Selected quad for the lemma: world_n
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B04461
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Phármaka ouranóthen, the shadow of the tree of life: Or A discourse of the divine institution and most effectual application of medicinal remedies. In order to the preservation, and restauration of health. / By J.M.
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Marlow, John, 1648-1695.
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1673
(1673)
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Wing M45; ESTC R214747
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33,243
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133
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man may dye in a time when God forbids and yet dye when God permits and live out all Gods time who wickedly shortens his own The murmuring Isralites were buried in the wilderness notwithstanding their promise of seeing Canaan their infidelity anticipated their funerals The wages of sin is death and may as justly be payd in the morning as in the evening of our lives Indeed temperance doth not alwayes prove an Antidot against the Pestilence nor Abstinence a preservative against Famin nor innocence a security from the stroke of injustice but they are likely meanes The flagitious impiety of the old world sent a Deluge which possibly might have been prevented had their repentance been as visible as the Ninevites was who were repreived from execution after the sentence of death had passed upon them whereby omnipotence did demonstrate that he hath reserved a power in his own hands to length then or shorten the lives of men as he pleaseth and to make the sands in the glass of time run swift or slow according to his pleasure it is very observable how the Patriarks out-lived all their titles of consanguinity yet none lived to a compleat thousand years some indeed give this reason for it be cause God would make good his threatning to Adam that in the day he eat he should dye the death and so they would compute a day for a thousand years as St. Peter speaks but this is trifling and foolish A more probable reason may be to declare to the world the vanity of life when those who lived longest could not arrive to such a period which in comparison of Gods eternity is but a day CHAP. XXXVII SIn brought death at first and as sin increased death came near er by 500 years presently after the flood man sinned still and built Castles in the air and then it is reduced to 200 years and by Moses time half that remnant is taken away and threescore and ten is the period had God gone on still to shorten our dayes as we increased in sin our life by this time had not been a day long and therefore he no longer destroys the kind but punisheth the individual and sets it down for a rule viz. evil shall slay the wicked So that not one in 500 arrive at that state which they might attain unto by the course of nature but end their dayes in sin and folly and in a period appointed in anger we may easily observe how the blessing of health is contradicted by an impious life for from surfeting proceeds disolution of members relaxation of nervs fractures of bones inflamation of the liver crudities of the stomach which Solomon sums up besides the uncleanly consequences of lust which hunt for the pretious life and like a dart strike through the liver and the casual deaths caused by Jealousies and animosities thus providence intervenes and suffers not nature to take its course by reason of impieties CHAP. XXXVIII IT is observable that not a Son dyed a natural death before the Father for three thousand years untill Terahs time who was the first that taught the people to make Images of clay and corrupted the Worship of God his son Haron was snatched away by death before him The Jewish Rabbins do observe that during the standing of the second Temple there were 300 high priests but in the time of the first but 18 which stood within 10 years as long as the first which may be much attributed to their impieties It is thought by some of the antients that Balaam's wish to dye the death of the righteous was not only that he might be sav'd at last but also seeing what judgments God had purposed to bring upon the Moabites that he might come to his grave in a good old age with his father in peace we live by the word of blessing out of the mouth of God every command if observ'd like food and physick tends to the length of our natural as well as spiritual lives CHAP. XXXIX THe fear of God is the best Antidote against sickness as it is a direct enemy to sin which brought in death If sin destroy soul and body why should not piety preserve both If the sting of conscience torment body as well as soul doubtless peace of conscience releives both Why may not the soul as well conduce to the prolongation of the body as to the immortality of it Why may not the body have the perfection of life viz. health from the soul as life it self CHAP. XL. THe circumstantial actions of piety are influential towards the lengthening the lives of men as the sweet sleeps of temperate persons and their freedome from violent and inraged passions and the admirable contentment that dwells in a holy conscience these must necessarily conduce to a healthfull life Dying to sin is an excellent means to preserve life if men would try the experiment It is observed that the male heir of Ely's family dyed as soon as born for many generations according to a divine threatning until they set themselves unto a serious humiliation and solemn repentance We live not at an adventure but the manner and moments of our death come under a divine appointment the Jews could not prejudice our Saviours life untill his hour was come viz. that hour which by a special providence was appointed to be his last hour although St. Paul was in deaths often yet he dyed not before providence thought meet it is appointed to men once to dye that is it is once appointed to men to dye CHAP. XLI A Man may shorten his own dayes but he cannot shorten a Divine determination the date of Hezekia's life was lengthened with respect to himself but not in respect of Divine purpose that is the same be our time long or short CHAP. XLII Object But if Piety doe so prevaile with God to lengthen our lives how comes it to pass that many good and holy men dye whilst in the prime of their years Answer Those that reason thus doe not consider that the righteous may be taken away from the evil to come and by their deaths God may serve other ends of his Providence and yet make his promise good by recompensing Temporal with Eternal life Although God hath promised long life to them that obey yet he never promised that he would not borrow our natural lives as it were and make a glorious exchange CHAP. XLIII DEath may sometimes be a great mercy and life a great misery It is observed that from Adam to to the Flood by the Patriarks were eleven Generations but by Cains line eight they being shorter lived because God intending to bring a flood upon the World rescued the Elect from the fatall Deluge And the same reason is generally given in case Infants dye before the use of reason for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven Although Abijah came to his grave whilst young yet ther was some good thing found in him towards the Lord God of Israel
don by a skillfull Artist the rectifying of one spring may disorder the regular motion of the whole How many persons destroy themselves by imprudence in the choyce of Physitians more dying of soft places in their heads hen ulcers in their lungs and multitudes digging their graves with their thick sculls CHAP. XXII THe generallity of people if a person be but nick-named Doctor and took his degree in a drinking Schoole ascendit gradum sine gradibus It may be one who did his exercise in Fees and will be a Doctor although he wants the participle Doctus spels Physick with an F. and Chirurgion with an S. such a one shall serve turn Some called Doctors are as unskilfull in Physick as the Athenians were in Religion they dedicate their medicines to an unknown disease People had better fall into the hands of the common Executioner for then they will be put out out of their pain then into the hands of Illiterate Doctors or confident Quacks He deserves to be kill'd that runs against the point of a sword in the hand of a madman and little better are many who pretend to secrets or rare arcana's and kill men without making any noise like white Gunpowder that none shall know who hurt them Pretend privacy in the preparations of their medicines that the world may not see what poyson'd the Patient These imitate Evah or rather the Serpent pretend to give that which shall be pleasant to the tast and good for food and Physick but in the end beguile men of their health and few dayes after the Patient dyeth the death Like the Lyon that pretends to pull the thorne out of the Lambs foot and devours him like Gipsies tell you your fortune and pick your pockets These waterologers or rather piss Prophets will make a man believe they know every thing by the water even how many staires a man falls down when he bruises himself these are like mouse-traps when a man is in their hands their is no getting out but with the loss of life si populus vult decipi decipiatur CHAP. XXIII SOme goe altogether by books which are only a collection of conjectural experiments and never consider Age Constitution Sex Time of the disease never regard the rational intentions of cure lop the branches of the disease but never pluck up the root nor remove the cause but cry they are safe if they doe no good they can doe no hurt whereas they doe much hurt in omitting more effectual remedies while they use weak and insignificant ones Some blind Bayards there are who pretend to three or four universal remedies to cure all distempers and these will sometimes cure the disease and kill the Patient and like some Gardners pluck up the root of the plants and sow the seeds against the next year at the same time and snuff the candle so rashly as to put it quite out but so long as none but themselves know what the thing was that made the man breath his last all is well enough Whereas a learned experienced Physitian cares not who views his prescripts upon the file supposing the Patient dye it being nothing but what was safe what he would have taken himself and what would have certainly recovered the Patient if God would have had it so Some are so confident they will tell you they will be hanged if they don't cure you they can cure the Gout when the cause is removed and the Dropsie proceeding from neither wind nor water and pains in the head if not distemper'd in body and restore any man to health although never so crooked These will tell a woman she is with child when the course of nature hath been stopt half a year and no ill symtomes and that a mans liver grows too much on his right side and that there is water near his heart and such like things which every fool may doe if he please But none are so confident to talk and undertake as those that have least judgement it is therefore a great indiscretion in the vulgar to condemn the most learned and most experienced Physitians because they doe not preach over the water and enter into impertinent discourses with people as ignorant pretenders to Physick are apt to doe He that saith least and doth most is the best Physitian His business is to cure the Patients body not to inform his judgement to procure health not knowledge in Physick vulgar apprehensions are not capable of understanding either the terms or the notions of Physick Dogs may indeed lick mens sores and make them whole with their tongues Physitians must cure by reason and experience CHAP. XXIV INdeed illiterat Practitioners wil somtimes let fly such strange words that with a small addition being taken in the pap of an apple would give a man a purge that must needs be a simple composition in the cure of my distemper that hath more of words then deeds for its ingredients But frequently it happens that amongst such Doctors the most corrosive venemous Chimical medicine hath nothing to kill it but fasting spittle or a smooth tongue Beware of that medicine whose best corrective is a poyson though guilded over with never so plausible pretences their spirits generally prove evil spirits and such as cannot be cast out by natural means their powders are worse then Gunpowder for they blow up many good subjects and with so much privacy that none but he that did it can tell who hurt them CHAP. XXV ONe of these desperadoes may possibly be more talked on and admired by the vulgar then an able Physitian because never used but in desperate cases wherein they either kill or cure now if the Patient dye they are not blamed as others are because it is nothing but what was expected namely that the Patient should dye being given over by all but if the Patient recover then their skill is proclaimed but what a madness is it to run a sword in a mans bowels to cure him of an impostume because one was once cured so by accident It is no wonder to see such mens prodigious actions admired for doe we not gaze more upon a blazing Comet that infects the Aire and poysons men with pestilential vapours then on the regular motions of the glorious Sun whose cherishing beams yield light and health to humane nature Who hath more followers then the Prince of Darkness CHAP. XXVI GIve me the Physitian whose Prescriptions are safe and yet effectual who imitates nature and allures her into a healthful state and by plausible insinuations opens obstructions evacuates superfluities corrects crudities checks violent fermentations and in a mild and friendly way helps her to shake hands with the disease I desire no acquaintance with those malignant remedies who assault the disease with such imprudent rashness that they destroy the disease and kill the patient as Sampson did his enemies and himself It is good to use chimical remedies very warily a child is in more danger of doing mischief