth Thou hearest my son what some others say but what dost thou hear from the bird in thy bosom If thy conscience acquit thee and pronounce thee guiltless obdure thy fore-head against all the spight of malice What is ill fame but a little corrupted unsavoury breath Do but turn away thine ear that thou receive it not and what art thou the worse Oh thy weakness if thou suffer thy self to be blown over by the meer air of some putrified lungs which if thou doe but a little decline by shifting thy foot will soon vanish § 4. Comfort from the improvement of our reason Thou art under ill tongues This is an evill proper onely to man Other creatures are no lesse subject to disease to death to outward violence then hee but none else can bee obnoxious to a detraction sith none other is capable of speech whereout a sclander can bee formed they have their severall sounds and notes of expression whereby they can signifie their dislike and anger but onely man can cloathe his angry thoughts with words of offence so as that faculty which was given him for an advanâ—tage is depraved to a further mischiefe But the same liberall hand of his Creatour hath also indued him with a property of reason which
death another trembles to expect it one beggs for life another will sell it dearer here one would rescue one life and loseth two there another would hide himself where he findes a merciless death here lies one bleeding and groaning and gasping parting with his soul in extremity of anguish there another of stronger spirits kills and dies at once here one wrings her hands and tears her hair and seeks for some instrument of a self-inflicted death rather then yeeld her chaste body to the lust of a bloody ravisher there another clings inseparably to a dear husband and will rather take part of the murtherers sword then let go her last embraces here one tortured for the discovery of hid treasure there another dying upon the rack out of jealousie Oh that one man one Christian should be so bloodily cruel to another Oh that he who bears the image of the merciful God should thus turn fiend to his own flesh and blood These are terrible things my son and worthy of our bitterest lamentations and just fears I love the speculation of Seneca's resolutely-wise man that could look upon the glittering sword of an executioner with erected and undazeled eyes and that makes it no matter of difference whether his soul pass out at his mouth or at his throat but I should more admire the practice whiles we carry this clay about us nature cannot but in the holiest men shrink in at the sight and sense of these tyrannous and tragical acts of death Yet even these are the due revenges of the Almighties punitive justice so provoked by our sins as that it may not take up with an easier judgement Dost thou not see it ordinary with our Physitians when they finde the body highly distempered and the blood foul and inflamed to order the opening of a vein and the drawing out of so many ounces as may leave the rest meet for correction Why art thou over-troubled to see the great Physitian of the world take this course with sinful mankinde Certainly had not this great Body by mis dieting and wilful disorder contracted these spiritual diseases under which we languish had it not impured the blood that runs in these common veins with riot and surfets we had never been so miserable as to see these torrents of Christian blood running down our chanels Now yet as it is could we bewail and abandon our former wickedness we might live in hope that at the last this deadly issue might stop and dry up and that there might be yet left a possibility of a blessed recovery § 7. The woful miseries of Pestilence allaid by consideration of the hand that smites us Thou art confounded with grief to see the pestilence raging in our streets in so frequent a mortality as breeds a question concerning the number of the living and the dead That which is wont to abate other miseries heightens this The company of participants It was certainly a very hard and sad option that God gave to King David after his sin of numbring bring the people Chuse thee whether seven yeers famine shall come unto thee in thy Land or three moneths flight before thine enemies or three days pestilence We may believe the good King when we hear him say I am in a great strait Doubtless so he was but his wise resolutions have soon brought him out Let us fall now into the hand of the Lord for his mercies are great and let me not fall into the hand of man He that was to send these evils knew their value and the difference of their malignity yet he opposes three days pestilence to seven yeers famine and three months vanquishment so much oddes he knew there was betwixt the dull activity of man and the quick dispatch of an Angel It was a favour that the Angel of death who in one night destroyed an hundred fourscore and five thousand Assyrians should in three daies cut off but seventy thousand Israelites It was a great mercy that it was no worse We read of one City shall I call it or Region of Cayro wherein eighteen hundred thousand were swept away in one years pestilence enow one would think to have peopled the whole earth and in our own Chronicles of so generall a mortality that the living were hardly sufficient to bury the dead These are dreadfull demonstrations of Gods heavy displeasure but yet there is this alleviation of our misery that we suffer more immediatly from an holy just mercifull God The Kingly Prophet had never made that distinction in his wofull choyce if he had not known a notable difference betwixt the sword of an Angell and an enemy betwixt Gods more direct and immediate infliction and that which is derived to us through the malice of men It was but a poor consolation that is given by a victorious enemy to dying Lausus in the Poet Comfort thy selfe in thy death with this that thou fallest by the hand of great Aeneas but surely we have just reason to â—aise comfort to our souls when the pains of a pestilentiall death compasse us about from the thought and intuition of that holy and gracious hand under which we suffer so as we can say with good Eli It is the Lord. It is not amisse that we call those marks of deadly infection Gods Tokens such sure they are and ought therefore to call up our eyes and hearts to that Almighty power that sends them with the faithfull resolution of holy Iob Though thou kill me yet will I trust in thee It is none of the least miseries of contagious sicknesse that it bars us from the comfortable society and attendance of friends or if otherwise repaies their love and kinde visitation with death Be not dismaid my son with this sad solitude thou hast company with thee whom no infection can indanger or exclude there is an invisible friend that will be sure to stick by thee so much more closely by how much thou art more avoided by neighbours and will make all thy bed in thy sickness and supply thee with those cordialls which thou shouldst in vain expect from earthly visitants Indeed justly doe we style this The sicknesse eminently grievous both for the deadlinesse and generality of the dispersion yet there is a remedy that can both cure and conâ—ine it Let but every man look well to the plague of his own heart and the Land is healed Can we with David but see the Angell that smites us and erect an Altar and offer to God the sacrifices of our praiers penitence obedience we shall hear him say It is enough The time was and that time may not be forgotten when in the dayes of our late Soveraigne our Mother City was almost desolated with this mortall infection When thousands fell at our side and ten thousands at our right hand upon the publique humiliation of our soules the mercy of the Almighty was pleased to command that raging disease in the height of its fury
aim we shut one eye as rather an hinderance to an accurate information yet for ordinary use so do we esteem each of these lights that there is no wise man but would rather lose a limb then an eye Although I could tell thee of a certain man not less religious then witty who when his friends bewailed the loss of one of his eyes askt them Whether they wept for the eye which he had lost or the eye which remained Weep rather said he for the enemy that stays behinde then for the enemy that is gone Lo this man lookt upon his eyes with eyes different from other mens he saw them as enemies which others see as officious servants as good friends as dear favourites Indeed they are any or all of these according as they are used good servants if they go faithfully on the errands we send them and return us true intelligence Good friends if they advise and invite us to holy thoughts enemies if they suggest and allure us to evil If thine eyes have been employed in these evil offices to thy soul God hath done that for thee which he hath in a figurative sense enjoyned thee to do to thy self If thy right eye offend thee pluck it out and cast it from thee for it is better for thee that one of thy members should perish and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell § 5. Freedom from temptations by the eyes and from sorrows Thou hast lost thine eyes and together with them much earthly contentment But withal thou art hereby freed of many temptations those eyes were the in-lets of sin yea not onely the meer passages by which it entred but busie agents in the admission of it the very Pandars of lust for the debauching of the soul. How many thousands are there who on their death-beds upon the sad recalling of their guilty thoughts have wished they had been born blinde So as if now thou have less joy thou shalt sin less neither shall any vain objects call away thy thoughts from the serious and sad meditation of spiritual things Before it was no otherwise with thee then the Prophet Jeremich reports it to have been with the Jews That death is come up by the windows So it was with our great Grand-mother Eve she saw the tree was pleasant to the eyes and thereupon took of the fruit So it hath been ever since with all the fruit of her womb both in the old and later world The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose In so much as not filthy lusts onely but even adulteries take up their lodgings in the eye there the blessed Apostle findes them Having eyes saith he full of adultery and that can not cease from sin Whiles therefore thine heart walked after thine eyes as Job speaks it could do no other but carry thee down to the chambers of death thou art now delivered from that danger of so deadly a misguidance Hath not the loss of thine eyes withal freed thee of a world of sorrows The old word is What the eye views not the heart â—ues not Hadst thou but seen what others were forced to behold those fearful conflagrations those piles of murdered carcases those streams of Christian blood those savage violences those merciless rapines those sacrilegious outrages thine heart could not chuse but bleed within thee Now thou art affected with them onely aloof off as receiving them by the imperfect intelligence of thine ear from the unfeeling relation of others §. 6. The cheerfulness of some blind men Thine eies are lost what need thy heart to goe with them I have known a blinde man more chearfull then I could be with both mine eies Old Isaac was dark-sighted when he gave the blessing contrary to his own intentions to his sonne Jacob yet it seems he lived fourty yeers after and could be pleased then to have good chear made him with wine and vâ—nison our life doth not lye in our eyes The Spirit of man is that which upholds his infirmities Labour to raise that to a chearfull disposition even in thy bodily darknesse there shall bee light and joy to thy soul. §. 7. The supply which God gives in other faculties Hath God taken away thine eyes But hath he not given thee an abundant supply in other faculties Are not thine inward senses the more quick thy memory stronger thy phantasie more active thy understanding more apprehensive The wonders that we have heard and read of blinde mens memories were not easie to beleeve if it were not obvious to conceive that the removall of all distractions gives them an opportunity both of a carefull reposition of all desired objects and of a sure fixednesse of them where they are laid Hence have we seen it come to passe that some blinde men have attained to those perfections which their eies could never have feoffed them in It is very memorable that our Ecclesiasticall Story reports of Didymus of Alexandria who being blinde from his infancy through his prayers diligent indeavours reacht unto such an high pitch of knowledge in Logick Geometry Arithmetick Astronomy as was admired by the learned Masters of those Arts and for his rare insight into Divinity was by great Athanasius approved to be the Doctor of the Chaire in that famous Church What need we doubt of this truth when our own times have so cleerly seconded it having yeelded divers worthy Divines Gods Seers bereaved of bodily eyes amongst the rest there was one in my time very eminent in the University of Cambridge whom I had occasion to dispute with for his degree of great skill both in Tongues and Arts and of singular acutenesse of judgement It is somewhat strange that Suidas reports of Neoclldes that being a blinde man he could steal more cunningly then any that had use of eyes Sure I may say boldly of our Fisher that hee was more dextrous in picking the locks of difficult Authors and fetching forth the reasures of their hidden senses then those that had the sharpest eyes about him in so much as it was noted those were singular Proficients which imployed themselves in reading to him If they read Books to him he read Lectures the while to them and still taught more then he learned As for the other outward senses they are commonly more exquisite in the blinde We read of some who have been of so accurate a touch that by their very feeling they could distinguish betwixt black and white And for the eare as our Philosophers observe that sounds are sweeter to the blind then to the sighted so also that they are more curiously judged of by them the vertue of both those senses being now contracted into one But the most perfect recompence of these bodily eyes is in the exaltation of our spirituall so much more enlightned towards the beatisicall
carried them thus corrected in their bosome for coolnesse and for the pleasure of their smoothnesse The sting of death is sinne Hee may hisse and winde about us but he cannot hurt us when that sting is pulled out Look up O thou beleeving soul to thy blessed Saviour who hath pluckt out this sting of death and happily triumphs over it both for himself and thee O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory §. 8. Death is but aparting to meet again Thy soul and body old companions are loth to part Why man it is but the forbearing their wonted society for a while they doe but take leave of each other till they meet againe in the day of Resurrection and in the mean time they are both safe and the better part happy It is commendable in the Jews otherwise the worst of men that they call their grave Beth Chajim the house of the living and when they return from the buriall of their neighbours they pluck up the grasse and cast it into the aire with those words of the Psalmist They shall flourish and put forth as the grasse upon the earth Did wee not beleeve a Resurrection of the one part and a re-uniting of the other wee had reason to be utterly daunted with the thought of a dissolution now wee have no cause to bee dismayed with a little intermission Is it an Heathen man or a Christian such I wish he had been whom I hear say The death which wee so fear and flee from doth but respite life for a while doth not take it away the day will come which shall restore us to the light again Settle thy soul my sonne in this assurance and thou canst not bee discomforted with a necessary parting § 9. Death is but a sleep Thou art afraid of death When thou art weary of thy dayes labour art thou afraid of rest Hear what thy Saviour who is the Lord of life esteems of death Iohn 11. 11. Our friend Lazarus sleepeth And of Jairus his daughter The maid is not dead but sleepeth Neither useth the Spirit of God any other language concerning his servants under the Old Testament Now shall I sleep in the dust saith holy Job And of David When thy days be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers Nor yet under the New For this cause many are weak and sickly among you and many sleep saith the Apostle Lo the Philosophers of old were wont to call sleep the brother of death but God says death is no other then sleep it self A sleep both sure and sweet When thou liest down at night to thy repose thou canst not be so certain to awake again in the morning as when thou layest thy self down in death thou art sure to wake in the morning of the Resurrection Out of this bodily sleep thou mayst be affrightedly startled with some noises of sudden horrour with some fearful dreams with tumults or alarms of War but here thou shalt rest quietly in the place of silence free from all inward and outward disturbances whiles in the mean time thy soul shall see none but visions of joy and blessedness But Oh the sweet and heavenly expression of our last rest and the issue of our happie resuscitation which our gracious Apostle hath laid forth for the consolation of his mournful Thessalonions For if we believe saith he that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him Lo our belief is antidote enough against the worst of death And why are we troubled with death when we believe that Jesus died And what a triumph is this over death that the same Jesus who died rose again And what a comfort it is that the same Jesus who arose shall both come again and bring all his with him in glory And lastly what a strong Cordial is this to all good hearts that all those which die well do sleep in Jesus Thou thoughtst perhaps of sleeping in the bed of the grave and there indeed is rest but he tells thee of sleeping in the bosome of Jesus and there is immortality and blessedness Oh blessed Jesu in thy presence is the fulness of joy and at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore Who would desire to walk in the world when he may sleep with Jesus § 10. Death sweetned to us by Christ. Thou fearest death It is much on what terms and in what form death presents himself to thee If as an enemy as that is somewhere his style the last enemy death thy unpreparation shall make him dreadful thy readiness and fortitude shall take off his terrour If as a messenger of God to fetch thee to happiness what reason hast thou to be afraid of thine own bliss It is one thing what death is in himself a privation of life as such Nature cannot chuse but abhor him Another thing what he is by Christ made unto us an introduction to life an harbinger to glory Why would the Lord of Life have yeelded unto death and by yeelding vanquisht him but that he might alter and sweeten Death to us and of a fierce Tyrant make him a Friend and Benefactor And if we look upon him thus changed thus reconciled how can we chuse but bid him welcome § 11. The painfulness of Christs â—eath Thou art afraid of the pangs of death There are those that have died without any great sense of pain some we have known to have yeelded up their souls without so much as a groan And how knowest thou my son what measure God hath allotted to thee Our death is a Sea-voyage so the Apostle I desire to lanch forth wherein some finde a rough and tempestuous passage others calm and smoothe such thine may prove so as thy dissolution may be more easie then a fit of thy sickness But if thy God have determined otherwise Look unto Jesus the Authour and Finisher of our faith the Son of God the Lord of glory see with what agonies he conflicted what torments he endured in his death for thee Look upon his bloody sweat his bleeding temples his furrowed back his nailed hands and feet his racked joynts his pierced side Hear his strong cries consider the shame the pain the câ—rse of the Cross which he underwent for thy sake Say whether thy sufferings can be comparable to his He is a cowardly and unworthy Souldier that follows his General sighing Lo these are the steps wherein thy God and Saviour hath trod before thee Walk on courageously in this deep and bloody way after a few paces thou shalt overtake him in glory For if we suffer with him we shall also reign together with him §. 12. The vanity and miseries of life Thou shrinkest at the thought of death Is it not for that thou hast over-valued life and made thy home on earth Delicate persons that have pampered themselves at home are loth to stir abâ—â—ad especially