JOHN DONNE

DEVOTIONS

UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS

_Together with_

DEATH'S DUEL

ANN ARBOR PAPERBACKS

_The University of Michigan Press_

First edition as an

ANN ARBOR PAPERBACK 1959

Published in the United States of America by the University of Michiganand simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Ambassador Books, Ltd. 

Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE v

DEVOTIONS 1

DEATH'S DUEL 161

_THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE_

(_Taken from the life by Izaak Walton_). 

Master John Donne was born in London, in the year 1573, of good andvirtuous parents: and, though his own learning and other multipliedmerits may justly appear sufficient to dignify both himself and hisposterity, yet the reader may be pleased to know that his father wasmasculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient family in Wales, where many of his name now live, that deserve and have great reputationin that country. 

By his mother he was descended of the family of the famous and learnedSir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chancellor of England: as also, from thatworthy and laborious Judge Rastall, who left posterity the vast Statutesof the Law of this nation most exactly abridged. 

He had his first breeding in his father's house, where a private tutorhad the care of him, until the tenth year of his age; and, in hiseleventh year, was sent to the University of Oxford, having at that timea good command both of the French and Latin tongue. This, and some otherof his remarkable abilities, made one then give this censure of him:That this age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula; of whom storysays, that he was rather born than made wise by study. 

There he remained for some years in Hart Hall, having, for theadvancement of his studies, tutors of several sciences to attend andinstruct him, till time made him capable, and his learning expressed inpublic exercises, declared him worthy, to receive his first degree inthe schools, which he forbore by advice from his friends, who, being fortheir religion of the Romish persuasion, were conscionably averse tosome parts of the oath that is always tendered at those times, and notto be refused by those that expect the titulary honour of their studies. 

About the fourteenth year of his age he was transplanted from Oxford toCambridge, where, that he might receive nourishment from both soils, hestaid till his seventeenth year; all which time he was a most laboriousstudent, often changing his studies, but endeavouring to take no degree, for the reasons formerly mentioned. 

About the seventeenth year of his age he was removed to London, and thenadmitted into Lincoln's Inn, with an intent to study the law, where hegave great testimonies of his wit, his learning, and of his improvementin that profession; which never served him for other use than anornament and self-satisfaction. 

His father died before his admission into this society; and, being amerchant, left him his portion in money. (It was £3, 000. ) His mother, and those to whose care he was committed, were watchful to improve hisknowledge, and to that end appointed him tutors both in the mathematics, and in all the other liberal sciences, to attend him. But, with thesearts, they were advised to instil into him particular principles of theRomish Church; of which those tutors professed, though secretly, themselves to be members. 

They had almost obliged him to their faith; having for their advantage, besides many opportunities, the example of his dear and pious parents, which was a most powerful persuasion, and did work much upon him, as heprofesseth in his preface to his "Pseudo-Martyr, " a book of which thereader shall have some account in what follows. 

He was now entered into the eighteenth year of his age; and at that timehad betrothed himself to no religion that might give him any otherdenomination than a Christian. And reason and piety had both persuadedhim that there could be no such sin as schism, if an adherence to somevisible Church were not necessary. 

About the nineteenth year of his age, he, being then unresolved whatreligion to adhere to, and considering how much it concerned his soul tochoose the most orthodox, did therefore, --though his youth and healthpromised him a long life--to rectify all scruples that might concernthat, presently lay aside all study of the law, and of all othersciences that might give him a denomination; and began seriously tosurvey and consider the body of Divinity, as it was then controvertedbetwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church. And, as God's blessedSpirit did then awaken him to the search, and in that industrydid never forsake him--they be his own words (in his preface to"Pseudo-Martyr")--so he calls the same Holy Spirit to witness thisprotestation; that in that disquisition and search he proceeded withhumility and diffidence in himself; and by that which he took to be thesafest way; namely, frequent prayers, and an indifferent affection toboth parties; and, indeed, Truth had too much light about her to be hidfrom so sharp an inquirer; and he had too much ingenuity not toacknowledge he had found her. 

Being to undertake this search, he believed the Cardinal Bellarmine tobe the best defender of the Roman cause, and therefore betook himself tothe examination of his reasons. The cause was weighty, and wilful delayshad been inexcusable both towards God and his own conscience: hetherefore proceeded in this search with all moderate haste, and aboutthe twentieth year of his age did show the then Dean ofGloucester--whose name my memory hath now lost--all the Cardinal's worksmarked with many weighty observations under his own hand; which workswere bequeathed by him, at his death, as a legacy to a most dear friend. 

About a year following he resolved to travel: and the Earl of Essexgoing first to Cales, and after the Island voyages, the first anno 1596, the second 1597, he took the advantage of those opportunities, waitedupon his Lordship, and was an eye-witness of those happy and unhappyemployments. 

But he returned not back into England till he had staid some years, first in Italy and then in Spain, where he made many useful observationsof those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returnedperfect in their languages. 

The time that he spent in Spain was, at his first going into Italy, designed for travelling to the Holy Land, and for viewing Jerusalem andthe Sepulchre of our Saviour. But at his being in the furthest parts ofItaly, the disappointment of company, or of a safe convoy, or theuncertainty of returns of money into those remote parts, denied himthat happiness, which he did often occasionally mention with adeploration. 

Not long after his return into England, that exemplary pattern ofgravity and wisdom, the Lord Ellesmere, then Keeper of the Great Seal, the Lord Chancellor of England, taking notice of his learning, languages, and other abilities, and much affecting his person andbehaviour, took him to be his chief secretary; supposing and intendingit to be an introduction to some more weighty employment in the State;for which, his Lordship did often protest, he thought him very fit. 

Nor did his Lordship, in this time of Master Donne's attendance uponhim, account him to be so much his servant as to forget he was hisfriend; and, to testify it, did always use him with much courtesy, appointing him a place at his own table, to which he esteemed hiscompany and discourse to be a great ornament. 

He continued that employment for the space of five years, being dailyuseful, and not mercenary to his friend. During which time he--I darenot say unhappily--fell into such a liking, as, --with herapprobation, --increased into a love, with a young gentlewoman that livedin that family, who was niece to the Lady Ellesmere, and daughter to SirGeorge More, then Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower. 

Sir George had some intimation of it, and, knowing prevention to be agreat part of wisdom, did therefore remove her with much haste from thatto his own house at Lothesley, in the County of Surrey; but too late, byreason of some faithful promises which were so interchangeably passed, as never to be violated by either party. 

These promises were only known to themselves; and the friends of bothparties used much diligence, and many arguments, to kill or cool theiraffections to each other; but in vain, for love is a flattering mischiefthat hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that toooften prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion thatcarries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds movefeathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment ofwhat we desire. And such an industry did, notwithstanding muchwatchfulness against it, bring them secretly together, --I forbear totell the manner how, --and at last to a marriage too, without theallowance of those friends whose approbation always was, and ever willbe necessary, to make even a virtuous love become lawful. 

And that the knowledge of their marriage might not fall, like anunexpected tempest, on those that were unwilling to have it so; and thatpre-apprehensions might make it the less enormous when it was known, itwas purposely whispered into the ears of many that it was so, yet bynone that could affirm it. But, to put a period to the jealousies of SirGeorge--doubt often begetting more restless thoughts than the certainknowledge of what we fear--the news was, in favour to Mr. Donne, andwith his allowance, made known to Sir George, by his honourable friendand neighbour Henry, Earl of Northumberland; but it was to Sir George soimmeasurably unwelcome, and so transported him that, as though hispassion of anger and inconsideration might exceed theirs of love anderror, he presently engaged his sister, the Lady Ellesmere, to join withhim to procure her lord to discharge Mr. Donne of the place he heldunder his Lordship. This request was followed with violence; and thoughSir George were remembered that errors might be over punished, anddesired therefore to forbear till second considerations might clear somescruples, yet he became restless until his suit was granted and thepunishment executed. And though the Lord Chancellor did not, at Mr. Donne's dismission, give him such a commendation as the great EmperorCharles the Fifth did of his Secretary Eraso, when he parted with him tohis son and successor, Philip the Second, saying, "That in his Eraso, hegave to him a greater gift than all his estate, and all the kingdomswhich he then resigned to him;" yet the Lord Chancellor said, "He partedwith a friend, and such a Secretary as was fitter to serve a king than asubject. "

Immediately after his dismission from his service, he sent a sad letterto his wife to acquaint her with it; and after the subscription of hisname, writ, "John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done;"

and God knows it proved too true; for this bitter physic of Mr. Donne'sdismission, was not enough to purge out all Sir George's choler, for hewas not satisfied till Mr. Donne and his sometime compupil in Cambridge, that married him, namely, Samuel Brooke, who was after Doctor inDivinity and Master of Trinity College--and his brother Mr. ChristopherBrooke, sometime Mr. Donne's chamber-fellow in Lincoln's Inn, who gaveMr. Donne his wife, and witnessed the marriage, were all committed tothree several prisons. 

Mr. Donne was first enlarged, who neither gave rest to his body orbrain, nor to any friend in whom he might hope to have an interest, until he had procured an enlargement for his two imprisoned friends. 

He was now at liberty, but his days were still cloudy; and, being pastthese troubles, others did still multiply upon him; for his wife was--toher extreme sorrow--detained from him; and though, with Jacob, heendured not a hard service for her, yet he lost a good one, and wasforced to make good his title, and to get possession of her by a longand restless suit in law, which proved troublesome and sadly chargeableto him, whose youth, and travel, and needless bounty, had brought hisestate into a narrow compass. 

It is observed, and most truly, that silence and submission are charmingqualities, and work most upon passionate men; and it proved so with SirGeorge; for these, and a general report of Mr. Donne's merits, togetherwith his winning behaviour, --which, when it would entice, had a strangekind of elegant irresistible art;--these, and time, had sodispassionated Sir George, that, as the world had approved hisdaughter's choice, so he also could not but see a more than ordinarymerit in his new son; and this at last melted him into so muchremorse--for love and anger are so like agues as to have hot and coldfits; and love in parents, though it may be quenched, yet is easilyrekindled, and expires not till death denies mankind a naturalheat--that he laboured his son's restoration to his place; using to thatend both his own and his sister's power to her lord; but with nosuccess; for his answer was, "That though he was unfeignedly sorry forwhat he had done, yet it was inconsistent with his place and credit, todischarge and readmit servants at the request of passionatepetitioners. "

Sir George's endeavour for Mr. Donne's readmission was by all means tobe kept secret:--for men do more naturally reluct for errors than submitto put on those blemishes that attend their visible acknowledgment. But, however, it was not long before Sir George appeared to be so farreconciled as to wish their happiness, and not to deny them his paternalblessing, but yet refused to contribute any means that might conduce totheir livelihood. 

Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part spent in many and chargeabletravels, books, and dear-bought experience: he out of all employmentthat might yield a support for himself and wife, who had been curiouslyand plentifully educated; both their natures generous, and accustomed toconfer, and not to receive, courtesies, these and other considerations, but chiefly that his wife was to bear a part in his sufferings, surrounded him with many sad thoughts, and some apparent apprehensionsof want. 

But his sorrows were lessened and his wants prevented by the seasonablecourtesy of their noble kinsman, Sir Francis Wolly, of Pirford inSurrey, who intreated them to a cohabitation with him; where theyremained with much freedom to themselves, and equal content to Him, forsome years; and as their charge increased--she had yearly a child--sodid his love and bounty. 

Mr. Donne and his wife continued with Sir Francis Wolly till his death:a little before which time Sir Francis was so happy as to make a perfectreconciliation between Sir George and his forsaken son and daughter; SirGeorge conditioning, by bond, to pay to Mr. Donne 800_l. _ at a certainday, as a portion with his wife, or 20_l. _ quarterly for theirmaintenance, as the interest for it, till the said portion was paid. 

Most of those years that he lived with Sir Francis he studied the Civiland Canon Laws; in which he acquired such a perfection, as was judged tohold proportion with many, who had made that study the employment oftheir whole life. 

Sir Francis being dead, and that happy family dissolved, Mr. Donne tookfor himself a house in Mitcham--near to Croydon in Surrey--a place notedfor good air and choice company: there his wife and children remained;and for himself he took lodgings in London, near to Whitehall, whitherhis friends and occasions drew him very often, and where he was as oftenvisited by many of the nobility and others of this nation, who used himin their counsels of greatest consideration, and with some rewards forhis better subsistence. 

Nor did our own nobility only value and favour him, but his acquaintanceand friendship was sought for by most Ambassadors of foreign nations, and by many other strangers whose learning or business occasioned theirstay in this nation. 

Thus it continued with him for about two years, all which time hisfamily remained constantly at Mitcham; and to which place he oftenretired himself, and destined some days to a constant study of somepoints of controversy betwixt the English and Roman Church, andespecially those of Supremacy and Allegiance: and to that place and suchstudies he could willingly have wedded himself during his life; but theearnest persuasion of friends became at last to be so powerful, as tocause the removal of himself and family to London, where Sir RobertDrewry, a gentleman of a very noble estate, and a more liberal mind, assigned him and his wife an useful apartment in his own large house inDrury Lane, and not only rent free, but was also a cherisher of hisstudies, and such a friend as sympathized with him and his, in all theirjoy and sorrows. 

At this time of Mr. Donne's and his wife's living in Sir Robert's house, the Lord Hay was, by King James, sent upon a glorious embassy to thethen French King, Henry the Fourth; and Sir Robert put on a suddenresolution to accompany him to the French Court, and to be present athis audience there. And Sir Robert put on a sudden resolution to solicitMr. Donne to be his companion in that journey. And this desire wassuddenly made known to his wife, who was then with child, and otherwiseunder so dangerous a habit of body as to her health, that she professedan unwillingness to allow him any absence from her; saying, "Herdivining soul boded her some ill in his absence;" and therefore desiredhim not to leave her. This made Mr. Donne lay aside all thoughts of thejourney, and really to resolve against it. But Sir Robert becamerestless in his persuasions for it, and Mr. Donne was so generous as tothink he had sold his liberty when he received so many charitablekindnesses from him, and told his wife so; who did therefore, with anunwilling willingness, give a faint consent to the journey, which wasproposed to be but for two months; for about that time they determinedtheir return. Within a few days after this resolve, the Ambassador, SirRobert, and Mr. Donne, left London; and were the twelfth day got allsafe to Paris. Two days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was leftalone in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friendshad dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half anhour; and as he left, so he found, Mr. Donne alone; but in such anecstasy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to beholdhim; insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what hadbefallen him in the short time of his absence. To which Mr. Donne wasnot able to make a present answer; but, after a long and perplexedpause, did at last say, "I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you:I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with herhair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this Ihave seen since I saw you. " To which Sir Robert replied, "Sure, sir, youhave slept since I saw you; and this is the result of some melancholydream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake. " To whichMr. Donne's reply was: "I cannot be surer that I now live than that Ihave not slept since I saw you: and am as sure that at her secondappearing she stopped and looked me in the face, and vanished. " Rest andsleep had not altered Mr. Donne's opinion the next day: for he thenaffirmed this vision with a more deliberate, and so confirmed aconfidence, that he inclined Sir Robert to a faint belief that thevision was true. It is truly said that desire and doubt have no rest;and it proved so with Sir Robert; for he immediately sent a servant toDrewry House, with a charge to hasten back and bring him word whetherMrs. Donne were alive; and, if alive, in what condition she was as toher health. The twelfth day the messenger returned with thisaccount:--That he found and left Mrs. Donne very sad and sick in herbed; and that, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been deliveredof a dead child. And, upon examination, the abortion proved to be thesame day, and about the very hour, that Mr. Donne affirmed he saw herpass by him in his chamber. 

This is a relation that will beget some wonder, and it well may; formost of our world are at present possessed with an opinion that visionsand miracles are ceased. And, though it is most certain that two lutes, being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon, the other that is not touched, being laid upon a table at a fitdistance, will--like an echo to a trumpet--warble a faint audibleharmony in answer to the same tune; yet many will not believe there isany such thing as a sympathy of souls; and I am well pleased that everyreader do enjoy his own opinion. But if the unbelieving will not allowthe believing reader of this story, a liberty to believe that it may betrue, then I wish him to consider many wise men have believed that theghost of Julius Cęsar did appear to Brutus, and that both St. Austin, and Monica his mother, had visions in order to his conversion. Andthough these and many others--too many to name--have but the authorityof human story, yet the incredible reader may find in the sacred story(1 Sam. Xxviii. 14) that Samuel did appear to Saul even after hisdeath--whether really or not, I undertake not to determine. And Bildad, in the Book of Job, says these words (iv. 13-16): "A spirit passedbefore my face; the hair of my head stood up; fear and trembling cameupon me, and made all my bones to shake. " Upon which words I will makeno comment, but leave them to be considered by the incredulous reader;to whom I will also commend this following consideration: That there bemany pious and learned men that believe our merciful God hath assignedto every man a particular guardian angel to be his constant monitor, and to attend him in all his dangers, both of body and soul. And theopinion that every man hath his particular angel may gain some authorityby the relation of St. Peter's miraculous deliverance out of prison(Acts xii. 7-10; 13-15), not by many, but by one angel. And this beliefmay yet gain more credit by the reader's considering, that when Peterafter his enlargement knocked at the door of Mary the mother of John, and Rhode, the maidservant, being surprised with joy that Peter wasthere, did not let him in, but ran in haste and told the disciples, whowere then and there met together, that Peter was at the door; and they, not believing it, said she was mad: yet, when she again affirmed it, though they then believed it not, yet they concluded, and said, "It ishis angel. "

More observations of this nature, and inferences from them, might bemade to gain the relation a firmer belief; but I forbear, lest I, thatintended to be but a relator, may be thought to be an engaged person forthe proving what was related to me; and yet I think myself bound todeclare that, though it was not told me by Mr. Donne himself, it wastold me--now long since--by a person of honour, and of such intimacywith him, that he knew more of the secrets of his soul than any personthen living: and I think he told me the truth; for it was told with suchcircumstances, and such asseveration, that--to say nothing of my ownthoughts--I verily believe he that told it me did himself believe it tobe true. 

I return from my account of the vision, to tell the reader, that bothbefore Mr. Donne's going into France, at his being there, and after hisreturn, many of the nobility and others that were powerful at court, were watchful and solicitous to the King for some secular employment forhim. The King had formerly both known and put a value upon his company, and had also given him some hopes of a state-employment; being alwaysmuch pleased when Mr. Donne attended him, especially at his meals, wherethere were usually many deep discourses of general learning, and veryoften friendly disputes, or debates of religion, betwixt his Majesty andthose divines, whose places required their attendance on him at thosetimes: particularly the Dean of the Chapel, who then was BishopMontague--the publisher of the learned and eloquent Works of hisMajesty--and the most Reverend Doctor Andrews the late learned Bishop ofWinchester, who was then the King's Almoner. 

About this time there grew many disputes, that concerned the Oath ofSupremacy and Allegiance, in which the King had appeared, and engagedhimself by his public writings now extant: and his Majesty discoursingwith Mr. Donne, concerning many of the reasons which are usually urgedagainst the taking of those Oaths, apprehended such a validity andclearness in his stating the questions, and his answers to them, thathis Majesty commanded him to bestow some time in drawing the argumentsinto a method, and then to write his answers to them; and, having donethat, not to send, but be his own messenger, and bring them to him. Tothis he presently and diligently applied himself, and within six weeksbrought them to him under his own handwriting, as they be now printed;the book bearing the name of "Pseudo-Martyr, " printed anno 1610. 

When the King had read and considered that book, he persuaded Mr. Donneto enter into the Ministry; to which, at that time, he was, andappeared, very unwilling, apprehending it--such was his mistakenmodesty--to be too weighty for his abilities. 

Such strifes St. Austin had, when St. Ambrose endeavoured his conversionto Christianity; with which he confesseth he acquainted his friendAlipius. Our learned author--a man fit to write after no mean copy--didthe like. And declaring his intentions to his dear friend Dr. King, thenBishop of London, a man famous in his generation, and no stranger to Mr. Donne's abilities--for he had been Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor, atthe time of Mr. Donne's being his Lordship's Secretary--that reverendman did receive the news with much gladness; and, after some expressionsof joy, and a persuasion to be constant in his pious purpose, heproceeded with all convenient speed to ordain him first Deacon, and thenPriest not long after. 

Presently after he entered into his holy profession, the King sent forhim, and made him his Chaplain in Ordinary, and promised to take aparticular care for his preferment. 

And, though his long familiarity with scholars and persons of greatestquality was such, as might have given some men boldness enough to havepreached to any eminent auditory; yet his modesty in this employment wassuch, that he could not be persuaded to it, but went usually accompaniedwith some one friend to preach privately in some village, not far fromLondon; his first sermon being preached at Paddington. This he did, tillhis Majesty sent and appointed him a day to preach to him at Whitehall;and, though much were expected from him, both by his Majesty and others, yet he was so happy--which few are--as to satisfy and exceed theirexpectations: preaching the Word so, as shewed his own heart waspossessed with those very thoughts and joys that he laboured to distilinto others: a preacher in earnest; weeping sometimes for his auditory, sometimes with them; always preaching to himself like an angel from acloud, but in none; carrying some, as St. Paul was, to Heaven in holyraptures, and enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amendtheir lives: here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those thatpractised it; and a virtue so as to make it beloved, even by those thatloved it not; and all this with a most particular grace and anunexpressible addition of comeliness. 

That summer, in the very same month in which he entered into sacredOrders, and was made the King's Chaplain, his Majesty then going hisprogress, was entreated to receive an entertainment in the University ofCambridge: and Mr. Donne attending his Majesty at that time, his Majestywas pleased to recommend him to the University, to be made Doctor inDivinity; Doctor Harsnett, after Archbishop of York, was thenVice-Chancellor, who, knowing him to be the author of that learned bookthe "Pseudo-Martyr, " required no other proof of his abilities, butproposed it to the University, who presently assented, and expressed agladness that they had such an occasion to entitle him to be theirs. 

His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent, and he soknown and so beloved by persons of quality, that within the first yearof his entering into sacred Orders, he had fourteen advowsons of severalbenefices presented to him: but they were in the country, and he couldnot leave his beloved London, to which place he had a naturalinclination, having received both his birth and education in it, andthere contracted a friendship with many, whose conversation multipliedthe joys of his life; but an employment that might affix him to thatplace would be welcome, for he needed it. 

Immediately after his return from Cambridge his wife died, leaving him aman of a narrow, unsettled estate, and--having buried five--the carefulfather of seven children then living, to whom he gave a voluntaryassurance never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother;which promise he kept most faithfully, burying with his tears all hisearthly joys in his most dear and deserving wife's grave, and betookhimself to a most retired and solitary life. 

In this retiredness, which was often from the sight of his dearestfriends, he became crucified to the world, and all those vanities, thoseimaginary pleasures, that are daily acted on that restless stage, andthey were as perfectly crucified to him. 

His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife layburied--in St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, London; and his textwas a part of the Prophet Jeremy's Lamentation: "Lo, I am the man thathave seen affliction. "

In this time of sadness he was importuned by the grave Benchers ofLincoln's Inn--who were once the companions and friends of his youth--toaccept of their Lecture, which, by reason of Dr. Gataker's removal fromthence, was then void; of which he accepted, being most glad to renewhis intermitted friendship with those whom he so much loved, and wherehe had been a Saul, --though not to persecute Christianity, or to derideit, yet in his irregular youth to neglect the visible practice ofit, --there to become a Paul, and preach salvation to his belovedbrethren. 

About which time the Emperor of Germany died, and the Palsgrave, who hadlately married the Lady Elizabeth, the King's only daughter, was electedand crowned King of Bohemia, the unhappy beginning of many miseries inthat nation. 

King James, whose motto--_Beati pacifici_--did truly speak the verythoughts of his heart, endeavoured first to prevent, and after tocompose, the discords of that discomposed State; and, amongst other hisendeavours, did then send the Lord Hay, Earl of Doncaster, hisAmbassador to those unsettled Princes; and, by a special command fromhis Majesty, Dr. Donne was appointed to assist and attend thatemployment to the Princes of the Union, for which the Earl was mostglad, who had always put a great value on him, and taken a greatpleasure in his conversation and discourse: and his friends at Lincoln'sInn were as glad; for they feared that his immoderate study, and sadnessfor his wife's death, would, as Jacob said, "make his days few, " and, respecting his bodily health, "evil" too: and of this there were manyvisible signs. 

About fourteen months after his departure out of England, he returned tohis friends of Lincoln's Inn, with his sorrows moderated, and his healthimproved; and there betook himself to his constant course of preaching. 

About a year after his return out of Germany, Dr. Carey was made Bishopof Exeter, and by his removal, the Deanery of St. Paul's being vacant, the King sent to Dr. Donne, and appointed him to attend him at dinnerthe next day. When his Majesty was sat down, before he had eat any meat, he said after his pleasant manner, "Dr. Donne, I have invited you todinner; and, though you sit not down with me, yet I will carve to you ofa dish that I know you love well; for, knowing you love London, I dotherefore make you Dean of St. Paul's; and, when I have dined, then doyou take your beloved dish home to your study, say grace there toyourself, and much good may it do you. "

Immediately after he came to his Deanery, he employed workmen to repairand beautify the Chapel; suffering as holy David once vowed, "his eyesand temples to take no rest till he had first beautified the house ofGod. "

The next quarter following when his father-in-law, Sir GeorgeMore, --whom time had made a lover and admirer of him--came to pay to himthe conditioned sum of twenty pounds, he refused to receive it; andsaid--as good Jacob did, when he heard his beloved son Joseph wasalive--"'It is enough;' you have been kind to me and mine: I know yourpresent condition is such as not to abound, and I hope mine is, or willbe such as not to need it: I will therefore receive no more from youupon that contract, " and in testimony of it freely gave him up his bond. 

Immediately after his admission into his Deanery the Vicarage of St. Dunstan in the West, London, fell to him by the death of Dr. White, theadvowson of it having been given to him long before by his honourablefriend Richard Earl of Dorset, then the patron, and confirmed by hisbrother the late deceased Edward, both of them men of much honour. 

By these, and another ecclesiastical endowment which fell to him aboutthe same time, given to him formerly by the Earl of Kent, he was enabledto become charitable to the poor, and kind to his friends, and to makesuch provision for his children, that they were not left scandalous asrelating to their or his profession and quality. 

The next Parliament, which was within that present year, he was chosenProlocutor to the Convocation, and about that time was appointed by hisMajesty, his most gracious master, to preach very many occasionalsermons, as at St. Paul's Cross, and other places. All which employmentshe performed to the admiration of the representative body of the wholeClergy of this nation. 

He was once, and but once, clouded with the King's displeasure, and itwas about this time; which was occasioned by some malicious whisperer, who had told his Majesty that Dr. Donne had put on the general humour ofthe pulpits, and was become busy in insinuating a fear of the King'sinclining to popery, and a dislike of his government; and particularlyfor the King's then turning the evening lectures into catechising, andexpounding the Prayer of our Lord, and of the Belief, and Commandments. His Majesty was the more inclinable to believe this, for that a personof nobility and great note, betwixt whom and Dr. Donne there had been agreat friendship, was at this very time discarded the court--I shallforbear his name, unless I had a fairer occasion--and justly committedto prison; which begot many rumours in the common people, who in thisnation think they are not wise unless they be busy about what theyunderstand not, and especially about religion. 

The King received this news with so much discontent and restlessnessthat he would not suffer the sun to set and leave him under this doubt;but sent for Dr. Donne, and required his answer to the accusation; whichwas so clear and satisfactory that the King said, "he was right glad herested no longer under the suspicion. " When the King had said this, Dr. Donne kneeled down, and thanked his Majesty, and protested his answerwas faithful, and free from all collusion, and therefore "desired thathe might not rise till, as in like cases, he always had from God, so hemight have from his Majesty, some assurance that he stood clear and fairin his opinion. " At which the King raised him from his knees with hisown hands, and "protested he believed him; and that he knew he was anhonest man, and doubted not but that he loved him truly. " And, havingthus dismissed him, he called some Lords of his Council into hischamber, and said with much earnestness, "My Doctor is an honest man;and, my Lords, I was never better satisfied with an answer than he hathnow made me; and I always rejoice when I think that by my means hebecame a Divine. "

He was made Dean in the fiftieth year of his age, and in hisfifty-fourth year a dangerous sickness seized him, which inclined him toa consumption; but God, as Job thankfully acknowledged, preserved hisspirit, and kept his intellectuals as clear and perfect as when thatsickness first seized his body; but it continued long, and threatenedhim with death, which he dreaded not. 

Within a few days his distempers abated; and as his strength increasedso did his thankfulness to Almighty God, testified in his most excellent"Book of Devotions, " which he published at his recovery; in which thereader may see the most secret thoughts that then possessed his soul, paraphrased and made public: a book that may not unfitly be called aSacred Picture of Spiritual Ecstasies, occasioned and applicable to theemergencies of that sickness; which book, being a composition ofmeditations, disquisitions, and prayers, he writ on his sick-bed; hereinimitating the holy Patriarchs, who were wont to build their altars inthat place where they had received their blessings. 

This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death, and he saw thegrave so ready to devour him, that he would often say his recovery wassupernatural: but that God that then restored his health continued it tohim till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Abury Hatch, in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constantinfirmity--vapours from the spleen--hastened him into so visible aconsumption that his beholders might say, as St. Paul of himself, "Hedies daily;" and he might say with Job, "My welfare passeth away as acloud, the days of my affliction have taken hold of me, and weary nightsare appointed for me. "

Reader, this sickness continued long, not only weakening, but wearyinghim so much, that my desire is he may now take some rest; and thatbefore I speak of his death thou wilt not think it an impertinentdigression to look back with me upon some observations of his life, which, whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits, may, I hope, not unfitly, exercise thy consideration. 

His marriage was the remarkable error of his life; an error which, though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain paradoxes, yet he wasvery far from justifying it: and though his wife's competent years, andother reasons, might be justly urged to moderate severe censures, yet hewould occasionally condemn himself for it: and doubtless it had beenattended with an heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with somutual and cordial affections, as in the midst of their sufferings madetheir bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of dulland low-spirited people. 

The recreations of his youth were poetry, in which he was so happy as ifnature and all her varieties had been made only to exercise his sharpwit and high fancy; and in those pieces which were facetiously composedand carelessly scattered, --most of them being written before thetwentieth year of his age--it may appear by his choice metaphors thatboth nature and all the arts joined to assist him with their utmostskill. 

It is a truth, that in his penitential years, viewing some of thosepieces that had been loosely--God knows, too loosely--scattered in hisyouth, he wished they had been abortive, or so short-lived that his owneyes had witnessed their funerals; but, though he was no friend to them, he was not so fallen out with heavenly poetry, as to forsake that; no, not in his declining age; witnessed then by many divine sonnets, andother high, holy, and harmonious composures. Yea, even on his formersick-bed he wrote this heavenly hymn, expressing the great joy that thenpossessed his soul, in the assurance of God's favour to him when hecomposed it:--

 "AN HYMN

 "TO GOD THE FATHER

 "Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun, Which was my sin, though it were done before? Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run, And do run still, though still I do deplore? When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done, For I have more. 

 "Wilt Thou forgive that sin, which I have won Others to sin, and made my sin their door? Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two:--but wallow'd in a score? When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done, For I have more. 

 "I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun My last thread, I shall perish on the shore; But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore; And having done that, Thou hast done, I fear no more. "

I have the rather mentioned this hymn, for that he caused it to be setto a most grave and solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ bythe choiristers of St. Paul's Church, in his own hearing; especially atthe Evening Service; and at his return from his customary devotions inthat place, did occasionally say to a friend, "the words of this hymnhave restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul inmy sickness, when I composed it. And, O the power of church-music! thatharmony added to this hymn has raised the affections of my heart, andquickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe that I alwaysreturn from paying this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with anunexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave theworld. "

After this manner did the disciples of our Saviour, and the best ofChristians in those ages of the Church nearest to His time, offer theirpraises to Almighty God. And the reader of St. Augustine's life maythere find, that towards his dissolution he wept abundantly, that theenemies of Christianity had broke in upon them, and profaned and ruinedtheir sanctuaries, and because their public hymns and lauds were lostout of their Churches. And after this manner have many devout soulslifted up their hands and offered acceptable sacrifices unto AlmightyGod, where Dr. Donne offered his, and now lies buried. 

But now [1656], Oh Lord! how is that place become desolate!

Before I proceed further, I think fit to inform the reader, that notlong before his death he caused to be drawn a figure of the Body ofChrist extended upon an anchor, like those which painters draw, whenthey would present us with the picture of Christ crucified on the cross:his varying no otherwise than to affix Him not to a cross, but to ananchor--the emblem of Hope;--this he caused to be drawn in little, andthen many of those figures thus drawn to be engraven very small inHeliotropium stones, and set in gold; and of these he sent to many ofhis dearest friends, to be used as seals, or rings, and kept asmemorials of him, and of his affection to them. 

His dear friends and benefactors, Sir Henry Goodier and Sir RobertDrewry, could not be of that number; nor could the Lady MagdalenHerbert, the mother of George Herbert, for they had put off mortality, and taken possession of the grave before him; but Sir Henry Wotton, andDr. Hall, the then--late deceased--Bishop of Norwich, were; and so wereDr. Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, and Dr. Henry King, Bishop ofChichester--lately deceased--men, in whom there was such a commixture ofgeneral learning, of natural eloquence, and Christian humility, thatthey deserve a commemoration by a pen equal to their own, which nonehave exceeded. 

And in this enumeration of his friends, though many must be omitted, yetthat man of primitive piety, Mr. George Herbert, may not; I mean thatGeorge Herbert, who was the author of "The Temple, or Sacred Poems andEjaculations. " A book, in which by declaring his own spiritualconflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposedsoul, and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts; a book, by thefrequent reading whereof, and the assistance of that Spirit that seemedto inspire the author, the reader may attain habits of peace and piety, and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and Heaven: and may, by stillreading, still keep those sacred fires burning upon the altar of so purea heart, as shall free it from the anxieties of this world, and keep itfixed upon things that are above. Betwixt this George Herbert and Dr. Donne, there was a long and dear friendship, made up by such a sympathyof inclinations that they coveted and joyed to be in each other'scompany; and this happy friendship was still maintained by many sacredendearments; of which that which followeth may be some testimony. 

 "TO MR. GEORGE HERBERT;

 "SENT HIM WITH ONE OF MY SEALS OF THE ANCHOR AND CHRIST. 

 [Illustration]

 "_A Sheaf of Snakes used heretofore to be my Seal, which is the Crest of our poor family. _"

 [Illustration]

 "Qui prius assuetus serpentum falce tabellas Signare, hęc nostrę symbola parva domus, Adscitus domui Domini----

 "Adopted in God's family, and so My old coat lost, into new Arms I go. The Cross, my Seal in Baptism, spread below, Does by that form into an Anchor grow. Crosses grow Anchors, bear as thou shouldst do Thy Cross, and that Cross grows an Anchor too. But He that makes our Crosses Anchors thus, Is Christ, who there is crucified for us. Yet with this I may my first Serpents hold;-- God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old-- The Serpent, may, as wise, my pattern be; My poison, as he feeds on dust, that's me. And, as he rounds the earth to murder, sure He is my death; but on the Cross, my cure, Crucify nature then; and then implore All grace from Him, crucified there before. When all is Cross, and that Cross Anchor grown This Seal's a Catechism, not a Seal alone. Under that little Seal great gifts I send, Both works and pray'rs, pawns and fruits of a friend. O! may that Saint that rides on our Great Seal, To you that bear his name, large bounty deal. 

 "John Donne. "

 "IN SACRAM ANCHORAM PISCATORIS

 "GEORGE HERBERT. 

 "Quod Crux nequibat fixa clavique additi, -- Tenere Christum scilicet ne ascenderet, Tuive Christum--

 "Although the Cross could not here Christ detain, When nail'd unto't, but He ascends again; Nor yet thy eloquence here keep Him still, But only whilst thou speak'st--this Anchor will: Nor canst thou be content, unless thou to This certain Anchor add a Seal; and so The water and the earth both unto thee Do owe the symbol of their certainty. Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure, This holy cable's from all storms secure. 

 "George Herbert. "

I return to tell the reader, that, besides these verses to his dear Mr. Herbert, and that Hymn that I mentioned to be sung in the choir of St. Paul's Church, he did also shorten and beguile many sad hours bycomposing other sacred ditties; and he writ an Hymn on his death-bed, which bears this title:--

 "AN HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS. 

 "_March 23, 1630. _

 "Since I am coming to that holy room, Where, with Thy Choir of Saints, for evermore I shall be made Thy music, as I come I tune my instrument here at the door, And, what I must do then, think here before. 

 "Since my Physicians by their loves are grown Cosmographers; and I their map, who lie Flat on this bed----

 "So, in His purple wrapt, receive my Lord! By these His thorns, give me His other Crown And, as to other souls I preach'd Thy word, Be this my text, my sermon to mine own, 'That He may raise; therefore the Lord throws down. '"

If these fall under the censure of a soul, whose too much mixture withearth makes it unfit to judge of these high raptures and illuminations, let him know, that many holy and devout men have thought the soul ofPrudentius to be most refined, when, not many days before his death, "hecharged it to present his God each morning and evening with a new andspiritual song;" justified by the example of King David and the goodKing Hezekiah, who, upon the renovation of his years paid his thankfulvows to Almighty God in a royal hymn, which he concludes in these words:"The Lord was ready to save; therefore I will sing my songs to thestringed instruments all the days of my life in the Temple of my God. "

The latter part of his life may be said to be a continued study; for ashe usually preached once a week, if not oftener, so after his sermon henever gave his eyes rest, till he had chosen out a new text, and thatnight cast his sermon into a form, and his text into divisions; and thenext day betook himself to consult the Fathers, and so commit hismeditations to his memory, which was excellent. But upon Saturday heusually gave himself and his mind a rest from the weary burthen of hisweek's meditations, and usually spent that day in visitation of friends, or some other diversions of his thoughts; and would say, "that he gaveboth his body and mind that refreshment, that he might be enabled to dothe work of the day following, not faintly, but with courage andcheerfulness. "

Nor was his age only so industrious, but in the most unsettled days ofhis youth, his bed was not able to detain him beyond the hour of four ina morning; and it was no common business that drew him out of hischamber till past ten; all which time was employed in study; though hetook great liberty after it. And if this seem strange, it may gain abelief by the visible fruits of his labours; some of which remain astestimonies of what is here written: for he left the resultance of 1400authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand: he leftalso six score of his sermons, all written with his own hand, also anexact and laborious Treatise concerning self-murder, called Biathanatos;wherein all the laws violated by that act are diligently surveyed, andjudiciously censured: a Treatise written in his younger days, whichalone might declare him then not only perfect in the Civil and CanonLaw, but in many other such studies and arguments, as enter not into theconsideration of many that labour to be thought great clerks, andpretend to know all things. 

Nor were these only found in his study, but all businesses that passedof any public consequence, either in this or any of ourneighbour-nations, he abbreviated either in Latin, or in the language ofthat nation, and kept them by him for useful memorials. So he did thecopies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned hisfriends, with his observations and solutions of them; and divers otherbusinesses of importance, all particularly and methodically digested byhimself. 

He did prepare to leave the world before life left him; making his Willwhen no faculty of his soul was damped or made defective by pain orsickness, or he surprised by a sudden apprehension of death: but it wasmade with mature deliberation, expressing himself an impartial father, by making his children's portions equal; and a lover of his friends, whom he remembered with legacies fitly and discreetly chosen andbequeathed. I cannot forbear a nomination of some of them; for methinksthey be persons that seem to challenge a recordation in this place; asnamely, to his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Grimes, he gave that strikingclock, which he had long worn in his pocket; to his dear friend andexecutor, Dr. King--late Bishop of Chichester--that Model of Gold of theSynod of Dort, with which the States presented him at his last being atthe Hague; and the two pictures of Padre Paolo and Fulgentio, men of hisacquaintance when he travelled Italy, and of great note in that nationfor their remarkable learning. --To his ancient friend Dr. Brook--thatmarried him--Master of Trinity College in Cambridge, he gave the pictureof the Blessed Virgin and Joseph. --To Dr. Winniff who succeeded him inthe Deanery--he gave a picture called the Skeleton. --To the succeedingDean, who was not then known, he gave many necessaries of worth, anduseful for his house; and also several pictures and ornaments for theChapel, with a desire that they might be registered, and remain as alegacy to his successors. --To the Earls of Dorset and Carlisle he gaveseveral pictures; and so he did to many other friends; legacies, givenrather to express his affection, than to make any addition to theirestates: but unto the poor he was full of charity, and unto many others, who, by his constant and long continued bounty, might entitle themselvesto be his alms-people: for all these he made provision, and so largely, as, having then six children living, might to some appear more thanproportionable to his estate. I forbear to mention any more, lest thereader may think I trespass upon his patience: but I will beg hisfavour, to present him with the beginning and end of his Will. 

 "In the name of the blessed and glorious Trinity. Amen. I John Donne, by the mercy of Christ Jesus, and by the calling of the Church of England, Priest, being at this time in good health and perfect understanding--praised be God therefore--do hereby make my last Will and Testament in manner and form following:--

 "First, I give my gracious God an entire sacrifice of body and soul, with my most humble thanks for that assurance which His Blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the Salvation of the one, and the Resurrection of the other; and for that constant and cheerful resolution, which the same Spirit hath established in me, to live and die in the religion now professed in the Church of England. In expectation of that Resurrection, I desire my body may be buried--in the most private manner that may be--in that place of St. Paul's Church, London, that the now Residentiaries have at my request designed for that purpose, &c. --And this my last Will and Testament, made in the fear of God, --whose mercy I humbly beg, and constantly rely upon in Jesus Christ--and in perfect love and charity with all the world--whose pardon I ask, from the lowest of my servants, to the highest of my superiors--written all with my own hand, and my name subscribed to every page, of which there are five in number. 

 "Sealed December 13, 1630. "

Nor was this blessed sacrifice of charity expressed only at his death, but in his life also, by a cheerful and frequent visitation of anyfriend whose mind was dejected, or his fortune necessitous; he wasinquisitive after the wants of prisoners, and redeemed many from prison, that lay for their fees or small debts: he was a continual giver to poorscholars, both of this and foreign nations. Besides what he gave withhis own hand, he usually sent a servant, or a discreet and trustyfriend, to distribute his charity to all the prisons in London, at allthe festival times of the year, especially at the Birth and Resurrectionof our Saviour. He gave an hundred pounds at one time to an old friend, whom he had known live plentifully, and by a too liberal heart andcarelessness became decayed in his estate; and when the receiving of itwas denied, by the gentleman's saying, "He wanted not;"--for the readermay note, that as there be some spirits so generous as to labour toconceal and endure a sad poverty, rather than expose themselves to thoseblushes that attend the confession of it; so there be others, to whomnature and grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls, as topity and prevent the distresses of mankind;--which I have mentionedbecause of Dr. Donne's reply, whose answer was, "I know you want notwhat will sustain nature; for a little will do that; but my desire is, that you, who in the days of your plenty have cheered and raised thehearts of so many of your dejected friends, would now receive this fromme, and use it as a cordial for the cheering of your own:" and uponthese terms it was received. He was an happy reconciler of manydifferences in the families of his friends and kindred, --which he neverundertook faintly; for such undertakings have usually faint effects--andthey had such a faith in his judgment and impartiality, that he neveradvised them to any thing in vain. He was, even to her death, a mostdutiful son to his mother, careful to provide for her supportation, ofwhich she had been destitute, but that God raised him up to prevent hernecessities; who having sucked in the religion of the Roman Church withthe mother's milk, spent her estate in foreign countries, to enjoy aliberty in it, and died in his house but three months before him. 

And to the end it may appear how just a steward he was of his Lord andMaster's revenue, I have thought fit to let the reader know, that afterhis entrance into his Deanery, as he numbered his years, he, at the footof a private account, to which God and His Angels were only witnesseswith him, --computed first his revenue, then what was given to the poor, and other pious uses; and lastly, what rested for him and his; andhaving done that, he then blessed each year's poor remainder with athankful prayer; which, for that they discover a more than commondevotion, the reader shall partake some of them in his own words:--

So all is that remains this year [1624-5]--

"Deo Opt. Max. Benigno largitori, į me, at ab iis quibus hęc ą mereservantur, gloria et gratia in ęternum. Amen. "

TRANSLATED THUS. 

To God all Good, all Great, the benevolent Bestower, by me and by them, for whom, by me, these sums are laid up, be glory and grace ascribed forever. Amen. 

So that this year, [1626, ] God hath blessed me and mine with--

"Multiplicatę sunt super nos misericordię tuę, Domine. "

TRANSLATED THUS. 

Thy mercies, Oh Lord! are multiplied upon us. 

"Da, Domine, ut quę ex immensā bonitate tuā nobis elargiri dignatus sis, in quorumcunque manus devenerint, in tuam semper cedant gloriam. Amen. "

TRANSLATED THUS. 

Grant, Oh Lord! that what out of Thine infinite bounty Thou hastvouchsafed to lavish upon us, into whosoever hands it may devolve, mayalways be improved to thy glory. Amen. 

"In fine horum sex annorum manet [1627-8-9]--

"Quid habeo quod non accepi a Domino? Largitur etiam ut quę largitus estsua iterum fiant, bono eorum usu; ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujusmundi, nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati, nec servis, nec egenis, intoto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse; ita et liberi, quibus quę supersunt, supersunt, grato animo ea accipiant, et beneficumauthorem recognoscant. Amen. "

TRANSLATED THUS. 

At the end of these six years remains--

What have I, which I have not received from the Lord? He bestows, also, to the intent that what He hath bestowed may revert to Him by the properuse of it: that, as I have not consciously been wanting to myself duringthe whole course of the past year, either in discharging my secularduties, in retaining the dignity of my station, or in my conduct towardsmy servants and the poor--so my children for whom remains whatever isremaining, may receive it with gratitude, and acknowledge the beneficentGiver. Amen. 

 * * * * *

But I return from my long digression. 

We left the Author sick in Essex, where he was forced to spend much ofthat winter, by reason of his disability to remove from that place; andhaving never, for almost twenty years, omitted his personal attendanceon his Majesty in that month, in which he was to attend and preach tohim; nor having ever been left out of the roll and number of LentPreachers, and there being then--in January, 1630--a report brought toLondon, or raised there, that Dr. Donne was dead; that report gave himoccasion to write the following letter to a dear friend:--

 "Sir, "This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent fevers, that I am so much the oftener at the gates of Heaven; and this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after, that I am so much the oftener at my prayers, in which I shall never leave out your happiness; and I doubt not, among His other blessings, God will add some one to you for my prayers. A man would almost be content to die--if there were no other benefit in death--to hear of so much sorrow, and so much good testimony from good men, as I--God be blessed for it--did upon the report of my death; yet I perceive it went not through all; for one writ to me, that some--and he said of my friends--conceived I was not so ill as I pretended, but withdrew myself to live at ease, discharged of preaching. It is an unfriendly, and, God knows, an ill-grounded interpretation; for I have always been sorrier when I could not preach, than any could be they could not hear me. It hath been my desire, and God may be pleased to grant it, that I might die in the pulpit; if not that, yet that I might take my death in the pulpit; that is, die the sooner by occasion of those labours. Sir, I hope to see you presently after Candlemas; about which time will fall my Lent Sermon at Court, except my Lord Chamberlain believe me to be dead, and so leave me out of the roll: but as long as I live, and am not speechless, I would not willingly, decline that service. I have better leisure to write, than you to read; yet I would not willingly oppress you with too much letter. God so bless you and your son, as I wish to

 "Your poor friend and Servant "In Christ Jesus, "J. Donne. "

Before that month ended, he was appointed to preach upon his oldconstant day, the first Friday in Lent: he had notice of it, and had inhis sickness so prepared for that employment, that as he had longthirsted for it, so he resolved his weakness should not hinder hisjourney; he came therefore to London some few days before his appointedday of preaching. At his coming thither, many of his friends--who withsorrow saw his sickness had left him but so much flesh as did only coverhis bones--doubted his strength to perform that task, and did thereforedissuade him from undertaking it, assuring him, however, it was like toshorten his life: but he passionately denied their requests, saying "hewould not doubt that that God, who in so many weaknesses had assistedhim with an unexpected strength, would now withdraw it in his lastemployment; professing an holy ambition to perform that sacred work. "And when, to the amazement of some beholders, he appeared in the pulpit, many of them thought he presented himself not to preach mortification bya living voice, but mortality by a decayed body, and a dying face. Anddoubtless many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel (chap. Xxxvii. 3), "Do these bones live? or, can that soul organise that tongue, tospeak so long time as the sand in that glass will move towards itscentre, and measure out an hour of this dying man's unspent life?Doubtless it cannot. " And yet, after some faint pauses in his zealousprayer, his strong desires enabled his weak body to discharge his memoryof his preconceived meditations, which were of dying; the text being, "To God the Lord belong the issues from death. " Many that then saw histears, and heard his faint and hollow voice, professing they thought thetext prophetically chosen, and that Dr. Donne had preached his ownFuneral Sermon. 

Being full of joy that God had enabled him to perform this desired duty, he hastened to his house; out of which he never moved, till, like St. Stephen, "he was carried by devout men to his grave. "

The next day after his sermon, his strength being much wasted, and hisspirits so spent as indisposed him to business or to talk, a friend thathad often been a witness of his free and facetious discourse asked him, "Why are you sad?" To whom he replied with a countenance so full ofcheerful gravity, as gave testimony of an inward tranquillity of mind, and of a soul willing to take a farewell of this world, and said:--

 "I am not sad; but most of the night past I have entertained myself with many thoughts of several friends that have left me here, and are gone to that place from which they shall not return; and that within a few days I also shall go hence, and be no more seen. And my preparation for this change is become my nightly meditation upon my bed, which my infirmities have now made restless to me. But at this present time, I was in a serious contemplation of the providence and goodness of God to me; to me, who am less than the least of His mercies: and looking back upon my life past, I now plainly see it was His hand that prevented me from all temporal employment; and that it was His will I should never settle nor thrive till I entered into the Ministry; in which I have now lived almost twenty years--I hope to His glory, --and by which, I most humbly thank Him, I have been enabled to requite most of those friends which shewed me kindness when my fortune was very low, as God knows it was: and--as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude--I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requital. I have lived to be useful and comfortable to my good Father-in-law, Sir George More, whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal crosses; I have maintained my own mother, whom it hath pleased God, after a plentiful fortune in her younger days, to bring to great decay in her very old age. I have quieted the consciences of many, that have groaned under the burden of a wounded spirit, whose prayers I hope are available for me. I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth; but I am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to see what I have done amiss. And though of myself I have nothing to present to Him but sins and misery, yet I know He looks not upon me now as I am of myself, but as I am in my Saviour, and hath given me, even at this present time, some testimonies by His Holy Spirit, that I am of the number of His Elect: I am therefore full of inexpressible joy, and shall die in peace. "

I must here look so far back, as to tell the reader that at his firstreturn out of Essex, to preach his last sermon, his old friend andphysician, Dr. Fox--a man of great worth--came to him to consult hishealth; and that after a sight of him, and some queries concerning hisdistempers he told him, "That by cordials, and drinking milk twenty daystogether, there was a probability of his restoration to health"; but hepassionately denied to drink it. Nevertheless, Dr. Fox, who loved himmost entirely, wearied him with solicitations, till he yielded to takeit for ten days; at the end of which time he told Dr. Fox, "He had drunkit more to satisfy him, than to recover his health; and that he wouldnot drink it ten days longer, upon the best moral assurance of havingtwenty years added to his life; for he loved it not; and was so far fromfearing Death, which to others is the King of Terrors, that he longedfor the day of his dissolution. "

It is observed, that a desire of glory or commendation is rooted in thevery nature of man; and that those of the severest and most mortifiedlives, though they may become so humble as to banish self-flattery, andsuch weeds as naturally grow there; yet they have not been able to killthis desire of glory, but that like our radical heat, it will both liveand die with us; and many think it should do so; and we want not sacredexamples to justify the desire of having our memory to outlive ourlives; which I mention, because Dr. Donne, by the persuasion of Dr. Fox, easily yielded at this very time to have a monument made for him; butDr. Fox undertook not to persuade him how, or what monument it shouldbe; that was left to Dr. Donne himself. 

A monument being resolved upon, Dr. Donne sent for a carver to make forhim in wood the figure of an urn, giving him directions for the compassand height of it; and to bring with it a board, of the just height ofhis body. "These being got, then without delay a choice painter was gotto be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken asfolloweth. --Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study, he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand, andhaving put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tiedwith knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed as dead bodiesare usually fitted, to be shrouded and put into their coffin, or grave. Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of thesheet turned aside as might shew his lean, pale, and death-like face, which was purposely turned towards the East, from whence he expected thesecond coming of his and our Saviour Jesus. " In this posture he wasdrawn at his just height; and when the picture was fully finished, hecaused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued and became hishourly object till his death, and was then given to his dearest friendand executor Dr. Henry King, then chief Residentiary of St. Paul's, whocaused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white marble, as itnow stands in that Church; and by Dr. Donne's own appointment, thesewords were to be affixed to it as an epitaph:--

 JOHANNES DONNE

 SAC. THEOL. PROFESS. POST VARIA STUDIA, QUIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT; INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SP. SANCTI, MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS, ANNO SUI JESU, MDCXIV. ET SUĘ ĘTATIS XLII. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIĘ INDUTUS, XXVII. NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII, MDCXXXI. HIC LICET IN OCCIDUO CINERE, ASPICIT EUM CUJUS NOMEN EST ORIENS. 

And now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexitiesof a various life, even to the gates of death and the grave; my desireis, he may rest, till I have told my reader that I have seen manypictures of him, in several habits, and at several ages, and in severalpostures: and I now mention this because I have seen one picture of him, drawn by a curious hand, at his age of eighteen, with his sword, andwhat other adornments might then suit with the present fashions of youthand the giddy gaieties of that age; and his motto then was--

 "How much shall I be changed Before I am changed!"

And if that young, and his now dying picture were at this time settogether, every beholder might say, "Lord! how much is Dr. Donne alreadychanged, before he is changed!" And the view of them might give myreader occasion to ask himself with some amazement, "Lord! how much mayI also, that am now in health, be changed before I am changed; beforethis vile, this changeable body shall put off mortality!" and thereforeto prepare for it. --But this is not writ so much for my reader'smemento, as to tell him, that Dr. Donne would often in his privatediscourses, and often publicly in his sermons, mention the many changesboth of his body and mind, especially of his mind from a vertiginousgiddiness; and would as often say, "His great and most blessed changewas from a temporal to a spiritual employment"; in which he was sohappy, that he accounted the former part of his life to be lost; and thebeginning of it to be, from his first entering into Sacred Orders, andserving his most merciful God at His altar. 

Upon Monday, after the drawing this picture, he took his last leave ofhis beloved study; and, being sensible of his hourly decay, retiredhimself to his bedchamber; and that week sent at several times for manyof his most considerable friends, with whom he took a solemn anddeliberate farewell, commending to their considerations some sentencesuseful for the regulation of their lives; and then dismissed them, asgood Jacob did his sons, with a spiritual benediction. The Sundayfollowing, he appointed his servants, that if there were any businessyet undone, that concerned him or themselves, it should be preparedagainst Saturday next; for after that day he would not mix his thoughtswith any thing that concerned this world; nor ever did; but, as Job, sohe "waited for the appointed day of his dissolution. "

And now he was so happy as to have nothing to do but to die, to do whichhe stood in need of no longer time; for he had studied it long, and toso happy a perfection, that in a former sickness he called God towitness (in his "Book of Devotions, " written then), "He was that minuteready to deliver his soul into his Hands, if that minute God woulddetermine his dissolution. " In that sickness he begged of God theconstancy to be preserved in that estate for ever; and his patientexpectation to have his immortal soul disrobed from her garment ofmortality, makes me confident that he now had a modest assurance thathis prayers were then heard, and his petition granted. He lay fifteendays earnestly expecting his hourly change; and in the last hour of hislast day, as his body melted away, and vapoured into spirit, his soulhaving, I verily believe, some revelation of the beatifical vision, hesaid, "I were miserable if I might not die"; and after those words, closed many periods of his faint breath by saying often, "Thy kingdomcome, Thy will be done. " His speech, which had long been his ready andfaithful servant, left him not till the last minute of his life, andthen forsook him, not to serve another master--for who speaks likehim, --but died before him; for that it was then become useless to him, that now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to do in heaven, only by thoughts and looks. Being speechless, and seeing heaven by thatillumination by which he saw it, he did, as St. Stephen, "lookstedfastly into it, till he saw the Son of Man standing at the righthand of God His Father"; and being satisfied with this blessed sight, ashis soul ascended, and his last breath departed from him, he closed hisown eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture, asrequired not the least alteration by those that came to shroud him. 

Thus variable, thus virtuous was the life; thus excellent, thusexemplary was the death of this memorable man. 

He was buried in that place of St. Paul's Church, which he had appointedfor that use some years before his death; and by which he passed dailyto pay his public devotions to Almighty God--who was then served twice aday by a public form of prayer and praises in that place; but he wasnot buried privately, though he desired it; for, beside an unnumberednumber of others, many persons of nobility, and of eminence forlearning, who did love and honour him in his life, did show it at hisdeath, by a voluntary and sad attendance of his body to the grave, wherenothing was so remarkable as a public sorrow. 

To which place of his burial some mournful friends repaired, and, asAlexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles, so theystrewed his with an abundance of curious and costly flowers; whichcourse they--who were never yet known--continued morning and evening formany days, not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Churchto give his body admission into the cold earth--now his bed ofrest--were again by the mason's art so levelled and firmed as they hadbeen formerly, and his place of burial undistinguishable to common view. 

The next day after his burial some unknown friend, some one of the manylovers and admirers of his virtue and learning, writ this epitaph with acoal on the wall over his grave:--

 "Reader! I am to let thee know, Donne's body only lies below; For, could the grave his soul comprise, Earth would be richer than the skies!"

Nor was this all the honour done to his reverend ashes; for, as there besome persons that will not receive a reward for that for which Godaccounts Himself a debtor; persons that dare trust God with theircharity, and without a witness; so there was by some grateful unknownfriend, that thought Dr. Donne's memory ought to be perpetuated, anhundred marks sent to his faithful friends and executors (Dr. King andDr. Montford), towards the making of his monument. It was not for manyyears known by whom; but, after the death of Dr. Fox, it was known thatit was he that sent it; and he lived to see as lively a representationof his dead friend as marble can express: a statue indeed so like Dr. Donne, that--as his friend Sir Henry Wotton hath expressed himself--"Itseems to breathe faintly, and posterity shall look upon it as a kind ofartificial miracle. "

He was of stature moderately tall; of a straight andequally-proportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave anunexpressible addition of comeliness. 

The melancholy and pleasant humour were in him so contempered, that eachgave advantage to the other, and made his company one of the delights ofmankind. 

His fancy was unimitably high, equalled only by his great wit; bothbeing made useful by a commanding judgment. 

His aspect was cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a clearknowing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself. 

His melting eye showed that he had a soft heart, full of noblecompassion; of too brave a soul to offer injuries, and too much aChristian not to pardon them in others. 

He did much contemplate--especially after he entered into his sacredcalling--the mercies of Almighty God, the immortality of the soul, andthe joys of heaven: and would often say in a kind of sacredecstacy--"Blessed be God that He is God, only and divinely likeHimself. "

He was by nature highly passionate, but more apt to reluct at theexcesses of it. A great lover of the offices of humanity, and of somerciful a spirit that he never beheld the miseries of mankind withoutpity and relief. 

He was earnest and unwearied in the search of knowledge, with which hisvigorous soul is now satisfied, and employed in a continual praise ofthat God that first breathed it into his active body: that body whichonce was a temple of the Holy Ghost, and is now become a small quantityof Christian dust:--

But I shall see it re-animated. 

I. W. 

 DEVOTIONS VPON Emergent Occasions and seuerall steps in my Sicknes. 

Digested into

 1. MEDITATIONS _upon our Humane Condition_. 

 2. EXPOSTULATIONS, _and Debatements with God_. 

 3. PRAYERS, _upon the severall occasions, to him_. 

 * * * * *

By IOHN DONNE, _Deane of S. Pauls_, London. 

 * * * * *

London

Printed by _A. M. _ for THOMAS IONES. 1624. 

_TO THE MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE_, PRINCE CHARLES. 

_MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE_, I have had three births; one, natural, when I came into the world; one, supernatural, when I entered into the ministry; and now, a preternaturalbirth, in returning to life, from this sickness. In my second birth, your Highness' royal father vouchsafed me his hand, not only to sustainme in it, but to lead me to it. In this last birth, I myself am born afather: this child of mine, this book, comes into the world, from me, and with me. And therefore, I presume (as I did the father, to theFather) to present the son to the Son; this image of my humiliation, tothe lively image of his Majesty, your Highness. It might be enough, thatGod hath seen my devotions: but examples of good kings are commandments;and Hezekiah writ the meditations of his sickness, after his sickness. Besides, as I have lived to see (not as a witness only, but as apartaker), the happiness of a part of your royal father's time, so shallI live (in my way) to see the happiness of the times of your Highnesstoo, if this child of mine, inanimated by your gracious acceptation, mayso long preserve alive the memory of

Your Highness humblest and devotedest, JOHN DONNE. 

CONTENTS

_The Stations of the Sickness_

 PAGE

1. The first alteration, the first grudging of the sickness 7

2. The strength and the function of the senses, and other faculties, change and fail 12

3. The patient takes his bed 17

4. The physician is sent for 23

5. The physician comes 30

6. The physician is afraid 35

7. The physician desires to have others joined with him 43

8. The king sends his own physician 50

9. Upon their consultation, they prescribe 56

10. They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavor to meet with it so 63

11. They use cordials, to keep the venom and the malignity of the disease from the heart 69

12. They apply pigeons, to draw the vapours from the head 77

13. The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof by spots 83

14. The Physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the critical days 88

15. I sleep not day or night 96

16. From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily remembered of my burial in the funerals of others 102

17. Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die 107

18. The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead 114

19. At last the physicians, after a long and stormy voyage, see land: They have so good signs of the concoction of the disease, as that they may safely proceed to purge 122

20. Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed to purge 131

21. God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Lazarus out of his tomb, me out of my bed 138

22. The physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals, and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that 145

23. They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing 152

_DEVOTIONS_

I

INSULTUS MORBI PRIMUS. 

_The first Alteration, the first Grudging, of the Sickness. _

I. MEDITATION. 

Variable, and therefore miserable condition of man! this minute I waswell, and am ill, this minute. I am surprised with a sudden change, andalteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by anyname. We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, andair, and exercises, and we hew and we polish every stone that goes tothat building; and so our health is a long and a regular work: but in aminute a cannon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all; a sicknessunprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity;nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroys us in an instant. O miserable condition of man!which was not imprinted by God, who, as he is immortal himself, had puta coal, a beam of immortality into us, which we might have blown into aflame, but blew it out by our first sin; we beggared ourselves byhearkening after false riches, and infatuated ourselves by hearkeningafter false knowledge. So that now, we do not only die, but die upon therack, die by the torment of sickness; nor that only, but arepre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these jealousies and suspicions andapprehensions of sickness, before we can call it a sickness: we are notsure we are ill; one hand asks the other by the pulse, and our eye asksour own urine how we do. O multiplied misery! we die, and cannot enjoydeath, because we die in this torment of sickness; we are tormented withsickness, and cannot stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehensionsand presages prophesy those torments which induce that death beforeeither come; and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes, quickened in the sickness itself, and born in death, which bears datefrom these first changes. Is this the honour which man hath by being alittle world, that he hath these earthquakes in himself, suddenshakings; these lightnings, sudden flashes; these thunders, suddennoises; these eclipses, sudden offuscations and darkening of his senses;these blazing stars, sudden fiery exhalations; these rivers of blood, sudden red waters? Is he a world to himself only therefore, that he hathenough in himself, not only to destroy and execute himself, but topresage that execution upon himself; to assist the sickness, to antedatethe sickness, to make the sickness the more irremediable by sadapprehensions, and, as if he would make a fire the more vehement bysprinkling water upon the coals, so to wrap a hot fever in coldmelancholy, lest the fever alone should not destroy fast enough withoutthis contribution, nor perfect the work (which is destruction) except wejoined an artificial sickness of our own melancholy, to our natural, ourunnatural fever. O perplexed discomposition, O riddling distemper, Omiserable condition of man!

I. EXPOSTULATION. 

If I were but mere dust and ashes I might speak unto the Lord, for theLord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lord's hand shall re-collectthese ashes; the Lord's hand was the wheel upon which this vessel ofclay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the urn in which these ashesshall be preserved. I am the dust and the ashes of the temple of theHoly Ghost, and what marble is so precious? But I am more than dust andashes: I am my best part, I am my soul. And being so, the breath of God, I may breathe back these pious expostulations to my God: My God, my God, why is not my soul as sensible as my body? Why hath not my soul theseapprehensions, these presages, these changes, these antidates, thesejealousies, these suspicions of a sin, as well as my body of a sickness?Why is there not always a pulse in my soul to beat at the approach of atemptation to sin? Why are there not always waters in mine eyes, totestify my spiritual sickness? I stand in the way of temptations, naturally, necessarily; all men do so; for there is a snake in everypath, temptations in every vocation; but I go, I run, I fly into theways of temptation which I might shun; nay, I break into houses wherethe plague is; I press into places of temptation, and tempt the devilhimself, and solicit and importune them who had rather be leftunsolicited by me. I fall sick of sin, and am bedded and bedrid, buriedand putrified in the practice of sin, and all this while have nopresage, no pulse, no sense of my sickness. O height, O depth of misery, where the first symptom of the sickness is hell, and where I never seethe fever of lust, of envy, of ambition, by any other light than thedarkness and horror of hell itself, and where the first messenger thatspeaks to me doth not say, "Thou mayest die, " no, nor "Thou must die, "but "Thou art dead;" and where the first notice that my soul hath of hersickness is irrecoverableness, irremediableness: but, O my God, Job didnot charge thee foolishly in his temporal afflictions, nor may I in myspiritual. Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our soul, but we do notexamine it; a voice in our conscience, but we do not hearken unto it. Wetalk it out, we jest it out, we drink it out, we sleep it out; and whenwe wake, we do not say with Jacob, _Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not_: but though we might know it, we do not, we will not. But will God pretend to make a watch, and leave out the spring? to makeso many various wheels in the faculties of the soul, and in the organsof the body, and leave out grace, that should move them? or will Godmake a spring, and not wind it up? Infuse his first grace, and notsecond it with more, without which we can no more use his first gracewhen we have it, than we could dispose ourselves by nature to have it?But alas, that is not our case; we are all prodigal sons, and notdisinherited; we have received our portion, and mispent it, not beendenied it. We are God's tenants here, and yet here, he, our landlord, pays us rents; not yearly, nor quarterly, but hourly, and quarterly;every minute he renews his mercy, but we _will not understand, lest thatwe should be converted, and he should heal us_. [1]

I. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who, considered in thyself, art acircle, first and last, and altogether; but, considered in thy workingupon us, art a direct line, and leadest us from our beginning, throughall our ways, to our end, enable me by thy grace to look forward to mineend, and to look backward too, to the considerations of thy merciesafforded me from the beginning; that so by that practice of consideringthy mercy, in my beginning in this world, when thou plantedst me in theChristian church, and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world, when thou writest me in the book of life, in my election, I may come toa holy consideration of thy mercy in the beginning of all my actionshere: that in all the beginnings, in all the accesses and approaches, ofspiritual sicknesses of sin, I may hear and hearken to that voice, _Othou man of God, there is death in the pot_, [2] and so refrain from thatwhich I was so hungerly, so greedily flying to. _A faithful ambassadoris health_, [3] says thy wise servant Solomon. Thy voice received in thebeginning of a sickness, of a sin, is true health. If I can see thatlight betimes, and hear that voice early, _Then shall my light breakforth as the morning, and my health shall spring forth speedily_. [4]Deliver me therefore, O my God, from these vain imaginations; that it isan over-curious thing, a dangerous thing, to come to that tenderness, that rawness, that scrupulousness, to fear every concupiscence, everyoffer of sin, that this suspicious and jealous diligence will turn to aninordinate dejection of spirit, and a diffidence in thy care andprovidence; but keep me still established, both in a constantassurance, that thou wilt speak to me at the beginning of every suchsickness, at the approach of every such sin; and that, if I takeknowledge of that voice then, and fly to thee, thou wilt preserve mefrom falling, or raise me again, when by natural infirmity I am fallen. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who knows our natural infirmities, for hehad them, and knows the weight of our sins, for he paid a dear price forthem, thy Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus. Amen. 

II. POST ACTIO LĘSA. 

_The Strength and the function of the senses, and other faculties, change and fail. _

II. MEDITATION. 

The heavens are not the less constant, because they move continually, because they move continually one and the same way. The earth is not themore constant, because it lies still continually, because continually itchanges and melts in all the parts thereof. Man, who is the noblest partof the earth, melts so away, as if he were a statue, not of earth, butof snow. We see his own envy melts him, he grows lean with that; he willsay, another's beauty melts him; but he feels that a fever doth not melthim like snow, but pour him out like lead, like iron, like brass meltedin a furnace; it doth not only melt him, but calcine him, reduce him toatoms, and to ashes; not to water, but to lime. And how quickly? Soonerthan thou canst receive an answer, sooner than thou canst conceive thequestion; earth is the centre of my body, heaven is the centre of mysoul; these two are the natural places of these two; but those go notto these two in an equal pace: my body falls down without pushing; mysoul does not go up without pulling; ascension is my soul's pace andmeasure, but precipitation my body's. And even angels, whose home isheaven, and who are winged too, yet had a ladder to go to heaven bysteps. The sun which goes so many miles in a minute, the stars of thefirmament which go so very many more, go not so fast as my body to theearth. In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease, I feel the victory; in the twinkling of an eye I can scarce see;instantly the taste is insipid and fatuous; instantly the appetite isdull and desireless; instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless;and in an instant, sleep, which is the picture, the copy of death, istaken away, that the original, death itself, may succeed, and that so Imight have death to the life. It was part of Adam's punishment, _In thesweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread_: it is multiplied to me, Ihave earned bread in the sweat of my brows, in the labour of my calling, and I have it; and I sweat again and again, from the brow to the sole ofthe foot, but I eat no bread, I taste no sustenance: miserabledistribution of mankind, where one half lacks meat, and the otherstomach!

II. EXPOSTULATION. 

David professes himself a dead dog to his king Saul, [5] and so dothMephibosheth to his king David, [6] and yet David speaks to Saul, andMephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatestman, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have notso much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure forinfinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave; he that hathhis grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buriedin the same grave; he that hath no grave but a dunghill, he that hath nomore earth but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hathnot that earth which he is, but even in that is another's slave, hath asmuch proportion to God, as if all David's worthies, and all the world'smonarchs, and all imagination's giants, were kneaded and incorporatedinto one, and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons ofmen, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever Ibe, as _God calls things that are not, as though they were_, I, who amas though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, whycomes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost thou melt me, scatter me, pour me like water upon the ground so instantly? Thou stayedst for thefirst world, in Noah's time, one hundred and twenty years; thou stayedstfor a rebellious generation in the wilderness forty years, wilt thoustay no minute for me? Wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thycitation and thy judgment, but one act? Thy summons, thy battle, thyvictory, thy triumph, all but one act; and lead me captive, nay, deliverme captive to death, as soon as thou declarest me to be enemy, and socut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, andfor that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but thatthe hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, myGod, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentleair. Thy first breath breathed a soul into me, and shall thy breath blowit out? Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathescommunion and consolation here, and consummation hereafter; shall thybreath in this chamber breathe dissolution and destruction, divorce andseparation? Surely it is not thou, it is not thy hand. The devouringsword, the consuming fire, the winds from the wilderness, the diseasesof the body, all that afflicted Job, were from the hands of Satan; it isnot thou. It is thou, thou my God, who hast led me so continually withthy hand, from the hand of my nurse, as that I know thou wilt notcorrect me, but with thine own hand. My parents would not give me overto a servant's correction, nor my God to Satan's. I am _fallen into thehands of God_ with David, and with David I see that his mercies aregreat. [7] For by that mercy, I consider in my present state, not thehaste and the despatch of the disease, in dissolving this body, so muchas the much more haste and despatch, which my God shall use, inre-collecting and re-uniting this dust again at the resurrection. Then Ishall hear his angels proclaim the _Surgite mortui_, Rise, ye dead. Though I be dead, I shall hear the voice; the sounding of the voice andthe working of the voice shall be all one; and all shall rise there in aless minute than any one dies here. 

II. PRAYER. 

O most gracious God, who pursuest and perfectest thine own purposes, anddost not only remember me, by the first accesses of this sickness, thatI must die, but inform me, by this further proceeding therein, that Imay die now; who hast not only waked me with the first, but called meup, by casting me further down, and clothed me with thyself, bystripping me of my self, and by dulling my bodily senses to the meatsand eases of this world, hast whet and sharpened my spiritual senses tothe apprehension of thee; by what steps and degrees soever it shallplease thee to go, in the dissolution of this body, hasten, O Lord, thatpace, and multiply, O my God, those degrees, in the exaltation of mysoul toward thee now, and to thee then. My taste is not gone away, butgone up to sit at David's table, _to taste, and see, that the Lord isgood_. [8] My stomach is not gone, but gone up, so far upwards toward the_supper of the Lamb_, with thy saints in heaven, as to the table, to thecommunion of thy saints here in earth. My knees are weak, but weaktherefore that I should easily fall to and fix myself long upon mydevotions to thee. _A sound heart is the life of the flesh_;[9] and aheart visited by thee, and directed to thee, by that visitation is asound heart. _There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thineanger. _[10] Interpret thine own work, and call this sickness correction, and not anger, and there is soundness in my flesh. _There is no rest inmy bones, because of my sin_;[11] transfer my sins, with which thou artso displeased, upon him with whom thou art so well pleased, ChristJesus, and there will be rest in my bones. And, O my God, who madestthyself a light in a bush, in the midst of these brambles and thorns ofa sharp sickness, appear unto me so that I may see thee, and know theeto be my God, applying thyself to me, even in these sharp and thornypassages. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who was not the less the Kingof heaven for thy suffering him to be crowned with thorns in this world. 

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Matt. Xiii. 15. 

[2] 2 Kings, iv. 40. 

[3] Prov. Xiii. 17. 

[4] Isaiah, lviii. 8. 

[5] 1 Sam. Xxiv. 15. 

[6] 2 Sam. Ix. 8. 

[7] 2 Sam. Xxiv. 14. 

[8] Psalm xxxiv. 8. 

[9] Prov. Xiv. 30. 

[10] Psalm xxxviii. 3. 

[11] Psalm xxxviii. 3. 

III. DECUBITUS SEQUITUR TANDEM. 

_The patient takes his bed. _

III. MEDITATION. 

We attribute but one privilege and advantage to man's body above othermoving creatures, that he is not, as others, grovelling, but of anerect, of an upright, form naturally built and disposed to thecontemplation of heaven. Indeed it is a thankful form, and recompensesthat soul, which gives it, with carrying that soul so many feet highertowards heaven. Other creatures look to the earth; and even that is nounfit object, no unfit contemplation for man, for thither he must come;but because man is not to stay there, as other creatures are, man in hisnatural form is carried to the contemplation of that place which is hishome, heaven. This is man's prerogative; but what state hath he in thisdignity? A fever can fillip him down, a fever can depose him; a fevercan bring that head, which yesterday carried a crown of gold five feettowards a crown of glory, as low as his own foot to-day. When God cameto breathe into man the breath of life, he found him flat upon theground; when he comes to withdraw that breath from him again, heprepares him to it by laying him flat upon his bed. Scarce any prison soclose that affords not the prisoner two or three steps. The anchoritesthat barked themselves up in hollow trees and immured themselves inhollow walls, that perverse man that barrelled himself in a tub, allcould stand or sit, and enjoy some change of posture. A sick bed is agrave, and all that the patient says there is but a varying of his ownepitaph. Every night's bed is a type of the grave; at night we tell ourservants at what hour we will rise, here we cannot tell ourselves atwhat day, what week, what month. Here the head lies as low as the foot;the head of the people as low as they whom those feet trod upon; andthat hand that signed pardons is too weak to beg his own, if he mighthave it for lifting up that hand. Strange fetters to the feet, strangemanacles to the hands, when the feet and hands are bound so much thefaster, by how much the cords are slacker; so much the less able to dotheir offices, by how much more the sinews and ligaments are the looser. In the grave I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends, and in the accents of those words which their love may afford my memory;here I am mine own ghost, and rather affright my beholders than instructthem; they conceive the worst of me now, and yet fear worse; they giveme for dead now, and yet wonder how I do when they wake at midnight, andask how I do to-morrow. Miserable, and (though common to all) inhumanposture, where I must practise my lying in the grave by lying still, andnot practise my resurrection by rising any more. 

III. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God and my Jesus, my Lord and my Christ, my strength and mysalvation, I hear thee, and I hearken to thee, when thou rebukest thydisciples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; _Sufferlittle children to come to me_, sayest thou. [12] Is there a verier childthan I am now? I cannot say, with thy servant Jeremy, _Lord, I am achild, and cannot speak_; but, O Lord, I am a sucking child, and cannoteat; a creeping child, and cannot go; how shall I come to thee? Whithershall I come to thee? To this bed? I have this weak and childishfrowardness too, I cannot sit up, and yet am loth to go to bed. Shall Ifind thee in bed? Oh, have I always done so? The bed is not ordinarilythy scene, thy climate: Lord, dost thou not accuse me, dost thou notreproach to me my former sins, when thou layest me upon this bed? Is notthis to hang a man at his own door, to lay him sick in his own bed ofwantonness? When thou chidest us by thy prophet for lying in _beds ofivory_[13], is not thine anger vented; not till thou changest our bedsof ivory into beds of ebony? David swears unto thee, _that he will notgo up into his bed, till he had built thee a house_. [14] To go up intothe bed denotes strength, and promises ease; but when thou sayest, _thatthou wilt cast Jezebel into a bed_, thou makest thine own comment uponthat; thou callest the bed tribulation, great tribulation. [15] How shallthey come to thee whom thou hast nailed to their bed? Thou art in thecongregation, and I in a solitude: when the centurion's servant lay sickat home, [16] his master was fain to come to Christ; the sick man couldnot. Their friend lay sick of the palsy, and the four charitable menwere fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come. [17] Peter's wife'smother lay sick of a fever, and Christ came to her; she could not cometo him. [18] My friends may carry me home to thee, in their prayers inthe congregation; thou must come home to me in the visitation of thySpirit, and in the seal of thy sacrament. But when I am cast into thisbed my slack sinews are iron fetters, and those thin sheets iron doorsupon me; and, _Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and theplace where thine honour dwelleth_. [19] I lie here and say, _Blessed arethey that dwell in thy house_;[20] but I cannot say, _I will come intothy house_; I may say, _In thy fear will I worship towards thy holytemple_;[21] but I cannot say in thy holy temple. And, _Lord, the zealof thy house eats me up_, [22] as fast as my fever; it is not arecusancy, for I would come, but it is an excommunication, I must not. But, Lord, thou art Lord of hosts, and lovest action; why callest thoume from my calling? _In the grave no man shall praise thee_; in the doorof the grave, this sick bed, no man shall hear me praise thee. Thou hastnot opened my lips that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but that mymouth might show forth thy praise. But thine apostle's fear takes holdof me, _that when I have preached to others, I myself should be acastaway_;[23] and therefore am I cast down, that I might not be castaway. Thou couldst take me by the head, as thou didst Habbakuk, andcarry me so; by a chariot, as thou didst Elijah, [24] and carry me so;but thou carriest me thine own private way, the way by which thoucarriedst thy Son, who first lay upon the earth and prayed, and then hadhis exaltation, as himself calls his crucifying; and first descendedinto hell, and then had his ascension. There is another station (indeedneither are stations but prostrations) lower than this bed; to-morrow Imay be laid one story lower, upon the floor, the face of the earth; andnext day another story, in the grave, the womb of the earth. As yet Godsuspends me between heaven and earth, as a meteor; and I am not inheaven because an earthly body clogs me, and I am not in the earthbecause a heavenly soul sustains me. And it is thine own law, O God, that _if a man be smitten so by another, as that he keep his bed, thoughhe die not, he that hurt him must take care of his healing, andrecompense him_[25]. Thy hand strikes me into this bed; and therefore, if I rise again, thou wilt be my recompense all the days of my life, inmaking the memory of this sickness beneficial to me; and if my body fallyet lower, thou wilt take my soul out of this bath, and present it tothy Father, washed again, and again, and again, in thine own tears, inthine own sweat, in thine own blood. 

III. PRAYER. 

O most mighty and most merciful God, who, though thou have taken me offof my feet, hast not taken me off of my foundation, which is thyself;who, though thou have removed me from that upright form in which I couldstand and see thy throne, the heavens, yet hast not removed from me thatlight by which I can lie and see thyself; who, though thou have weakenedmy bodily knees, that they cannot bow to thee, hast yet left me theknees of my heart; which are bowed unto thee evermore; as thou hast madethis bed thine altar, make me thy sacrifice; and as thou makest thy SonChrist Jesus the priest, so make me his deacon, to minister to him in acheerful surrender of my body and soul to thy pleasure, by his hands. Icome unto thee, O God, my God, I come unto thee, so as I can come, Icome to thee, by embracing thy coming to me, I come in the confidence, and in the application of thy servant David's promise, _that thou wiltmake all my bed in my sickness_;[26] all my bed; that which way soever Iturn, I may turn to thee; and as I feel thy hand upon all my body, so Imay find it upon all my bed, and see all my corrections, and all myrefreshings to flow from one and the same, and all from thy hand. Asthou hast made these feathers thorns, in the sharpness of this sickness, so, Lord, make these thorns feathers again, feathers of thy dove, in thepeace of conscience, and in a holy recourse to thine ark, to theinstruments of true comfort, in thy institutions and in the ordinancesof thy church. Forget my bed, O Lord, as it hath been a bed of sloth, and worse than sloth; take me not, O Lord, at this advantage, to terrifymy soul with saying, Now I have met thee there where thou hast so oftendeparted from me; but having burnt up that bed by these vehement heats, and washed that bed in these abundant sweats, make my bed again, O Lord, and enable me, according to thy command, _to commune with mine own heartupon my bed, and be still_[27]; to provide a bed for all my former sinswhilst I lie upon this bed, and a grave for my sins before I come to mygrave; and when I have deposited them in the wounds of thy Son, to restin that assurance, that my conscience is discharged from furtheranxiety, and my soul from further danger, and my memory from furthercalumny. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who did and suffered so much, that thou mightest, as well in thy justice as in thy mercy, do it forme, thy Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus. 

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Matt. Xix. 13. 

[13] Amos, vi. 4. 

[14] Psalm cxxxii. 3. 

[15] Rev. Ii. 22. 

[16] Matt. Viii. 6. 

[17] Matt. Viii. 4. 

[18] Matt. Viii. 14. 

[19] Psalm xxvi. 8. 

[20] Psalm lxxxiv. 4. 

[21] Psalm v. 7. 

[22] Psalm lxix. 9. 

[23] 1 Cor. Ix. 27. 

[24] 2 Kings, ii. 11. 

[25] Exodus, xxi. 18. 

[26] Psalm xli. 3. 

[27] Psalm iv. 4. 

IV. MEDICUSQUE VOCATUR. 

_The physician is sent for. _

IV. MEDITATION. 

It is too little to call man a little world; except God, man is adiminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than theworld; than the world doth, nay, than the world is. And if those pieceswere extended, and stretched out in man as they are in the world, manwould be the giant, and the world the dwarf; the world but the map, andthe man the world. If all the veins in our bodies were extended torivers, and all the sinews to veins of mines, and all the muscles thatlie upon one another, to hills, and all the bones to quarries of stones, and all the other pieces to the proportion of those which correspond tothem in the world, the air would be too little for this orb of man tomove in, the firmament would be but enough for this star; for, as thewhole world hath nothing, to which something in man doth not answer, sohath man many pieces of which the whole world hath no representation. Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far as toconsider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; ourcreatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reachfrom east to west, from earth to heaven; that do not only bestride allthe sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughtsreach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in aclose prison, in a sick bed, any where, and any one of my creatures, mythoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, andovergoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere. And then, as theother world produces serpents and vipers, malignant and venomouscreatures, and worms and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour thatworld which produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated ofdivers parents and kinds; so this world, ourselves, produces all thesein us, in producing diseases, and sicknesses of all those sorts:venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, andmanifold and entangled diseases made up of many several ones. And canthe other world name so many venomous, so many consuming, so manymonstrous creatures, as we can diseases of all these kinds? O miserableabundance, O beggarly riches! how much do we lack of having remedies forevery disease, when as yet we have not names for them? But we have aHercules against these giants, these monsters; that is, the physician;he musters up all the forces of the other world to succour this, allnature to relieve man. We have the physician, but we are not thephysician. Here we shrink in our proportion, sink in our dignity, inrespect of very mean creatures, who are physicians to themselves. Thehart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knows an herb, which beingeaten throws off the arrow: a strange kind of vomit. The dog thatpursues it, though he be subject to sickness, even proverbially, knowshis grass that recovers him. And it may be true, that the drugger is asnear to man as to other creatures; it may be that obvious and presentsimples, easy to be had, would cure him; but the apothecary is not sonear him, nor the physician so near him, as they two are to othercreatures; man hath not that innate instinct, to apply those naturalmedicines to his present danger, as those inferior creatures have; he isnot his own apothecary, his own physician, as they are. Call backtherefore thy meditation again, and bring it down: what's become ofman's great extent and proportion, when himself shrinks himself andconsumes himself to a handful of dust; what's become of his soaringthoughts, his compassing thoughts, when himself brings himself to theignorance, to the thoughtlessness, of the grave? His diseases are hisown, but the physician is not; he hath them at home, but he must sendfor the physician. 

IV. EXPOSTULATION. 

I have not the righteousness of Job, but I have the desire of Job: _Iwould speak to the Almighty, and I would reason with God_. [28] My God, my God, how soon wouldst thou have me go to the physician, and how farwouldst thou have me go with the physician? I know thou hast made thematter, and the man, and the art; and I go not from thee when I go tothe physician. Thou didst not make clothes before there was a shame ofthe nakedness of the body, but thou didst make physic before there wasany grudging of any sickness; for thou didst imprint a medicinal virtuein many simples, even from the beginning; didst thou mean that we shouldbe sick when thou didst so? when thou madest them? No more than thoudidst mean, that we should sin, when thou madest us: thou foresawestboth, but causedst neither. Thou, Lord, promisest here trees, _whosefruit shall be for meat, and their leaves for medicine_. [29] It is thevoice of thy Son, _Wilt thou be made whole?_[30] that draws from thepatient a confession that he was ill, and could not make himself well. And it is thine own voice, _Is there no physician?_[31] that inclinesus, disposes us, to accept thine ordinance. And it is the voice of thewise man, both for the matter, physic itself, _The Lord hath createdmedicines out of the earth, and he that is wise shall not abhorthem_, [32] and for the art, and the person, the physician cutteth off along disease. In all these voices thou sendest us to those helps whichthou hast afforded us in that. But wilt not thou avow that voice too, _He that hath sinned against his Maker, let him fall into the hands ofthe physician_;[33] and wilt not thou afford me an understanding ofthose words? Thou, who sendest us for a blessing to the physician, dostnot make it a curse to us to go when thou sendest. Is not the curserather in this, that only he falls into the hands of the physician, thatcasts himself wholly, entirely upon the physician, confides in him, relies upon him, attends all from him, and neglects that spiritualphysic which thou also hast instituted in thy church. So to fall intothe hands of the physician is a sin, and a punishment of former sins;so, as Asa fell, who in his disease _sought not to the Lord, but to thephysician_. [34] Reveal therefore to me thy method, O Lord, and seewhether I have followed it; that thou mayest have glory, if I have, andI pardon, if I have not, and help that I may. Thy method is, _In time ofthy sickness, be not negligent_: wherein wilt thou have my diligenceexpressed? _Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole. _[35] OLord, I do; I pray, and pray thy servant David's prayer, _Have mercyupon me, O Lord, for I am weak; heal me, O Lord, for my bones arevexed_:[36] I know that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, toinduce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health. When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, tocommiserate, as in misery? But is prayer for health in season, as soonas I am sick? Thy method goes further: _Leave off from sin, and orderthy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness_. [37] HaveI, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holydetestation of my former sin. Is there any more? In thy method there ismore: _Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fatoffering, as not being_. [38] And, Lord, by thy grace, I have done that, sacrificed a little of that little which thou lentest me, to them forwhom thou lentest it: and now in thy method, and by thy steps, I am cometo that, _Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath createdhim; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him_. [39] I sendfor the physician, but I will hear him enter with those words of Peter, _Jesus Christ maketh thee whole_;[40] I long for his presence, but Ilook _that the power of the Lord should be present to heal me_. [41]

IV. PRAYER. 

O most mighty and most merciful God, who art so the God of health andstrength, as that without thee all health is but the fuel, and allstrength but the bellows of sin; behold me under the vehemence of twodiseases, and under the necessity of two physicians, authorized by thee, the bodily, and the spiritual physician. I come to both as to thineordinance, and bless and glorify thy name that, in both cases, thou hastafforded help to man by the ministry of man. Even in the new Jerusalem, in heaven itself, it hath pleased thee to discover a tree, which is _atree of life there, but the leaves thereof are for the healing of thenations_. [42] Life itself is with thee there, for thou art life; and allkinds of health, wrought upon us here by thine instruments, descend fromthence. _Thou wouldst have healed Babylon, but she is not healed. _[43]Take from me, O Lord, her perverseness, her wilfulness, herrefractoriness, and hear thy Spirit saying in my soul: Heal me, O Lord, for I would be healed. _Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound;then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb, yet could nothe heal you, nor cure you of your wound. _[44] Keep me back, O Lord, fromthem who misprofess arts of healing the soul, or of the body, by meansnot imprinted by thee in the church for the soul, or not in nature forthe body. There is no spiritual health to be had by superstition, norbodily by witchcraft; thou, Lord, and only thou, art Lord of both. Thouin thyself art Lord of both, and thou in thy Son art the physician, theapplier of both. _With his stripes we are healed_, [45] says the prophetthere; there, before he was scourged, we were healed with his stripes;how much more shall I be healed now, now when that which he hath alreadysuffered actually is actually and effectually applied to me? Is thereany thing incurable, upon which that balm drops? Any vein so empty asthat that blood cannot fill it? Thou promisest to heal the earth;[46]but it is when the inhabitants of the earth _pray that thou wouldst healit_. Thou promisest to heal their waters, but _their miry places andstanding waters_, thou sayest there, _thou wilt not heal_. [47] Myreturning to any sin, if I should return to the ability of sinning overall my sins again, thou wouldst not pardon. Heal this earth, O my God, by repentant tears, and heal these waters, these tears, from allbitterness, from all diffidence, from all dejection, by establishing myirremovable assurance in thee. _Thy Son went about healing all manner ofsickness. _[48] (No disease incurable, none difficult; he healed them inpassing). _Virtue went out of him, and he healed all_, [49] all themultitude (no person incurable), he healed them _every whit_[50] (ashimself speaks), he left no relics of the disease; and will thisuniversal physician pass by this hospital, and not visit me? not healme? not heal me wholly? Lord, I look not that thou shouldst say by thymessenger to me, as to Hezekiah, _Behold, I will heal thee, and on thethird day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord_. [51] I look notthat thou shouldst say to me, as to Moses in Miriam's behalf, when Moseswould have had her healed presently, _If her father had but spit in herface, should she not have been ashamed seven days? Let her be shut upseven days, and then return_;[52] but if thou be pleased to multiplyseven days (and seven is infinite) by the number of my sins (and that ismore infinite), if this day must remove me till days shall be no more, seal to me my spiritual health, in affording me the seals of thy church;and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands whoshall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, asmay most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues ofthy servants, to their own spiritual benefit. 

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Job, xiii. 3. 

[29] Ezek. Xlvii. 12. 

[30] John, v. 6. 

[31] Jer. Viii. 22. 

[32] Ecclus. Xxxviii. 4. 

[33] Ecclus. Xxxviii. 15. 

[34] 1 Chron. Xvi. 12. 

[35] Ecclus. Xxxviii. 9. 

[36] Psalm vi. 2. 

[37] Ecclus. Xxxviii. 10. 

[38] Ecclus. Xxxviii. 11. 

[39] Ecclus. Xxxviii. 12. 

[40] Acts, ix. 34. 

[41] Luke, v. 17. 

[42] Rev. Xxii. 2. 

[43] Jer. Li. 9. 

[44] Hosea, v. 13. 

[45] Isaiah, liii. 5. 

[46] 2 Chron. Vii. 14. 

[47] Ezek. Xlvii. 11. 

[48] Matt. Iv. 23. 

[49] Luke, vi. 19. 

[50] John, vii. 23. 

[51] 2 Kings, xx. 5. 

[52] Num. Xii. 14. 

V. SOLUS ADEST. 

_The physician comes_

V. MEDITATION. 

As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sicknessis solitude; when the infectiousness of the disease deters them whoshould assist from coming; even the physician dares scarce come. Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself. Merevacuity, the first agent, God, the first instrument of God, nature, willnot admit; nothing can be utterly empty, but so near a degree towardsvacuity as solitude, to be but one, they love not. When I am dead, andmy body might infect, they have a remedy, they may bury me; but when Iam but sick, and might infect, they have no remedy but their absence, and my solitude. It is an excuse to them that are great, and pretend, and yet are loath to come; it is an inhibition to those who would trulycome, because they may be made instruments, and pestiducts, to theinfection of others, by their coming. And it is an outlawry, anexcommunication upon the patient, and separates him from all offices, not only of civility but of working charity. A long sickness will wearyfriends at last, but a pestilential sickness averts them from thebeginning. God himself would admit a figure of society, as there is aplurality of persons in God, though there be but one God; and all hisexternal actions testify a love of society, and communion. In heaventhere are orders of angels, and armies of martyrs, and in that housemany mansions; in earth, families, cities, churches, colleges, allplural things; and lest either of these should not be company enoughalone, there is an association of both, a communion of saints whichmakes the militant and triumphant church one parish; so that Christ wasnot out of his diocess when he was upon the earth, nor out of his templewhen he was in our flesh. God, who saw that all that he made was good, came not so near seeing a defect in any of his works, as when he sawthat it was not good for man to be alone, therefore he made him ahelper; and one that should help him so as to increase the number, andgive him her own, and more society. Angels, who do not propagate normultiply, were made at first in an abundant number, and so were stars;but for the things of this world, their blessing was, Increase; for Ithink, I need not ask leave to think, that there is no phoenix;nothing singular, nothing alone. Men that inhere upon nature only, areso far from thinking that there is any thing singular in this world, asthat they will scarce think that this world itself is singular, but thatevery planet, and every star, is another world like this; they findreason to conceive not only a plurality in every species in the world, but a plurality of worlds; so that the abhorrers of solitude are notsolitary, for God, and Nature, and Reason concur against it. Now a manmay counterfeit the plague in a vow, and mistake a disease for religion, by such a retiring and recluding of himself from all men as to do goodto no man, to converse with no man. God hath two testaments, two wills;but this is a schedule, and not of his, a codicil, and not of his, notin the body of his testaments, but interlined and postscribed by others, that the way to the communion of saints should be by such a solitude asexcludes all doing of good here. That is a disease of the mind, as theheight of an infectious disease of the body is solitude, to be leftalone: for this makes an infectious bed equal, nay, worse than a grave, that though in both I be equally alone, in my bed I know it, and feelit, and shall not in my grave: and this too, that in my bed my soul isstill in an infectious body, and shall not in my grave be so. 

V. EXPOSTULATION. 

O God, my God, thy Son took it not ill at Martha's hands, that when hesaid unto her, _Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again_, [53] sheexpostulated it so far with him as to reply, _I know that he shall riseagain in the resurrection, at the last day_; for she was miserable bywanting him then. Take it not ill, O my God, from me, that though thouhave ordained it for a blessing, and for a dignity to thy people, _thatthey should dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations_[54](because they should be above them), and that _they should dwell insafety alone_[55] (free from the infestation of enemies), yet I take thyleave to remember thee, that thou hast said too, _Two are better thanone_; and, _Woe be unto him that is alone when he falleth_;[56] and sowhen he is fallen, and laid in the bed of sickness too. _Righteousnessis immortal_;[57] I know thy wisdom hath said so; but no man, thoughcovered with the righteousness of thy Son, is immortal so as not to die;for he who was righteousness itself did die. I know that the Son ofRighteousness, thy Son, refused not, nay affected, solitariness, loneness, [58] many, many times; but at all times he was able to command_more than twelve legions of angels_[59] to his service; and when he didnot so, he was far from being alone: for, _I am not alone_, says he, _but I, and the Father that sent me_. [60] I cannot fear but that Ishall always be with thee and him; but whether this disease may notalien and remove my friends, so that _they stand aloof from my sore, andmy kinsmen stand afar off_, [61] I cannot tell. I cannot fear but thatthou wilt reckon with me from this minute, in which, by thy grace, I seethee; whether this understanding, and this will, and this memory may notdecay, to the discouragement and the ill interpretation of them that seethat heavy change in me, I cannot tell. It was for thy blessed, thypowerful Son alone, _to tread the wine-press alone, and none of thepeople with him_. [62] I am not able to pass this agony alone, not alonewithout thee; thou art thy spirit, not alone without thine; spiritualand temporal physicians are thine, not alone without mine; those whomthe bands of blood or friendship have made mine, are mine; and if thou, or thine, or mine, abandon me, I am alone, and woe unto me if I bealone. Elias himself fainted under that apprehension, _Lo, I am leftalone_;[63] and Martha murmured at that, said to Christ, _Lord, dost notthou care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?_[64] Neither couldJeremiah enter into his lamentations from a higher ground than to say, _How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people_. [65] O my God, it is the leper that thou hast condemned to live alone;[66] have I sucha leprosy in my soul that I must die alone; alone without thee? Shallthis come to such a leprosy in my body that I must die alone; alonewithout them that should assist, that should comfort me? But comes notthis expostulation too near a murmuring? Must I be concluded with that, that Moses _was commanded to come near the Lord alone_;[67] thatsolitariness, and dereliction, and abandoning of others, disposes usbest for God, who accompanies us most alone? May I not remember, andapply too, that though God came not to Jacob till he found him alone, yet when he found him alone, he wrestled with him, and lamed him;[68]that when, in the dereliction and forsaking of friends and physicians, aman is left alone to God, God may so wrestle with this Jacob, with thisconscience, as to put it out of joint, and so appear to him as that hedares not look upon him face to face, when as by way of reflection, inthe consolation of his temporal or spiritual servants, and ordinances hedurst, if they were there? But a _faithful friend is the physic of life, and they that fear the Lord shall find him_. [69] Therefore hath the Lordafforded me both in one person, that physician who is my faithfulfriend. 

V. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who calledst down fire from heaven uponthe sinful cities but once, and openedst the earth to swallow themurmurers but once, and threwest down the tower of Siloam upon sinnersbut once; but for thy works of mercy repeatedst them often, and stillworkest by thine own patterns, as thou broughtest man into this world, by giving him a helper fit for him here; so, whether it be thy will tocontinue me long thus, or to dismiss me by death, be pleased to affordme the helps fit for both conditions, either for my weak stay here, ormy final transmigration from hence. And if thou mayst receive glory bythat way (and by all ways thou mayst receive glory), glorify thyself inpreserving this body from such infections as might withhold those whowould come, or endanger them who do come; and preserve this soul in thefaculties thereof from all such distempers as might shake the assurancewhich myself and others have had, that because thou hast loved me thouwouldst love me to my end, and at my end. Open none of my doors, not ofmy heart, not of mine ears, not of my house, to any supplanter thatwould enter to undermine me in my religion to thee, in the time of myweakness, or to defame me, and magnify himself with false rumours ofsuch a victory and surprisal of me, after I am dead. Be my salvation, and plead my salvation; work it and declare it; and as thy triumphantshall be, so let the militant church be assured that thou wast my God, and I thy servant, to and in my consummation. Bless thou the learningand the labours of this man whom thou sendest to assist me; and sincethou takest me by the hand, and puttest me into his hands (for I come tohim in thy name, who in thy name comes to me), since I clog not my hopesin him, no, nor my prayers to thee, with any limited conditions, butinwrap all in those two petitions, _Thy kingdom come, thy will be done_, prosper him, and relieve me, in thy way, in thy time, and in thymeasure. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[53] John, xi. 23. 

[54] Num. Xxiii. 9. 

[55] Deut. Xxxiii. 28. 

[56] Eccles. Iv. 10. 

[57] Wisd. I. 15. 

[58] Matt. Xiv. 23. 

[59] Matt. Xxvi. 13. 

[60] John, viii. 16. 

[61] Psalm xxxviii. 11. 

[62] Isaiah, lxiii. 3. 

[63] 1 Kings, xiv. 14. 

[64] Luke, x. 40. 

[65] Lam. I. 1. 

[66] Lev. Xiii. 46. 

[67] Exod. Xiv. 2. 

[68] Gen. Xxxii. 24. 25. 

[69] Ecclus. Vi. 16. 

VI. METUIT. 

_The physician is afraid. _

VI. MEDITATION. 

I observe the physician with the same diligence as he the disease; I seehe fears, and I fear with him; I overtake him, I overrun him, in hisfear, and I go the faster, because he makes his pace slow; I fear themore, because he disguises his fear, and I see it with the moresharpness, because he would not have me see it. He knows that his fearshall not disorder the practice and exercise of his art, but he knowsthat my fear may disorder the effect and working of his practice. As theill affections of the spleen complicate and mingle themselves with everyinfirmity of the body, so doth fear insinuate itself in every action orpassion of the mind; and as wind in the body will counterfeit anydisease, and seem the stone, and seem the gout, so fear will counterfeitany disease of the mind. It shall seem love, a love of having; and it isbut a fear, a jealous and suspicious fear of losing. It shall seemvalour in despising and undervaluing danger; and it is but fear in anovervaluing of opinion and estimation, and a fear of losing that. A manthat is not afraid of a lion is afraid of a cat; not afraid of starving, and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table presented to feedhim; not afraid of the sound of drums and trumpets and shot and thosewhich they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of someparticular harmonious instrument; so much afraid as that with any ofthese the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out ofthe field. I know not what fear is, nor I know not what it is that Ifear now; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear theincrease of the disease; I should belie nature if I should deny that Ifeared this; and if I should say that I feared death, I should belieGod. My weakness is from nature, who hath but her measure; my strengthis from God, who possesses and distributes infinitely. As then everycold air is not a damp, every shivering is not a stupefaction; so everyfear is not a fearfulness, every declination is not a running away, every debating is not a resolving, every wish that it were not thus, isnot a murmuring nor a dejection, though it be thus; but as myphysician's fear puts not him from his practice, neither doth mine putme from receiving from God, and man, and myself, spiritual and civil andmoral assistances and consolations. 

VI. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, I find in thy book that fear is a stifling spirit, aspirit of suffocation; that _Ishbosheth could not speak, nor reply inhis own defence to Abner, because he was afraid_. [70] It was thy servantJob's case too, who, before he could say anything to thee, says of thee, _Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me, then would I speak with him, and not fear him; but it is not so withme_. [71] Shall a fear of thee take away my devotion to thee? Dost thoucommand me to speak to thee, and command me to fear thee; and do thesedestroy one another? There is no perplexity in thee, my God; noinextricableness in thee, my light and my clearness, my sun and my moon, that directest me as well in the night of adversity and fear, as in myday of prosperity and confidence. I must then speak to thee at alltimes, but when must I fear thee? At all times too. When didst thourebuke any petitioner with the name of importunate? Thou hast proposedto us a parable of a judge[72] that did justice at last, because theclient was importunate, and troubled him; but thou hast told us plainly, that thy use in that parable was not that thou wast troubled with ourimportunities, but (as thou sayest there) _that we should always pray_. And to the same purpose thou proposest another, [73] that if I press myfriend, when he is in bed at midnight, to lend me bread, though he willnot rise because I am his friend, yet because of mine importunity hewill. God will do this whensoever thou askest, and never call itimportunity. Pray in thy bed at midnight, and God will not say, I willhear thee to-morrow upon thy knees, at thy bedside; pray upon thy kneesthere then, and God will not say, I will hear thee on Sunday at church;God is no dilatory God, no froward God; prayer is never unseasonable, God is never asleep, nor absent. But, O my God, can I do this, and fearthee; come to thee and speak to thee, in all places, at all hours, andfear thee? Dare I ask this question? There is more boldness in thequestion than in the coming; I may do it though I fear thee; I cannot doit except I fear thee. So well hast thou provided that we should alwaysfear thee, as that thou hast provided that we should fear no person butthee, nothing but thee; no men? No. Whom? _The Lord is my help and mysalvation, whom shall I fear?_[74] Great enemies? Not great enemies, forno enemies are great to them that fear thee. _Fear not the people ofthis land, for they are bread to you_;[75] they shall not only not eatus, not eat our bread, but they shall be our bread. Why should we fearthem? But for all this metaphorical bread, victory over enemies thatthought to devour us, may we not fear, that we may lack bread literally?And fear famine, though we fear not enemies? _Young lions do lack andsuffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any goodthing. _[76] Never? Though it be well with them at one time, may they notfear that it may be worse? _Wherefore should I fear in the days ofevil?_[77] says thy servant David. Though his own sin had made themevil, he feared them not. No? not if this evil determine in death? Notthough in a death; not though in a death inflicted by violence, bymalice, by our own desert; _fear not the sentence of death_, [78] if thoufear God. Thou art, O my God, so far from admitting us that fear thee tofear others, as that thou makest others to fear us; as _Herod fearedJohn, because he was a holy and a just man, and observed him_. [79] Howfully then, O my abundant God, how gently, O my sweet, my easy God, dostthou unentangle me in any scruple arising out of the consideration ofthy fear! Is not this that which thou intendest when thou sayest, _Thesecret of the Lord is with them that fear him_;[80] the secret, themystery of the right use of fear. Dost thou not mean this when thousayest, _we shall understand the fear of the Lord_?[81] Have it, andhave benefit by it; have it, and stand under it; be directed by it, andnot be dejected with it. And dost thou not propose that church for ourexample when thou sayest, the church of Judea _walked in the fear ofGod_;[82] they had it, but did not sit down lazily, nor fall downweakly, nor sink under it. There is a fear which weakens men in theservice of God. _Adam was afraid, because he was naked. _[83] They whohave put off thee are a prey to all. They may fear, for _Thou wilt laughwhen their fear comes upon them_, as thou hast told them more thanonce. [84] And thou wilt make them fear where no cause of fear is, asthou hast told them more than once too. [85] There is a fear that is apunishment of former wickednesses, and induces more. Though some said ofthy Son, Christ Jesus, _that he was a good man, yet no man spake openlyfor fear of the Jews_. Joseph was his disciple, _but secretly, for fearof the Jews_. [86] The disciples kept some meetings, but with doors shutfor fear of the Jews. O my God, thou givest us fear for ballast to carryus steadily in all weathers. But thou wouldst ballast us with such sandas should have gold in it, with that fear which is thy fear; for _thefear of the Lord is his treasure_. [87] He that hath that lacks nothingthat man can have, nothing that God does give. Timorous men thourebukest: _Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?_[88] Such thoudismissest from thy service with scorn, though of them there went fromGideon's army twenty-two thousand, and remained but ten thousand. [89]Such thou sendest farther than so; thither from whence they neverreturn: _The fearful and the unbelieving, into that burning lake whichis the second death_. [90] There is a fear and there is a hope, which areequal abominations to thee; for, they were confounded because theyhoped, [91] says thy servant Job; because they had misplaced, miscentredtheir hopes, they hoped, and not in thee, and such shall fear, and notfear thee. But in thy fear, my God, and my fear, my God, and my hope, ishope, and love, and confidence, and peace, and every limb and ingredientof happiness enwrapped; for joy includes all, and fear and joy consisttogether, nay, constitute one another. _The women departed from thesepulchre_, [92] the women who were made supernumerary apostles, apostlesto the apostles; mothers of the church, and of the fathers, grandfathersof the church, the apostles themselves; the women, angels of theresurrection, went from the sepulchre with fear and joy; they ran, saysthe text, and they ran upon those two legs, fear and joy; and both wasthe right leg; they joy in thee, O Lord, that fear thee, and fear theeonly, who feel this joy in thee. Nay, thy fear, and thy love areinseparable; still we are called upon, in infinite places, to fear God, yet the commandment, which is the root of all is, Thou shalt love theLord thy God; he doeth neither that doeth not both; he omits neither, that does one. Therefore when thy servant David had said that _the fearof the Lord is the beginning of wisdom_, [93] and his son had repeated itagain, [94] he that collects both calls this fear the root of wisdom;and, that it may embrace all, he calls it wisdom itself. [95] A wise man, therefore, is never without it, never without the exercise of it;therefore thou sentest Moses to thy people, _that they might learn tofear thee all the days of their lives_, [96] not in heavy and calamitous, but in good and cheerful days too; for Noah, who had assurance of hisdeliverance, yet, _moved with fear, prepared an ark, for the saving ofhis house_. [97] _A wise man will fear in everything. _[98] And therefore, though I pretend to no other degree of wisdom, I am abundantly rich inthis, that I lie here possessed with that fear which is thy fear, boththat this sickness is thy immediate correction, and not merely a naturalaccident, and therefore fearful, because it is a fearful thing to fallinto thy hands; and that this fear preserves me from all inordinatefear, arising out of the infirmity of nature, because thy hand beingupon me, thou wilt never let me fall out of thy hand. 

VI. PRAYER. 

O most mighty God, and merciful God, the God of all true sorrow, andtrue joy too, of all fear, and of all hope too, as thou hast given me arepentance, not to be repented of, so give me, O Lord, a fear, of whichI may not be afraid. Give me tender and supple and conformableaffections, that as I joy with them that joy, and mourn with them thatmourn, so I may fear with them that fear. And since thou hast vouchsafedto discover to me, in his fear whom thou hast admitted to be myassistance in this sickness, that there is danger therein, let me not, OLord, go about to overcome the sense of that fear, so far as topretermit the fitting and preparing of myself for the worst that may befeared, the passage out of this life. Many of thy blessed martyrs havepassed out of this life without any show of fear; but thy most blessedSon himself did not so. Thy martyrs were known to be but men, andtherefore it pleased thee to fill them with thy Spirit and thy power, inthat they did more than men; thy Son was declared by thee, and byhimself, to be God; and it was requisite that he should declare himselfto be man also, in the weaknesses of man. Let me not therefore, O myGod, be ashamed of these fears, but let me feel them to determine wherehis fear did, in a present submitting of all to thy will. And when thoushalt have inflamed and thawed my former coldnesses and indevotions withthese heats, and quenched my former heats with these sweats andinundations, and rectified my former presumptions and negligences withthese fears, be pleased, O Lord, as one made so by thee, to think me fitfor thee; and whether it be thy pleasure to dispose of this body, thisgarment, so as to put it to a farther wearing in this world, or to layit up in the common wardrobe, the grave, for the next, glorify thyselfin thy choice now, and glorify it then, with that glory, which thy Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus, hath purchased for them whom thou makestpartakers of his resurrection. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[70] 2 Sam. Iii. 11. 

[71] Job, ix. 34. 

[72] Luke, xviii. 1. 

[73] Luke, xi. 5. 

[74] Psalm xxvii. 1. 

[75] Num. Xiv. 9. 

[76] Psalm xxxv. 70. 

[77] Psalm xlix. 5. 

[78] Ecclus. Xli. 3. 

[79] Mark, vi. 20. 

[80] Psalm xxv. 14. 

[81] Prov. Ii. 5. 

[82] Acts, ix. 31. 

[83] Gen. Iii. 10. 

[84] Prov. I. 26; x. 24. 

[85] Psalm xiv. 5; liii. 5. 

[86] John, vii. 13; xix. 38; xxix. 19

[87] Isaiah, xxxiii. 6. 

[88] Matt. Viii. 26. 

[89] Judges, vii. 3. 

[90] Rev. Xxi. 8. 

[91] Job, vi. 20. 

[92] Matt. Xxviii. 8. 

[93] Psalm cxi. 10. 

[94] Prov. I. 7. 

[95] Ecclus. I. 20, 27. 

[96] Deut. Iv. 10. 

[97] Heb. Xi. 7. 

[98] Ecclus. Xviii. 27. 

VII. SOCIOS SIBI JUNGIER INSTAT. 

_The physician desires to have others joined with him. _

VII. MEDITATION. 

There is more fear, therefore more cause. If the physician desire help, the burden grows great: there is a growth of the disease then; but theremust be an autumn too; but whether an autumn of the disease or me, it isnot my part to choose; but if it be of me, it is of both; my diseasecannot survive me, I may overlive it. Howsoever, his desiring of othersargues his candour, and his ingenuity; if the danger be great, hejustifies his proceedings, and he disguises nothing that calls inwitnesses; and if the danger be not great, he is not ambitious, that isso ready to divide the thanks and the honour of that work which he begunalone, with others. It diminishes not the dignity of a monarch that hederive part of his care upon others; God hath not made many suns, but hehath made many bodies that receive and give light. The Romans began withone king; they came to two consuls; they returned in extremities to onedictator: whether in one or many, the sovereignty is the same in allstates and the danger is not the more, and the providence is the more, where there are more physicians; as the state is the happier wherebusinesses are carried by more counsels than can be in one breast, howlarge soever. Diseases themselves hold consultations, and conspire howthey may multiply, and join with one another, and exalt one another'sforce so; and shall we not call physicians to consultations? Death is inan old man's door, he appears and tells him so, and death is at a youngman's back, and says nothing; age is a sickness, and youth is anambush; and we need so many physicians as may make up a watch, and spyevery inconvenience. There is scarce any thing that hath not killedsomebody; a hair, a feather hath done it; nay, that which is our bestantidote against it hath done it; the best cordial hath been deadlypoison. Men have died of joy, and almost forbidden their friends to weepfor them, when they have seen them die laughing. Even that tyrant, Dionysius (I think the same that suffered so much after), who could notdie of that sorrow, of that high fall, from a king to a wretched privateman, died of so poor a joy as to be declared by the people at a theatrethat he was a good poet. We say often that a man may live of a little;but, alas, of how much less may a man die? And therefore the moreassistants the better. Who comes to a day of hearing, in a cause of anyimportance, with one advocate? In our funerals we ourselves have nointerest; there we cannot advise, we cannot direct; and though somenations (the Egyptians in particular) built themselves better tombs thanhouses because they were to dwell longer in them, yet amongst ourselves, the greatest man of style whom we have had, the Conqueror, was left, assoon as his soul left him, not only without persons to assist at hisgrave but without a grave. Who will keep us then we know not; as long aswe can, let us admit as much help as we can; another and anotherphysician is not another and another indication and symptom of death, but another and another assistant, and proctor of life: nor do they somuch feed the imagination with apprehension of danger, as theunderstanding with comfort. Let not one bring learning, anotherdiligence, another religion, but every one bring all; and as manyingredients enter into a receipt, so may many men make the receipt. Butwhy do I exercise my meditation so long upon this, of having plentifulhelp in time of need? Is not my meditation rather to be inclined anotherway, to condole and commiserate their distress who have none? How manyare sicker (perchance) than I, and laid in their woful straw at home (ifthat corner be a home), and have no more hope of help, though they die, than of preferment, though they live! Nor do more expect to see aphysician then, than to be an officer after; of whom, the first thattakes knowledge, is the sexton that buries them, who buries them inoblivion too! For they do but fill up the number of the dead in thebill, but we shall never hear their names, till we read them in the bookof life with our own. How many are sicker (perchance) than I, and throwninto hospitals, where (as a fish left upon the sand must stay the tide)they must stay the physician's hour of visiting, and then can be butvisited! How many are sicker (perchance) than all we, and have not thishospital to cover them, not this straw to lie in, to die in, but havetheir gravestone under them, and breathe out their souls in the ears andin the eyes of passengers, harder than their bed, the flint of thestreet? that taste of no part of our physic, but a sparing diet, to whomordinary porridge would be julep enough, the refuse of our servantsbezoar enough, and the offscouring of our kitchen tables cordial enough. O my soul, when thou art not enough awake to bless thy God enough forhis plentiful mercy in affording thee many helpers, remember how manylack them, and help them to them or to those other things which theylack as much as them. 

VII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, thy blessed servant Augustine begged of thee that Mosesmight come and tell him what he meant by some places of Genesis: may Ihave leave to ask of that Spirit that writ that book, why, when Davidexpected news from Joab's army, [99] and that the watchman told him thathe saw a man running alone, David concluded out of that circumstance, that if he came alone, he brought good news?[100] I see the grammar, theword signifies so, and is so ever accepted, _good news_; but I see notthe logic nor the rhetoric, how David would prove or persuade that hisnews was good because he was alone, except a greater company might havemade great impressions of danger, by imploring and importuning presentsupplies. Howsoever that be, I am sure that that which thy apostle saysto Timothy, _Only Luke is with me_, [101] Luke, and nobody but Luke, hatha taste of complaint and sorrow in it: though Luke want no testimony ofability, of forwardness, of constancy, and perseverance, in assistingthat great building which St. Paul laboured in, yet St. Paul is affectedwith that, that there was none but Luke to assist. We take St. Luke tohave been a physician, and it admits the application the better that inthe presence of one good physician we may be glad of more. It was notonly a civil spirit of policy, or order, that moved Moses'sfather-in-law to persuade him to divide the burden of government andjudicature with others, and take others to his assistance, [102] but itwas also thy immediate Spirit, O my God, that moved Moses to presentunto thee seventy of the elders of Israel, [103] to receive of thatSpirit, which was upon Moses only before, such a portion as might easehim in the government of that people; though Moses alone had endowmentsabove all, thou gavest him other assistants. I consider thy plentifulgoodness, O my God, in employing angels more than one in so many of thyremarkable works. Of thy Son, thou sayest, _Let all the angels of Godworship him_;[104] if that be in heaven, upon earth he says, _that hecould command twelve legions of angels_;[105] and when heaven and earthshall be all one, at the last day, thy Son, O God, _the Son of man, shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him_. [106] Theangels that celebrated his birth to the shepherds, [107] the angels thatcelebrated his second birth, his resurrection, to the Maries, [108] werein the plural, angels associated with angels. In Jacob's ladder, [109]they who ascended and descended, and maintained the trade between heavenand earth, between thee and us, they who have the commission, and chargeto guide us in all our ways, [110] they who hastened Lot, [111] and inhim, us, from places of danger and temptation, they who are appointed toinstruct and govern us in the church here, [112] they who are sent topunish the disobedient and refractory, [113] that they are to be mowersand harvestmen[114] after we are grown up in one field, the church, atthe day of judgment, they that are to carry our souls whither theycarried Lazarus, [115] they who attended at the several gates of the newJerusalem, [116] to admit us there; all these who administer to thyservants, from the first to their last, are angels, angels in theplural, in every service angels associated with angels. The power of asingle angel we see in that one, who in one night destroyed almost twohundred thousand in Sennacherib's army, [117] yet thou often employestmany; as we know the power of salvation is abundantly in any oneevangelist, and yet thou hast afforded us four. Thy Son proclaims ofhimself that _the Spirit hath anointed him to preach the Gospel_, [118]yet he hath given others _for the perfecting of the saints in the workof the ministry_. [119] Thou hast made him _Bishop of our souls_, [120]but there are others bishops too. He gave the Holy Ghost, [121] andothers gave it also. Thy way, O my God (and, O my God, thou lovest towalk in thine own ways, for they are large), thy way from the beginning, is multiplication of thy helps; and therefore it were a degree ofingratitude not to accept this mercy of affording me many helps for mybodily health, as a type and earnest of thy gracious purpose now andever to afford me the same assistances. That for thy great help, thyword, I may seek that not from comers nor conventicles nor schismaticalsingularities, but from the association and communion of thy Catholicchurch, and those persons whom thou hast always furnished that churchwithal: and that I may associate thy word with thy sacrament, thy sealwith thy patent; and in that sacrament associate the sign with the thingsignified, the bread with the body of thy Son, so as I may be sure tohave received both, and to be made thereby (as thy blessed servantAugustine says) the ark, and the monument, and the tomb of thy mostblessed Son, that he, and all the merits of his death, may, by thatreceiving, be buried in me, to my quickening in this world, and myimmortal establishing in the next. 

VII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who gavest to thy servants in thewilderness thy manna, bread so conditioned, qualified so, as that toevery man manna tasted like that which that man liked best, I humblybeseech thee to make this correction, which I acknowledge to be part ofmy daily bread, to taste so to me, not as I would but as thou wouldsthave it taste, and to conform my taste, and make it agreeable to thywill. Thou wouldst have thy corrections taste of humiliation, but thouwouldst have them taste of consolation too; taste of danger, but tasteof assurance too. As therefore thou hast imprinted in all thine elementsof which our bodies consist two manifest qualities, so that as thy firedries, so it heats too; and as thy water moists, so it cools too; so, OLord, in these corrections which are the elements of our regeneration, by which our souls are made thine, imprint thy two qualities, those twooperations, that, as they scourge us, they may scourge us into the wayto thee; that when they have showed us that we are nothing in ourselves, they may also show us, that thou art all things unto us. When thereforein this particular circumstance, O Lord (but none of thy judgments arecircumstances, they are all of all substance of thy good purpose uponus), when in this particular, that he whom thou hast sent to assist me, desires assistants to him, thou hast let me see in how few hours thoucanst throw me beyond the help of man, let me by the same light see thatno vehemence of sickness, no temptation of Satan, no guiltiness of sin, no prison of death, not this first, this sick bed, not the other prison, the close and dark grave, can remove me from the determined and goodpurpose which thou hast sealed concerning me. Let me think no degree ofthis thy correction casual, or without signification; but yet when Ihave read it in that language, as a correction, let me translate it intoanother, and read it as a mercy; and which of these is the original, andwhich is the translation; whether thy mercy or thy correction were thyprimary and original intention in this sickness, I cannot conclude, though death conclude me; for as it must necessarily appear to be acorrection, so I can have no greater argument of thy mercy, than to diein thee and by that death to be united to him who died for me. 

FOOTNOTES:

[99] 2 Sam. Xviii. 25. 

[100] So all but our translation takes it; even Buxdor and Schindler. 

[101] 2 Tim. Iv. 11. 

[102] Exod. Xviii. 13. 

[103] Num. Xi. 16. 

[104] Heb. I. 6. 

[105] Matt. Xxvi. 53. 

[106] Matt. Xxv. 31. 

[107] Luke, ii. 13, 14. 

[108] John, xx. 12. 

[109] Gen. Xxviii. 12. 

[110] Psalm xci. 11. 

[111] Gen. Xix. 15. 

[112] Rev. I. 20. 

[113] Rev. Viii. 2. 

[114] Matt. Xiii. 39. 

[115] Luke, xvi. 22. 

[116] Rev. Xxi. 12. 

[117] 2 Kings, xix. 35. 

[118] Luke, iv. 18. 

[119] Eph. Iv. 12. 

[120] 1 Pet. Ii. 25. 

[121] John, xx. 22. 

VIII. ET REX IPSE SUUM MITTIT. 

_The King sends his own physician. _

VIII. MEDITATION. 

Still when we return to that meditation that man is a world, we find newdiscoveries. Let him be a world, and himself will be the land, andmisery the sea. His misery (for misery is his, his own; of the happinesseven of this world, he is but tenant, but of misery the freeholder; ofhappiness he is but the farmer, but the usufructuary, but of misery thelord, the proprietary), his misery, as the sea, swells above all thehills, and reaches to the remotest parts of this earth, man; who ofhimself is but dust, and coagulated and kneaded into earth by tears; hismatter is earth, his form misery. In this world that is mankind, thehighest ground, the eminentest hills, are kings; and have they line andlead enough to fathom this sea, and say, My misery is but this deep?Scarce any misery equal to sickness, and they are subject to thatequally with their lowest subject. A glass is not the less brittle, because a king's face is represented in it; nor a king the less brittle, because God is represented in him. They have physicians continuallyabout them, and therefore sickness, or the worst of sicknesses, continual fear of it. Are they gods? He that called them so cannotflatter. They are gods, but sick gods; and God is presented to us undermany human affections, as far as infirmities: God is called angry, andsorry, and weary, and heavy, but never a sick God; for then he might dielike men, as our gods do. The worst that they could say in reproach andscorn of the gods of the heathen was, that perchance they were asleep;but gods that are so sick as that they cannot sleep are in an infirmercondition. A god, and need a physician? A Jupiter, and need anĘsculapius? that must have rhubarb to purge his choler lest he be tooangry, and agarick to purge his phlegm lest he be too drowsy; that asTertullian says of the Egyptian gods, plants and herbs, that "God wasbeholden to man for growing in his garden, " so we must say of thesegods, their eternity (an eternity of threescore and ten years) is in theapothecary's shop, and not in the metaphorical deity. But their deity isbetter expressed in their humility than in their height; when aboundingand overflowing, as God, in means of doing good, they descend, as God, to a communication of their abundances with men according to theirnecessities, then they are gods. No man is well that understands not, that values not his being well; that hath not a cheerfulness and a joyin it; and whosoever hath this joy hath a desire to communicate, topropagate that which occasions his happiness and his joy to others; forevery man loves witnesses of his happiness, and the best witnesses areexperimental witnesses; they who have tasted of that in themselves whichmakes us happy. It consummates therefore, it perfects the happiness ofkings, to confer, to transfer, honour and riches, and (as they can)health, upon those that need them. 

VIII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, I have a warning from the wise man, that _when a richman speaketh every man holdeth his tongue, and, look, what he saith, they extol it to the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, Whatfellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrowhim. _[122] Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errorsaggravated, if I offer to speak of kings; but not by thee, O my God, because I speak of them as they are in thee, and of thee as thou art inthem. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently orirreverently of thee, that give themselves that liberty in speaking ofthy vicegerents, kings; for thou who gavest Augustus the empire, gavestit to Nero too; and as Vespasian had it from thee, so had Julian. Thoughkings deface in themselves thy first image in their own soul, thougivest no man leave to deface thy second image, imprinted indelibly intheir power. But thou knowest, O God, that if I should be slack incelebrating thy mercies to me exhibited by that royal instrument, mysovereign, to many other faults that touch upon allegiance I should addthe worst of all, ingratitude, which constitutes an ill man; and faultswhich are defects in any particular function are not so great as thosethat destroy our humanity. It is not so ill to be an ill subject as tobe an ill man; for he hath an universal illness, ready to flow and pourout itself into any mould, any form, and to spend itself in anyfunction. As therefore thy Son did upon the coin, I look upon the king, and I ask whose image and whose inscription he hath, and he hath thine;and I give unto thee that which is thine; I recommend his happiness tothee in all my sacrifices of thanks, for that which he enjoys, and inall my prayers for the continuance and enlargement of them. But let mestop, my God, and consider; will not this look like a piece of art andcunning, to convey into the world an opinion that I were more particularin his care than other men? and that herein, in a show of humility andthankfulness, I magnify myself more than there is cause? But let notthat jealousy stop me, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thymercy exhibited by him. This which he doth now, in assisting so mybodily health, I know is common to me with many: many, many have tastedof that expression of his graciousness. Where he can give health by hisown hands he doth, and to more than any of his predecessors have done:therefore hath God reserved one disease for him, that he only might cureit, though perchance not only by one title and interest, nor only as oneking. To those that need it not, in that kind, and so cannot have it byhis own hand, he sends a donative of health in sending his physician. The holy king St. Louis, in France, and our Maud, is celebrated forthat, that personally they visited hospitals, and assisted in the cureeven of loathsome diseases. And when that religious Empress Placilla, the wife of Theodosius, was told that she diminished herself too much inthose personal assistances and might do enough in sending relief, shesaid she would send in that capacity as a Christian, as a fellow-memberof the body of thy Son, with them. So thy servant David applies himselfto his people, so he incorporates himself in his people, by calling themhis brethren, his bones, his flesh;[123] and when they fell under thyhand, even to the pretermitting of himself, he presses upon thee byprayer for them; _I have sinned, but these sheep, what have they done?Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father'shouse_. [124] It is kingly to give; when Araunah gave that great and freepresent to David, that place, those instruments for sacrifice, and thesacrifices themselves, it is said there by thy Spirit, _All these thingsdid Araunah give, as a king, to the king_. [125] To give is anapproaching to the condition of kings, but to give health, anapproaching to the King of kings, to thee. But this his assisting to mybodily health, thou knowest, O God, and so do some others of thinehonourable servants know, is but the twilight of that day wherein thou, through him, hast shined upon me before; but the echo of that voice, whereby thou, through him, hast spoke to me before, then when he, firstof any man, conceived a hope that I might be of some use in thy churchand descended to an intimation, to a persuasion, almost to asolicitation, that I would embrace that calling. And thou who hadst putthat desire into his heart, didst also put into mine an obedience to it;and I, who was sick before of a vertiginous giddiness and irresolution, and almost spent all my time in consulting how I should spend it, was bythis man of God, and God of men, put into the pool and recovered: when Iasked, perchance, a stone, he gave me bread; when I asked, perchance, ascorpion, he gave me a fish; when I asked a temporal office, he deniednot, refused not that; but let me see that he had rather I took this. These things thou, O God, who forgettest nothing, hast not forgot, though perchance he, because they were benefits, hath; but I am not onlya witness, but an instance, that our Jehoshaphat hath a care to ordainpriests, as well as judges:[126] and not only to send physicians fortemporal but to be the physician for spiritual health. 

VIII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou have reserved thytreasure of perfect joy and perfect glory to be given by thine own handsthen, when, by seeing thee as thou art in thyself, and knowing thee aswe are known, we shall possess in an instant, and possess for ever, allthat can any way conduce to our happiness, yet here also, in this world, givest us such earnests of that full payment, as by the value of theearnest we may give some estimate of the treasure, humbly and thankfullyI acknowledge, that thy blessed Spirit instructs me to make a differenceof thy blessings in this world, by that difference of the instruments bywhich it hath pleased thee to derive them unto me. As we see thee herein a glass, so we receive from thee here by reflection and byinstruments. Even casual things come from thee; and that which we callfortune here hath another name above. Nature reaches out her hand andgives us corn, and wine, and oil, and milk; but thou fillest her handbefore, and thou openest her hand that she may rain down her showersupon us. Industry reaches out her hand to us and gives us fruits of ourlabour for ourselves and our posterity; but thy hand guides that handwhen it sows and when it waters, and the increase is from thee. Friendsreach out their hands and prefer us; but thy hand supports that handthat supports us. Of all these thy instruments have I received thyblessing, O God; but bless thy name most for the greatest; that, as amember of the public, and as a partaker of private favours too, by thyright hand, thy powerful hand set over us, I have had my portion notonly in the hearing, but in the preaching of thy Gospel. Humblybeseeching thee, that as thou continuest thy wonted goodness upon thewhole world by the wonted means and instruments, the same sun and moon, the same nature and industry, so to continue the same blessings uponthis state and this church by the same hand, so long as that thy Son, when he comes in the clouds, may find him, or his son, or his son's sonsready to give an account and able to stand in that judgment, for theirfaithful stewardship and dispensation of thy talents so abundantlycommitted to them; and be to him, O God, in all distempers of his body, in all anxieties of spirit, in all holy sadnesses of soul, such aphysician in thy proportion, who are the greatest in heaven, as he hathbeen in soul and body to me, in his proportion, who is the greatest uponearth. 

FOOTNOTES:

[122] Ecclus. Xiii. 23. 

[123] 2 Sam. Xix. 12. 

[124] 2 Sam. Xxiv. 17. 

[125] 2 Sam. Xxiv. 22, 23. 

[126] 2 Chron. Xix. 8. 

IX. MEDICAMINA SCRIBUNT. 

_Upon their consultation they prescribe. _

IX. MEDITATION. 

They have seen me and heard me, arraigned me in these fetters andreceived the evidence; I have cut up mine own anatomy, dissected myself, and they are gone to read upon me. O how manifold and perplexed a thing, nay, how wanton and various a thing, is ruin and destruction! Godpresented to David three kinds, war, famine and pestilence; Satan leftout these, and brought in fires from heaven and winds from thewilderness. If there were no ruin but sickness, we see the masters ofthat art can scarce number, not name all sicknesses; every thing thatdisorders a faculty, and the function of that, is a sickness; the nameswill not serve them which are given from the place affected, thepleurisy is so; nor from the effect which it works, the falling sicknessis so; they cannot have names enough, from what it does, nor where itis, but they must extort names from what it is like, what it resembles, and but in some one thing, or else they would lack names; for the wolf, and the canker, and the polypus are so; and that question whether therebe more names or things, is as perplexed in sicknesses as in any thingelse; except it be easily resolved upon that side that there are moresicknesses than names. If ruin were reduced to that one way, that mancould perish no way but by sickness, yet his danger were infinite; andif sickness were reduced to that one way, that there were no sicknessbut a fever, yet the way were infinite still; for it would overload andoppress any natural, disorder and discompose any artificial, memory, todeliver the names of several fevers; how intricate a work then have theywho are gone to consult which of these sicknesses mine is, and thenwhich of these fevers, and then what it would do, and then how it may becountermined. But even in ill it is a degree of good when the evil willadmit consultation. In many diseases, that which is but an accident, buta symptom of the main disease, is so violent, that the physician mustattend the cure of that, though he pretermit (so far as to intermit) thecure of the disease itself. Is it not so in states too? Sometimes theinsolency of those that are great puts the people into commotions; thegreat disease, and the greatest danger to the head, is the insolency ofthe great ones; and yet they execute martial law, they come to presentexecutions upon the people, whose commotion was indeed but a symptom, but an accident of the main disease; but this symptom, grown so violent, would allow no time for a consultation. Is it not so in the accidents ofthe diseases of our mind too? Is it not evidently so in our affections, in our passions? If a choleric man be ready to strike, must I go aboutto purge his choler, or to break the blow? But where there is room forconsultation things are not desperate. They consult, so there is nothingrashly, inconsiderately done; and then they prescribe, they write, sothere is nothing covertly, disguisedly, unavowedly done. In bodilydiseases it is not always so; sometimes, as soon as the physician's footis in the chamber, his knife is in the patient's arm; the disease wouldnot allow a minute's forbearing of blood, nor prescribing of otherremedies. In states and matter of government it is so too; they aresometimes surprised with such accidents, as that the magistrate asks notwhat may be done by law, but does that which must necessarily be done inthat case. But it is a degree of good in evil, a degree that carrieshope and comfort in it, when we may have recourse to that which iswritten, and that the proceedings may be apert, and ingenuous, andcandid, and avowable, for that gives satisfaction and acquiescence. Theywho have received my anatomy of myself consult, and end theirconsultation in prescribing, and in prescribing physic; proper andconvenient remedy; for if they should come in again and chide me forsome disorder that had occasioned and induced, or that had hastened andexalted this sickness, or if they should begin to write now rules for mydiet and exercise when I were well, this were to antedate or to postdatetheir consultation, not to give physic. It were rather a vexation than arelief, to tell a condemned prisoner, You might have lived if you haddone this; and if you can get your pardon, you shall do well to takethis or this course hereafter. I am glad they know (I have hid nothingfrom them), glad they consult (they hid nothing from one another), gladthey write (they hide nothing from the world), glad that they write andprescribe physic, that there are remedies for the present case. 

IX. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, allow me a just indignation, a holy detestation of theinsolency of that man who, because he was of that high rank, of whomthou hast said, _They are gods_, thought himself more than equal tothee; that king of Aragon, Alphonsus, so perfect in the motions of theheavenly bodies as that he adventured to say, that if he had been ofcounsel with thee, in the making of the heavens, the heavens should havebeen disposed in a better order than they are. The king Amaziah wouldnot endure thy prophet to reprehend him, but asked him in anger, _Artthou made of the king's counsel?_[127] When thy prophet Esaias asks thatquestion, _Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being hiscounsellor, hath taught him?_[128] it is after he had settled anddetermined that office upon thy Son, and him only, when he joins withthose great titles, the mighty God and the Prince of peace, this also, the Counsellor;[129] and after he had settled upon him the spirit ofmight and of counsel. [130] So that then thou, O God, though thou have nocounsel from man, yet dost nothing upon man without counsel. In themaking of man there was a consultation; _Let us make man_. [131] In thepreserving of man, _O thou great Preserver of men_, [132] thou proceedestby counsel; for all thy external works are the works of the wholeTrinity, and their hand is to every action. How much more must Iapprehend that all you blessed and glorious persons of the Trinity arein consultation now, what you will do with this infirm body, with thisleprous soul, that attends guiltily, but yet comfortably, yourdetermination upon it. I offer not to counsel them who meet inconsultation for my body now, but I open my infirmities, I anatomize mybody to them. So I do my soul to thee, O my God, in an humbleconfession, that there is no vein in me that is not full of the blood ofthy Son, whom I have crucified and crucified again, by multiplying many, and often repeating the same, sins; that there is no artery in me thathath not the spirit of error, the spirit of lust, the spirit ofgiddiness in it;[133] no bone in me that is not hardened with the customof sin and nourished and suppled with the marrow of sin; no sinews, noligaments, that do not tie and chain sin and sin together. Yet, Oblessed and glorious Trinity, O holy and whole college, and yet but onephysician, if you take this confession into a consultation, my case isnot desperate, my destruction is not decreed. If your consultationdetermine in writing, if you refer me to that which is written, youintend my recovery: for all the way, O my God (ever constant to thineown ways), thou hast proceeded openly, intelligibly, manifestly by thebook. From thy first book, the book of life, never shut to thee, butnever thoroughly open to us; from thy second book, the book of nature, where, though subobscurely and in shadows, thou hast expressed thine ownimage; from thy third book, the Scriptures, where thou hadst written allin the Old, and then lightedst us a candle to read it by, in the New, Testament; to these thou hadst added the book of just and useful laws, established by them to whom thou hast committed thy people; to those, the manuals, the pocket, the bosom books of our own consciences; tothose thy particular books of all our particular sins; and to those, thebooks with seven seals, which only _the Lamb which was slain, was foundworthy to open_;[134] which, I hope, it shall not disagree with themeaning of thy blessed Spirit to interpret the promulgation of theirpardon and righteousness who are washed in the blood of that Lamb; andif thou refer me to these books, to a new reading, a new trial by thesebooks, this fever may be but a burning in the hand and I may be saved, though not by my book, mine own conscience, nor by thy other books, yetby thy first, the book of life, thy decree for my election, and by thylast, the book of the Lamb, and the shedding of his blood upon me. If Ibe still under consultation, I am not condemned yet; if I be sent tothese books, I shall not be condemned at all; for though there besomething written in some of those books (particularly in theScriptures) which some men turn to poison, yet upon these consultations(these confessions, these takings of our particular cases into thyconsideration) thou intendest all for physic; and even from thosesentences from which a too late repenter will suck desperation, he thatseeks thee early shall receive thy morning dew, thy seasonable mercy, thy forward consolation. 

IX. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who art of so pure eyes as that thoucanst not look upon sin, and we of so unpure constitutions as that wecan present no object but sin, and therefore might justly fear thatthou wouldst turn thine eyes for ever from us, as, though we cannotendure afflictions in ourselves, yet in thee we can; so, though thoucanst not endure sin in us, yet in thy Son thou canst, and he hath takenupon himself, and presented to thee, all those sins which mightdisplease thee in us. There is an eye in nature that kills as soon as itsees, the eye of a serpent; no eye in nature that nourishes us bylooking upon us; but thine eye, O Lord, does so. Look therefore upon me, O Lord, in this distress and that will recall me from the borders ofthis bodily death; look upon me, and that will raise me again from thatspiritual death in which my parents buried me when they begot me in sin, and in which I have pierced even to the jaws of hell by multiplying suchheaps of actual sins upon that foundation, that root of original sin. Yet take me again into your consultation, O blessed and gloriousTrinity; and though the Father know that I have defaced his imagereceived in my creation; though the Son know I have neglected mineinterest in the redemption; yet, O blessed Spirit, as thou art to myconscience so be to them, a witness that, at this minute, I accept thatwhich I have so often, so rebelliously refused, thy blessedinspirations; be thou my witness to them that, at more pores than thisslack body sweats tears, this sad soul weeps blood; and more for thedispleasure of my God, than for the stripes of his displeasure. Take me, then, O blessed and glorious Trinity, into a reconsultation, andprescribe me any physic. If it be a long and painful holding of thissoul in sickness, it is physic if I may discern thy hand to give it; andit is physic if it be a speedy departing of this soul, if I may discernthy hand to receive it. 

FOOTNOTES:

[127] 2 Chron. Xxv. 16. 

[128] Isaiah, xlii. 13. 

[129] Isaiah, ix. 6. 

[130] Isaiah, xi. 2. 

[131] Gen. I. 26. 

[132] Job, vii. 20. 

[133] 1 Tim. Iv. 1; Hos. Iv. 12; Isaiah, xix. 14. 

[134] Rev. Vii. 1. 

X. LENTE ET SERPENTI SATAGUNT OCCURRERE MORBO. 

_They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavour to meetwith it so. _

X. MEDITATION. 

This is nature's nest of boxes: the heavens contain the earth; theearth, cities; cities, men. And all these are concentric; the commoncentre to them all is decay, ruin; only that is eccentric which wasnever made; only that place, or garment rather, which we can imagine butnot demonstrate. That light, which is the very emanation of the light ofGod, in which the saints shall dwell, with which the saints shall beapparelled, only that bends not to this centre, to ruin; that which wasnot made of nothing is not threatened with this annihilation. All otherthings are; even angels, even our souls; they move upon the same poles, they bend to the same centre; and if they were not made immortal bypreservation, their nature could not keep them from sinking to thiscentre, annihilation. In all these (the frame of the heavens, the statesupon earth, and men in them, comprehend all), those are the greatestmischiefs which are least discerned; the most insensible in their wayscome to be the most sensible in their ends. The heavens have had theirdropsy, they drowned the world; and they shall have their fever, andburn the world. Of the dropsy, the flood, the world had a foreknowledgeone hundred and twenty years before it came; and so some made provisionagainst it, and were saved; the fever shall break out in an instant andconsume all; the dropsy did no harm to the heavens from whence it fell, it did not put out those lights, it did not quench those heats; but thefever, the fire, shall burn the furnace itself, annihilate thoseheavens that breathe it out. Though the dogstar have a pestilent breath, an infectious exhalation, yet, because we know when it will rise, weclothe ourselves, and we diet ourselves, and we shadow ourselves to asufficient prevention; but comets and blazing stars, whose effects orsignifications no man can interrupt or frustrate, no man foresaw: noalmanack tells us when a blazing star will break out, the matter iscarried up in secret; no astrologer tells us when the effects will beaccomplished, for that is a secret of a higher sphere than the other;and that which is most secret is most dangerous. It is so also here inthe societies of men, in states and commonwealths. Twenty rebelliousdrums make not so dangerous a noise as a few whisperers and secretplotters in corners. The cannon doth not so much hurt against a wall, asa mine under the wall; nor a thousand enemies that threaten, so much asa few that take an oath to say nothing. God knew many heavy sins of thepeople, in the wilderness and after, but still he charges them with thatone, with murmuring, murmuring in their hearts, secret disobediences, secret repugnances against his declared will; and these are the mostdeadly, the most pernicious. And it is so too with the diseases of thebody; and that is my case. The pulse, the urine, the sweat, all havesworn to say nothing, to give no indication of any dangerous sickness. My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; myprovisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; mycounsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehensionsto work upon mine understanding; and yet they see that invisibly, and Ifeel that insensibly, the disease prevails. The disease hath establisheda kingdom, an empire in me, and will have certain _arcana imperii_, secrets of state, by which it will proceed and not be bound to declarethem. But yet against those secret conspiracies in the state, themagistrate hath the rack; and against these insensible diseasesphysicians have their examiners; and those these employ now. 

X. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, I have been told, and told by relation, by her ownbrother that did it, by thy servant Nazianzen, that his sister in thevehemency of her prayer, did use to threaten thee with a holyimportunity, with a pious impudency. I dare not do so, O God; but as thyservant Augustine wished that Adam had not sinned, therefore that Christmight not have died, may I not to this one purpose wish that if theserpent, before the temptation of Eve, did go upright and speak, [135]that he did so still, because I should the sooner hear him if he spoke, the sooner see him if he went upright? In his curse I am cursed too; hiscreeping undoes me; for howsoever he begin at the heel, and do butbruise that, yet he, and _death_ in him, _is come into ourwindows_;[136] into our eyes and ears, the entrances and inlets of oursoul. He works upon us in secret and we do not discern him; and onegreat work of his upon us is to make us so like himself as to sin insecret, that others may not see us; but his masterpiece is to make ussin in secret, so as that we may not see ourselves sin. For the first, the hiding of our sins from other men, he hath induced that which washis offspring from the beginning, a lie;[137] for man is, in nature, yetin possession of some such sparks of ingenuity and nobleness, as that, but to disguise evil, he would not lie. The body, the sin, is theserpent's; and the garment that covers it, the lie, is his too. Theseare his, but the hiding of sin from ourselves is he himself: when wehave the sting of the serpent in us, and do not sting ourselves, thevenom of sin, and no remorse for sin, then, as thy blessed Son said ofJudas, _He is a devil_;[138] not that he had one, but was one; so we arebecome devils to ourselves, and we have not only a serpent in our bosom, but we ourselves are to ourselves that serpent. How far did thy servantDavid press upon thy pardon in that petition, _Cleanse thou me fromsecret sins_?[139] Can any sin be secret? for a great part of our sins, though, says thy prophet, we conceive them in the dark, upon our bed, yet, says he, we do them in the light; there are many sins which weglory in doing, and would not do if nobody should know them. Thy blessedservant Augustine confesses that he was ashamed of his shamefacednessand tenderness of conscience, and that he often belied himself with sinswhich he never did, lest he should be unacceptable to his sinfulcompanions. But if we would conceal them (thy prophet found such adesire, and such a practice in some, when he said, _Thou hast trusted inthy wickedness, and thou hast said, None shall see me_[140]), yet can weconceal them? Thou, O God, canst hear of them by others: the voice ofAbel's blood will tell thee of Cain's murder;[141] the heavensthemselves will tell thee. Heaven shall reveal his iniquity; a smallcreature alone shall do it, _A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and tell the matter_;[142] thou wilt trouble no informer, thou thyselfrevealedst Adam's sin to thyself;[143] and the manifestation of sin isso full to thee, as that thou shalt reveal all to all; _Thou shaltbring every work to judgment, with every secret thing;[144] and thereis nothing covered that shall not be revealed_. [145] But, O my God, there is another way of knowing my sins, which thou lovest better thanany of these; to know them by my confession. As physic works, so itdraws the peccant humour to itself, that, when it is gathered together, the weight of itself may carry that humour away; so thy Spirit returnsto my memory my former sins, that, being so recollected, they may pourout themselves by confession. _When I kept silence_, says thy servantDavid, _day and night thy hand was heavy upon me_; but when I said, _Iwill confess my transgressions unto the Lord, thou forgavest theiniquity of my sin_. [146] Thou interpretest the very purpose ofconfession so well, as that thou scarce leavest any new mercy for theaction itself. This mercy thou leavest, that thou armest us thereuponagainst relapses into the sins which we have confessed. And that mercywhich thy servant Augustine apprehends when he says to thee, "Thou hastforgiven me those sins which I have done, and those sins which only bythy grace I have not done": they were done in our inclination to them, and even that inclination needs thy mercy, and that mercy he calls apardon. And these are most truly secret sins, because they were neverdone, and because no other man, nor I myself, but only thou knowest, howmany and how great sins I have escaped by thy grace, which, withoutthat, I should have multiplied against thee. 

X. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who as thy Son Christ Jesus, though heknew all things, yet said he knew not the day of judgment, because heknew it not so as that he might tell us; so though thou knowest all mysins, yet thou knowest them not to my comfort, except thou know them bymy telling them to thee. How shall I bring to thy knowledge, by thatway, those sins which I myself know not? If I accuse myself of originalsin, wilt thou ask me if I know what original sin is? I know not enoughof it to satisfy others, but I know enough to condemn myself, and tosolicit thee. If I confess to thee the sins of my youth, wilt thou askme if I know what those sins were? I know them not so well as to namethem all, nor am sure to live hours enough to name them all (for I didthem then faster than I can speak them now, when every thing that I didconduced to some sin), but I know them so well as to know that nothingbut thy mercy is so infinite as they. If the naming of sins of thought, word and deed, of sins of omission and of action, of sins against thee, against my neighbour and against myself, of sins unrepented and sinsrelapsed into after repentance, of sins of ignorance and sins againstthe testimony of my conscience, of sins against thy commandments, sinsagainst thy Son's Prayer, and sins against our own creed, of sinsagainst the laws of that church, and sins against the laws of that statein which thou hast given me my station; if the naming of these sinsreach not home to all mine, I know what will. O Lord, pardon me, me, allthose sins which thy Son Christ Jesus suffered for, who suffered for allthe sins of all the world; for there is no sin amongst all those whichhad not been my sin, if thou hadst not been my God, and antedated me apardon in thy preventing grace. And since sin, in the nature of it, retains still so much of the author of it that it is a serpent, insensibly insinuating itself into my soul, let thy brazen serpent (thecontemplation of thy Son crucified for me) be evermore present to me, for my recovery against the sting of the first serpent; that so, as Ihave a Lion against a lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah against thatlion that seeks whom he may devour, so I may have a serpent against aserpent, the wisdom of the serpent against the malice of the serpent, and both against that lion and serpent, forcible and subtle temptations, thy dove with thy olive in thy ark, humility and peace andreconciliation to thee, by the ordinances of thy church. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[135] Josephus. 

[136] Jer. Ix. 21. 

[137] John, viii. 44. 

[138] John, vi. 70. 

[139] Psalm xix. 12. 

[140] Isaiah, xlvii. 10. 

[141] Gen. Iv. 10. 

[142] Eccles. X. 20. 

[143] Gen. Iii. 8. 

[144] Eccles. Xii. 14. 

[145] Matt. X. 26. 

[146] Psalm xxxii. 3-5. 

XI. NOBILIBUSQUE TRAHUNT, A CINCTO CORDE, VENENUM, SUCCIS ET GEMMIS, ETQUĘ GENEROSA, MINISTRANT ARS, ET NATURA, INSTILLANT. 

_They use cordials, to keep the venom and malignity of the disease fromthe heart. _

XI. MEDITATION. 

Whence can we take a better argument, a clearer demonstration, that allthe greatness of this world is built upon opinion of others and hath initself no real being, nor power of subsistence, than from the heart ofman? It is always in action and motion, still busy, still pretending todo all, to furnish all the powers and faculties with all that they have;but if an enemy dare rise up against it, it is the soonest endangered, the soonest defeated of any part. The brain will hold out longer thanit, and the liver longer than that; they will endure a siege; but anunnatural heat, a rebellious heat, will blow up the heart, like a mine, in a minute. But howsoever, since the heart hath the birthright andprimogeniture, and that it is nature's eldest son in us, the part whichis first born to life in man, and that the other parts, as youngerbrethren, and servants in his family, have a dependance upon it, it isreason that the principal care be had of it, though it be not thestrongest part, as the eldest is oftentimes not the strongest of thefamily. And since the brain, and liver, and heart hold not a triumviratein man, a sovereignty equally shed upon them all, for his well-being, asthe four elements do for his very being, but the heart alone is in theprincipality, and in the throne, as king, the rest as subjects, thoughin eminent place and office, must contribute to that, as children totheir parents, as all persons to all kinds of superiors, thoughoftentimes those parents or those superiors be not of stronger partsthan themselves, that serve and obey them that are weaker. Neither doththis obligation fall upon us, by second dictates of nature, byconsequences and conclusions arising out of nature, or derived fromnature by discourse (as many things bind us even by the law of nature, and yet not by the primary law of nature; as all laws of propriety inthat which we possess are of the law of nature, which law is, to giveevery one his own, and yet in the primary law of nature there was nopropriety, no _meum et tuum_, but an universal community overall; so theobedience of superiors is of the law of nature, and yet in the primarylaw of nature there was no superiority, no magistracy); but thiscontribution of assistance of all to the sovereign, of all parts to theheart, is from the very first dictates of nature, which is, in the firstplace, to have care of our own preservation, to look first toourselves; for therefore doth the physician intermit the present care ofbrain or liver, because there is a possibility that they may subsist, though there be not a present and a particular care had of them, butthere is no possibility that they can subsist, if the heart perish: andso, when we seem to begin with others, in such assistances, indeed, wedo begin with ourselves, and we ourselves are principally in ourcontemplation; and so all these officious and mutual assistances are butcompliments towards others, and our true end is ourselves. And this isthe reward of the pains of kings; sometimes they need the power of lawto be obeyed; and when they seem to be obeyed voluntarily, they who doit do it for their own sakes. O how little a thing is all the greatnessof man and through how false glasses doth he make shift to multiply it, and magnify it to himself! And yet this is also another misery of thisking of man, the heart, which is also applicable to the kings of thisworld, great men, that the venom and poison of every pestilentialdisease directs itself to the heart, affects that (perniciousaffection), and the malignity of ill men is also directed upon thegreatest and the best; and not only greatness but goodness loses thevigour of being an antidote or cordial against it. And as the noblestand most generous cordials that nature or art afford, or can prepare, ifthey be often taken and made familiar, become no cordials, nor have anyextraordinary operation, so the greatest cordial of the heart, patience, if it be much exercised, exalts the venom and the malignity of theenemy, and the more we suffer the more we are insulted upon. When Godhad made this earth of nothing, it was but a little help that he had, tomake other things of this earth: nothing can be nearer nothing than thisearth; and yet how little of this earth is the greatest man! He thinkshe treads upon the earth, that all is under his feet, and the brainthat thinks so is but earth; his highest region, the flesh that coversthat, is but earth, and even the top of that, that wherein so manyAbsaloms take so much pride, is but a bush growing upon that turf ofearth. How little of the world is the earth! And yet that is all thatman hath or is. How little of a man is the heart, and yet it is all bywhich he is; and this continually subject not only to foreign poisonsconveyed by others, but to intestine poisons bred in ourselves bypestilential sicknesses. O who, if before he had a being he could havesense of this misery, would buy a being here upon these conditions?

XI. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, all that thou askest of me is my heart, _My Son, give methy heart_. [147] Am I thy Son as long as I have but my heart? Wilt thougive me an inheritance, a filiation, any thing for my heart? O thou, whosaidst to Satan, _Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there isnone like him upon the earth_, [148] shall my fear, shall my zeal, shallmy jealousy, have leave to say to thee, Hast thou considered my heart, that there is not so perverse a heart upon earth; and wouldst thou havethat, and shall I be thy son, thy eternal Son's coheir, for giving that?_The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; whocan know it?_[149] He that asks that question makes the answer, I theLord search the heart. When didst thou search mine? Dost thou think tofind it, as thou madest it, in Adam? Thou hast searched since, and foundall these gradations in the ill of our hearts, _that every imaginationof the thoughts of our hearts is only evil continually_. [150] Dost thouremember this, and wouldst thou have my heart? O God of all light, Iknow thou knowest all, and it is thou[151] that declarest unto man whatis his heart. Without thee, O sovereign Goodness, I could not know howill my heart were. Thou hast declared unto me, in thy word, that for allthis deluge of evil that hath surrounded all hearts, yet thou soughtestand foundest a man after thine own heart;[152] that thou couldst andwouldst give thy people pastors according to thine own heart;[153] and Ican gather out of thy word so good testimony of the hearts of men as tofind single hearts, docile and apprehensive hearts; hearts that can, hearts that have learned; wise hearts in one place, and in another in agreat degree wise, perfect hearts; straight hearts, no perversenesswithout; and clean hearts, no foulness within: such hearts I can find inthy word; and if my heart were such a heart, I would give thee my heart. But I find stony hearts too, [154] and I have made mine such: I havefound hearts that are snares;[155] and I have conversed with such;hearts that burn like ovens;[156] and the fuel of lust, and envy, andambition, hath inflamed mine; hearts in which their masters trust, and_he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool_;[157] his confidence inhis own moral constancy and civil fortitude will betray him, when thoushalt cast a spiritual damp, a heaviness and dejection of spirit uponhim. I have found these hearts, and a worse than these, a heart into thewhich the devil himself is entered, Judas's heart. [158] The first kindof heart, alas, my God, I have not; the last are not hearts to be givento thee. What shall I do? Without that present I cannot be thy son, andI have it not. To those of the first kind thou givest joyfulness ofheart, [159] and I have not that; to those of the other kind thou givestfaintness of heart;[160] and blessed be thou, O God, for thatforbearance, I have not that yet. There is then a middle kind of hearts, not so perfect as to be given but that the very giving mends them; notso desperate as not to be accepted but that the very accepting dignifiesthem. This is a melting heart, [161] and a troubled heart, and a woundedheart, and a broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the powerfulworking of thy piercing Spirit such a heart I have. Thy Samuel spakeunto all the house of thy Israel, and said, _If you return to the Lordwith all your hearts, prepare your hearts unto the Lord_. [162] If myheart be prepared, it is a returning heart. And if thou see it upon theway, thou wilt carry it home. Nay, the preparation is thine too; thismelting, this wounding, this breaking, this contrition, which I havenow, is thy way to thy end; and those discomforts are, for all that, _the earnest of thy Spirit in my heart_;[163] and where thou givestearnest, thou wilt perform the bargain. Nabal was confident upon hiswine, but _in the morning his heart died within him_. [164] Thou, O Lord, hast given me wormwood, and I have had some diffidence upon that; andthou hast cleared a morning to me again, and my heart is alive. David'sheart smote him when he cut off the skirt from Saul;[165] and his heartsmote him when he had numbered his people:[166] my heart hath struck mewhen I come to number my sins; but that blow is not to death, becausethose sins are not to death, but my heart lives in thee. But yet as longas I remain in this great hospital, this sick, this diseaseful world, aslong as I remain in this leprous house, this flesh of mine, this heart, though thus prepared for thee, prepared by thee, will still be subjectto the invasion of malign and pestilent vapours. But I have my cordialsin thy promise; _when I shall know the plague of my heart, and pray untothee in thy house_, [167] thou wilt preserve that heart from all mortalforce of that infection; _and the peace of God, which passeth allunderstandings shall keep my heart and mind through Christ Jesus_. [168]

XI. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who in thy upper house, the heavens, though there be many mansions, yet art alike and equally in everymansion; but here in thy lower house, though thou fillest all, yet artotherwise in some rooms thereof than in others; otherwise in thy churchthan in my chamber, and otherwise in thy sacraments than in my prayers;so though thou be always present and always working in every room ofthis thy house, my body, yet I humbly beseech thee to manifest always amore effectual presence in my heart than in the other offices. Into thehouse of thine anointed, disloyal persons, traitors, will come; into thyhouse, the church, hypocrites and idolators will come; into some roomsof this thy house, my body, temptations will come, infections will come;but be my heart thy bedchamber, O my God, and thither let them notenter. Job made a covenant with his eyes, but not his making of thatcovenant, but thy dwelling in his heart, enabled him to keep thatcovenant. Thy Son himself had a sadness in his soul to death, and he hada reluctation, a deprecation of death, in the approaches thereof; but hehad his cordial too, _Yet not my will, but thine be done_. And as thouhast not delivered us, thine adopted sons, from these infectioustemptations, so neither hast thou delivered us over to them, norwithheld thy cordials from us. I was baptized in thy cordial wateragainst original sin, and I have drunk of thy cordial blood, for myrecovery from actual and habitual sin, in the other sacrament. Thou, OLord, who hast imprinted all medicinal virtues which are in allcreatures, and hast made even the flesh of vipers to assist in cordials, art able to make this present sickness, everlasting health, thisweakness, everlasting strength, and this very dejection and faintness ofheart, a powerful cordial. When thy blessed Son cried out to thee, _MyGod, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ thou didst reach out thy handto him; but not to deliver his sad soul, but to receive his holy soul:neither did he longer desire to hold it of thee, but to recommend it tothee. I see thine hand upon me now, O Lord, and I ask not why it comes, what it intends; whether thou wilt bid it stay still in this body forsome time, or bid it meet thee this day in paradise, I ask not, not in awish, not in a thought. Infirmity of nature, curiosity of mind, aretemptations that offer; but a silent and absolute obedience to thy will, even before I know it, is my cordial. Preserve that to me, O my God, andthat will preserve me to thee; that, when thou hast catechised me withaffliction here, I may take a greater degree, and serve thee in a higherplace, in thy kingdom of joy and glory. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[147] Prov. Xxiii. 26. 

[148] Job, i. 8. 

[149] Jer. Xvii. 9. 

[150] Gen. Vi. 5. 

[151] Amos, iv. 13. 

[152] 1 Sam. Xiii. 14. 

[153] Jer. Iii. 15. 

[154] Ezek. Xi. 19. 

[155] Eccles. Vii. 26. 

[156] Hos. Vii. 6. 

[157] Prov. Xxviii. 26. 

[158] John, xiii. 2. 

[159] Ecclus. L. 23. 

[160] Lev. Xxvi. 36. 

[161] Josh. Ii. 11. 

[162] 1 Sam. Vii. 3. 

[163] 2 Cor. I. 22. 

[164] 1 Sam. Xxv. 37. 

[165] 1 Sam. Xxiv. 5. 

[166] 2 Sam. Xxiv. 10. 

[167] 1 Kings, viii. 38. 

[168] Phil. Iv. 7. 

 XII. ------------------ Spirante columba Supposita pedibus, revocantur ad ima vapores. 

_They apply pigeons, to draw the vapours from the head. _

XII. MEDITATION. 

What will not kill a man if a vapour will? How great an elephant, howsmall a mouse destroys! To die by a bullet is the soldier's daily bread;but few men die by hail-shot. A man is more worth than to be sold forsingle money; a life to be valued above a trifle. If this were a violentshaking of the air by thunder or by cannon, in that case the air iscondensed above the thickness of water, of water baked into ice, almostpetrified, almost made stone, and no wonder that kills; but that whichis but a vapour, and a vapour not forced but breathed, should kill, thatour nurse should overlay us, and air that nourishes us should destroyus, but that it is a half atheism to murmur against Nature, who is God'simmediate commissioner, who would not think himself miserable to be putinto the hands of Nature, who does not only set him up for a mark forothers to shoot at, but delights herself to blow him up like a glass, till she see him break, even with her own breath? Nay, if thisinfectious vapour were sought for, or travelled to, as Pliny huntedafter the vapour of Ętna and dared and challenged Death in the form of avapour to do his worst, and felt the worst, he died; or if this vapourwere met withal in an ambush, and we surprised with it, out of a longshut well, or out of a new opened mine, who would lament, who wouldaccuse, when we had nothing to accuse, none to lament against butfortune, who is less than a vapour? But when ourselves are the wellthat breathes out this exhalation, the oven that spits out this fierysmoke, the mine that spews out this suffocating and strangling damp, whocan ever, after this, aggravate his sorrow by this circumstance, that itwas his neighbour, his familiar friend, his brother, that destroyed him, and destroyed him with a whispering and a calumniating breath, when weourselves do it to ourselves by the same means, kill ourselves with ourown vapours? Or if these occasions of this self-destruction had anycontribution from our own wills, any assistance from our own intentions, nay, from our own errors, we might divide the rebuke, and chideourselves as much as them. Fevers upon wilful distempers of drink andsurfeits, consumptions upon intemperances and licentiousness, madnessupon misplacing or overbending our natural faculties, proceed fromourselves, and so as that ourselves are in the plot, and we are not onlypassive, but active too, to our own destruction. But what have I done, either to breed or to breathe these vapours? They tell me it is mymelancholy; did I infuse, did I drink in melancholy into myself? It ismy thoughtfulness; was I not made to think? It is my study; doth not mycalling call for that? I have done nothing wilfully, perversely towardit, yet must suffer in it, die by it. There are too many examples of menthat have been their own executioners, and that have made hard shift tobe so: some have always had poison about them, in a hollow ring upontheir finger, and some in their pen that they used to write with; somehave beat out their brains at the wall of their prison, and some haveeat the fire out of their chimneys;[169] and one is said to have comenearer our case than so, to have strangled himself, though his handswere bound, by crushing his throat between his knees. But I do nothingupon myself, and yet am mine own executioner. And we have heard of deathupon small occasions and by scornful instruments: a pin, a comb, a hairpulled, hath gangrened and killed; but when I have said a vapour, if Iwere asked again what is a vapour, I could not tell, it is so insensiblea thing; so near nothing is that that reduces us to nothing. But extendthis vapour, rarefy it; from so narrow a room as our natural bodies, toany politic body, to a state. That which is fume in us is, in a staterumour; and these vapours in us, which we consider here pestilent andinfectious fumes, are, in a state, infecitious rumours, detracting anddishonourable calumnies, libels, The heart in that body is the king, andthe bran his council; and the whole magistracy, that ties all together, is the sinews which proceed from thence; and the life of all is honour, and just respect, and due reverence; and therefore, when these vapours, these venomous rumours, are directed against these noble parts, thewhole body suffers. But yet for all their privileges, they are notprivileged from our misery; that as the vapours most pernicious to usarise in our own bodies, so do the most dishonourable rumours, and thosethat wound a state most arise at home. What ill air that I could havemet in the street, what channel, what shambles, what dunghill, whatvault, could have hurt me so much as these homebred vapours? Whatfugitive, what almsman of any foreign state, can do so much harm as adetractor, a libeller, a scornful jester at home? For as they that writeof poisons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of man, doas well mention the flea as the viper[170], because the flea, though hekill none, he does all the harm he can; so even these libellous andlicentious jesters utter the venom they have, though sometimes virtue, and always power, be a good pigeon to draw this vapour from the headand from doing any deadly harm there. 

XII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, as thy servant James, when he asks that question, _Whatis your life?_ provides me my answer, _It is even a vapour, thatappeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away_;[171] so, if hedid ask me what is your death, I am provided of my answer, it is avapour too; and why should it not be all one to me, whether I live ordie, if life and death be all one, both a vapour? Thou hast made vapourso indifferent a thing as that thy blessings and thy judgments areequally expressed by it, and is made by thee the hieroglyphic of both. Why should not that be always good by which thou hast declared thyplentiful goodness to us? _A vapour went up from the earth, and wateredthe whole face of the ground. _[172] And that by which thou hast imputeda goodness to us, and wherein thou hast accepted our service to thee, sacrifices; for sacrifices were vapours;[173] and in them it is said, that a _thick cloud of incense went up to thee_. [174] So it is of thatwherein thou comest to us, the dew of heaven, and of that wherein wecome to thee, both are vapours; and he, in whom we have and are all thatwe are or have, temporally or spiritually, thy blessed Son, in theperson of Wisdom, is called so too; _She is_ (that is, he is) _thevapour of the power of God, and the pure influence from the glory of theAlmighty. _[175] Hast thou, thou, O my God, perfumed vapour with thineown breath, with so many sweet acceptations in thine own word, and shallthis vapour receive an ill and infectious sense? It must; for, since wehave displeased thee with that which is but vapour (for what is sin buta vapour, but a smoke, though such a smoke as takes away our sight, anddisables us from seeing our danger), it is just that thou punish us withvapours too. For so thou dost, as the wise man tells us, thou canstpunish us by those things wherein we offend thee; as he hath expressedit there, _by beasts newly created, breathing vapours_. [176] Thereforethat commination of thine, by thy prophet, _I will show wonders in theheaven, and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke_;[177]thine apostle, who knew thy meaning best, calls _vapours of smoke_. [178]One prophet presents thee in thy terribleness so, _There went out asmoke at his nostrils_, [179] and another the effect of thine anger so, _The house was filled with smoke_;[180] and he that continues hisprophecy as long as the world can continue, describes the miseries ofthe latter times so, _Out of the bottomless pit arose a smoke, thatdarkened the sun, and out of that smoke came locusts, who had the powerof scorpions_. [181] Now all smokes begin in fire, and all these will endso too: the smoke of sin and of thy wrath will end in the fire of hell. But hast thou afforded us no means to evaporate these smokes, towithdraw these vapours? When thine angels fell from heaven, thou tookestinto thy care the reparation of that place, and didst it by assuming, bydrawing us thither; when we fell from thee here, in this world, thoutookest into thy care the reparation of this place too, and didst it byassuming us another way, by descending down to assume our nature, in thySon. So that though our last act be an ascending to glory (we shallascend to the place of angels), yet our first act is to go the way ofthy Son, descending, and the way of thy blessed Spirit too, whodescended in the dove. Therefore hast thou been pleased to afford usthis remedy in nature, by this application of a dove to our lower parts, to make these vapours in our bodies to descend, and to make that a typeto us, that, by the visitation of thy Spirit, the vapours of sin shalldescend, and we tread them under our feet. At the baptism of thy Son, the Dove descended, and at the exalting of thine apostles to preach, thesame Spirit descended. Let us draw down the vapours of our own pride, our own wits, our own wills, our own inventions, to the simplicity ofthy sacraments and the obedience of thy word; and these doves, thusapplied, shall make us live. 

XII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou have suffered us todestroy ourselves, and hast not given us the power of reparation inourselves, hast yet afforded us such means of reparation as may easilyand familiarly be compassed by us, prosper, I humbly beseech thee, thismeans of bodily assistance in this thy ordinary creature, and prosperthy means of spiritual assistance in thy holy ordinances. And as thouhast carried this thy creature, the dove, through all thy ways throughnature, and made it naturally proper to conduce medicinally to ourbodily health, through the law, and made it a sacrifice for sin there, and through the gospel, and made it, and thy Spirit in it, a witness ofthy Son's baptism there, so carry it, and the qualities of it, home tomy soul, and imprint there that simplicity, that mildness, thatharmlessness, which thou hast imprinted by nature in this creature. Thatso all vapours of all disobedience to thee, being subdued under myfeet, I may, in the power and triumph of thy Son, tread victoriouslyupon my grave, and trample upon the lion and dragon[182] that lie underit to devour me. Thou, O Lord, by the prophet, callest the dove the_dove of the valleys_, but promisest that the _dove of the valleys shallbe upon the mountain_. [183] As thou hast laid me low in this valley ofsickness, so low as that I am made fit for that question asked in thefield of bones, _Son of man, can these bones live?_[184] so, in thy goodtime, carry me up to these mountains of which even in this valley thouaffordest me a prospect, the mountain where thou dwellest, the holyhill, unto which none can ascend _but he that hath clean hands_, whichnone can have but by that one and that strong way of making them clean, in the blood of thy Son Christ Jesus. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[169] Coma, latro. In Val. Max. 

[170] Ardoinus. 

[171] James, iv. 14. 

[172] Gen. Ii. 6. 

[173] Lev. Xvi. 13. 

[174] Ezek. Viii. 11. 

[175] Wisd. Vii. 25. 

[176] Wisd. Xi. 18. 

[177] Joel, ii. 30. 

[178] Acts, ii. 19. 

[179] Psalm xviii. 8. 

[180] Isaiah, vi. 4. 

[181] Rev. Ix. 2. 

XIII. INGENIUMQUE MALUM, NUMEROSO STIGMATE, FASSUS PELLITUR AD PECTUS, MORBIQUE SUBURBIA, MORBUS. 

_The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof by spots. _

XIII. MEDITATION. 

We say that the world is made of sea and land, as though they wereequal; but we know that there is more sea in the Western than in theEastern hemisphere. We say that the firmament is full of stars, asthough it were equally full; but we know that there are more stars underthe Northern than under the Southern pole. We say the elements of manare misery and happiness, as though he had an equal proportion of both, and the days of man vicissitudinary, as though he had as many good daysas ill, and that he lived under a perpetual equinoctial, night and dayequal, good and ill fortune in the same measure. But it is far fromthat; he drinks misery, and he tastes happiness; he mows misery, and hegleans happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walk in happiness;and, which is worst, his misery is positive and dogmatical, hishappiness is but disputable and problematical: all men call miserymisery, but happiness changes the name by the taste of man. In thisaccident that befalls me, now that this sickness declares itself byspots to be a malignant and pestilential disease, if there be a comfortin the declaration, that thereby the physicians see more clearly what todo, there may be as much discomfort in this, that the malignity may beso great as that all that they can do shall do nothing; that an enemydeclares himself then, when he is able to subsist, and to pursue, and toachieve his ends, is no great comfort. In intestine conspiracies, voluntary confessions do more good than confessions upon the rack; inthese infections, when nature herself confesses and cries out by theseoutward declarations which she is able to put forth of herself, theyminister comfort; but when all is by the strength of cordials, it is buta confession upon the rack, by which, though we come to know the maliceof that man, yet we do not know whether there be not as much malice inhis heart then as before his confession; we are sure of his treason, butnot of his repentance; sure of him, but not of his accomplices. It is afaint comfort to know the worst when the worst is remediless, and aweaker than that to know much ill, and not to know that that is theworst. A woman is comforted with the birth of her son, her body is easedof a burden; but if she could prophetically read his history, how ill aman, perchance how ill a son, he would prove, she should receive agreater burden into her mind. Scarce any purchase that is not cloggedwith secret incumbrances; scarce any happiness that hath not in it somuch of the nature of false and base money, as that the allay is morethan the metal. Nay, is it not so (at least much towards it) even in theexercise of virtues? I must be poor and want before I can exercise thevirtue of gratitude; miserable, and in torment, before I can exercisethe virtue of patience. How deep do we dig, and for how coarse gold! Andwhat other touchstone have we of our gold but comparison, whether we beas happy as others, or as ourselves at other times? O poor step towardbeing well, when these spots do only tell us that we are worse than wewere sure of before. 

XIII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, thou hast made this sick bed thine altar, and I have noother sacrifice to offer but myself; and wilt thou accept no spottedsacrifice? Doth thy Son dwell bodily in this flesh that thou shouldstlook for an unspottedness here? or is the Holy Ghost the soul of thisbody, as he is of thy spouse, who is therefore _all fair, and no spot inher_?[185] or hath thy Son himself no spots, who hath all our stains anddeformities in him? or hath thy spouse, thy church, no spots, when everyparticular limb of that fair and spotless body, every particular soul inthat church, is full of stains and spots? Thou bidst us _hate thegarment that is spotted with the flesh_. [186] The flesh itself is thegarment, and it spotteth itself with itself. And _if I wash myself withsnow water, mine own clothes shall make me abominable_;[187] and yet _noman yet ever hated his own flesh_. [188] Lord, if thou look for aspotlessness, whom wilt thou look upon? Thy mercy may go a great way inmy soul and yet not leave me without spots; thy corrections may go farand burn deep, and yet not leave me spotless: thy children apprehendedthat, when they said, _From our former iniquity we are not cleanseduntil this day, though there was a plague in the congregation of theLord_. [189] Thou rainest upon us, and yet dost not always mollify allour hardness; thou kindlest thy fires in us, and yet dost not alwaysburn up all our dross; thou healest our wounds, and yet leavest scars;thou purgest the blood, and yet leavest spots. But the spots that thouhatest are the spots that we hide. The carvers of images coverspots, [190] says the wise man; when we hide our spots, we becomeidolators of our own stains, of our own foulnesses. But if my spots comeforth, by what means soever, whether by the strength of nature, byvoluntary confession (for grace is the nature of a regenerate man, andthe power of grace is the strength of nature), or by the virtue ofcordials (for even thy corrections are cordials), if they come fortheither way, thou receivest that confession with a graciousinterpretation. When thy servant Jacob practised an invention to procurespots in his sheep, [191] thou didst prosper his rods; and thou dostprosper thine own rods, when corrections procure the discovery of ourspots, the humble manifestation of our sins to thee; till then thoumayst justly say, _The whole need not the physician_;[192] till we tellthee in our sickness we think ourselves whole, till we show our spots, thou appliest no medicine. But since I do that, shall I not, _Lord, liftup my face without spot, and be steadfast, and not fear_?[193] Even myspots belong to thy Son's body, and are part of that which he came downto this earth to fetch, and challenge, and assume to himself. When Iopen my spots I do but present him with that which is his; and till I doso, I detain and withhold his right. When therefore thou seest them uponme, as his, and seest them by this way of confession, they shall notappear to me as the pinches of death, to decline my fear to hell (forthou hast not left thy holy one in hell, thy Son is not there); butthese spots upon my breast, and upon my soul, shall appear to me as theconstellations of the firmament, to direct my contemplation to thatplace where thy Son is, thy right hand. 

XIII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who as thou givest all for nothing, ifwe consider any precedent merit in us, so givest nothing for nothing, ifwe consider the acknowledgment and thankfulness which thou lookest forafter, accept my humble thanks, both for thy mercy, and for thisparticular mercy, that in thy judgment I can discern thy mercy, and findcomfort in thy corrections. I know, O Lord, the ordinary discomfort thataccompanies that phrase, that the house is visited, and that, that thymarks and thy tokens are upon the patient; but what a wretched anddisconsolate hermitage is that house which is not visited by thee, andwhat a waif and stray is that man that hath not thy marks upon him?These heats, O Lord, which thou hast brought upon this body, are but thychafing of the wax, that thou mightst seal me to thee: these spots arebut the letters in which thou hast written thine own name and conveyedthyself to me; whether for a present possession, by taking me now, orfor a future reversion, by glorifying thyself in my stay here, I limitnot, I condition not, I choose not, I wish not, no more than the houseor land that passeth by any civil conveyance. Only be thou ever presentto me, O my God, and this bedchamber and thy bedchamber shall be all oneroom, and the closing of these bodily eyes here, and the opening of theeyes of my soul there, all one act. 

FOOTNOTES:

[182] Psalm xci. 13. 

[183] Ezek. Vii. 16. 

[184] Ezek. Xxxvii. 3. 

[185] Cant. Iv. 7. 

[186] Jude, 23. 

[187] Job, ix. 30

[188] Eph. V. 29

[189] Josh. Xxii. 17

[190] Wisd. Xiii. 14

[191] Gen. Xxx. 33

[192] Matt. Ix. 12

[193] Job, xi. 15. 

XIV. IDQUE NOTANT CRITICIS MEDICI EVENISSE DIEBUS. 

_The physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the criticaldays. _

XIV. MEDITATION. 

I would not make man worse than he is, nor his condition more miserablethan it is. But could I though I would? As a man cannot flatter God, noroverpraise him, so a man cannot injure man, nor undervalue him. Thusmuch must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those falsehappinesses which he hath in this world, have their times, and theirseasons, and their critical days; and they are judged and denominatedaccording to the times when they befall us. What poor elements are ourhappinesses made of, if time, time which we can scarce consider to beany thing, be an essential part of our happiness! All things are done insome place; but if we consider place to be no more but the next hollowsuperficies of the air, alas! how thin and fluid a thing is air, and howthin a film is a superficies, and a superficies of air! All things aredone in time too, but if we consider time to be but the measure ofmotion, and howsoever it may seem to have three stations, past, present, and future, yet the first and last of these are not (one is not now, andthe other is not yet), and that which you call present, is not now thesame that it was when you began to call it so in this line (before yousound that word present, or that monosyllable now, the present and thenow is past). If this imaginary, half-nothing time, be of the essence ofour happinesses, how can they be thought durable? Time is not so; howcan they be thought to be? Time is not so; not so considered in any ofthe parts thereof. If we consider eternity, into that time neverentered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is ashort parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as itis, though time had never been. If we consider, not eternity, butperpetuity; not that which had no time to begin in, but which shalloutlive time, and be when time shall be no more, what a minute is thelife of the durablest creature compared to that! and what a minute isman's life in respect of the sun's, or of a tree? and yet how little ofour life is occasion, opportunity to receive good in; and how little ofthat occasion do we apprehend and lay hold of? How busy and perplexed acobweb is the happiness of man here, that must be made up with awatchfulness to lay hold upon occasion, which is but a little piece ofthat which is nothing, time? and yet the best things are nothing withoutthat. Honours, pleasures, possessions, presented to us out of time? inour decrepit and distasted and unapprehensive age, lose their office, and lose their name; they are not honours to us that shall never appear, nor come abroad into the eyes of the people, to receive honour from themwho give it; nor pleasures to us, who have lost our sense to tastethem; nor possessions to us, who are departing from the possession ofthem. Youth is their critical day, that judges them, that denominatesthem, that inanimates and informs them, and makes them honours, andpleasures, and possessions; and when they come in an unapprehensive age, they come as a cordial when the bell rings out, as a pardon when thehead is off. We rejoice in the comfort of fire, but does any man cleaveto it at midsummer? We are glad of the freshness and coolness of avault, but does any man keep his Christmas there; or are the pleasuresof the spring acceptable in autumn? If happiness be in the season, or inthe climate, how much happier then are birds than men, who can changethe climate and accompany and enjoy the same season ever. 

XIV. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, wouldst thou call thyself the ancient of days, [194] ifwe were not to call ourselves to an account for our days? Wouldst thouchide us for _standing idle here all the day_, [195] if we were sure tohave more days to make up our harvest? When thou bidst us _take nothought for to-morrow, for sufficient unto the day_ (to every day) _isthe evil thereof_, [196] is this truly, absolutely, to put off all thatconcerns the present life? When thou reprehendest the Galatians by thymessage to them, _That they observed days, and months, and times, andyears_, [197] when thou sendest by the same messenger to forbid theColossians all critical days, indicatory days, _Let no man judge you inrespect of a holy day, or of a new moon, or of a sabbath_, [198] dostthou take away all consideration, all distinction of days? Though thouremove them from being of the essence of our salvation, thou leavestthem for assistances, and for the exaltation of our devotion, to fixourselves, at certain periodical and stationary times, upon theconsideration of those things which thou hast done for us, and thecrisis, the trial, the judgment, how those things have wrought upon usand disposed us to a spiritual recovery and convalescence. For there isto every man a day of salvation. _Now is the accepted time, now is theday of salvation_, [199] and there is _a great day of thy wrath_, [200]which no man shall be able to stand in; and there are evil days before, and therefore thou warnest us and armest us, _Take unto you the wholearmour of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day_. [201] Sofar then our days must be critical to us, as that by consideration ofthem, we may make a judgment of our spiritual health, for that is thecrisis of our bodily health. Thy beloved servant, St. John, wishes toGaius, _that he may prosper in his health, so as his soulprospers_;[202] for if the soul be lean the marrow of the body is butwater; if the soul wither, the verdure and the good estate of the bodyis but an illusion and the goodliest man a fearful ghost. Shall we, O myGod, determine our thoughts, and shall we never determine ourdisputations upon our climacterical years, for particular men andperiodical years, for the life of states and kingdoms, and neverconsider these in our long life, and our interest in the everlastingkingdom? We have exercised our curiosity in observing that Adam, theeldest of the eldest world, died in his climacterical year, and Shem, the eldest son of the next world, in his; Abraham, the father of thefaithful, in his, and the blessed Virgin Mary, the garden where theroot of faith grew, in hers. But they whose climacterics we observe, employed their observation upon their critical days, the working of thypromise of a Messias upon them. And shall we, O my God, make less use ofthose days who have more of them? We, who have not only the day of theprophets, the first days, but the last days, in which thou hast spokenunto us by thy Son?[203] We are the children of the day, [204] for thouhast shined in as full a noon upon us as upon the Thessalonians: theywho were of the night (a night which they had superinduced uponthemselves), the Pharisees, pretended, _that if they had been in theirfathers' days_ (those indicatory and judicatory, those critical days), _they would not have been partakers of the blood of the prophets_;[205]and shall we who are in the day, these days, not of the prophets, but ofthe Son, stone those prophets again, and crucify that Son again, for allthose evident indications and critical judicatures which are affordedus? Those opposed adversaries of thy Son, the Pharisees, with theHerodians, watched a critical day; then when the state was incensedagainst him, came to tempt him in the dangerous question oftribute. [206] They left him, and that day was the critical day to theSadducees. The same day, says thy Spirit in thy word, the Sadducees cameto him to question him about the resurrection, [207] and them hesilenced; they left him, and this was the critical day for the Scribe, expert in the law, who thought himself learneder than the Herodian, thePharisee, or Sadducee; and he tempted him about the greatcommandment, [208] and him Christ left without power of replying. Whenall was done, and that they went about to begin their circle of vexationand temptation again, Christ silences them so, that as they had takentheir critical days, to come in that and in that day, so Christ imposesa critical day upon them. _From that day forth_, says thy Spirit, _noman durst ask him any more questions_. [209] This, O my God, my mostblessed God, is a fearful crisis, a fearful indication, when we willstudy, and seek, and find, what days are fittest to forsake thee in; tosay, now religion is in a neutrality in the world, and this is my day, the day of liberty; now I may make new friends by changing my oldreligion, and this is my day, the day of advancement. But, O my God, with thy servant Jacob's holy boldness, who, though thou lamedst him, would not let thee go till thou hadst given him a blessing;[210] thoughthou have laid me upon my hearse, yet thou shalt not depart from me, from this bed, till thou have given me a crisis, a judgment upon myselfthis day. Since _a day is as a thousand years with thee_, [211] let, OLord, a day be as a week to me; and in this one, let me consider sevendays, seven critical days, and judge myself that I be not judged bythee. First, this is the day of thy visitation, thy coming to me; andwould I look to be welcome to thee, and not entertain thee in thy comingto me? We measure not the visitations of great persons by their apparel, by their equipage, by the solemnity of their coming, but by their verycoming; and therefore, howsoever thou come, it is a crisis to me, thatthou wouldst not lose me who seekest me by any means. This leads me frommy first day, thy visitation by sickness, to a second, to the light andtestimony of my conscience. There I have an evening and a morning, a sadguiltiness in my soul, but yet a cheerful rising of thy Sun too; thyevenings and mornings made days in the creation, and there is no mentionof nights; my sadnesses for sins are evenings, but they determine notin night, but deliver me over to the day, the day of a consciencedejected, but then rectified, accused, but then acquitted, by thee, byhim who speaks thy word, and who is thy word, thy Son. From this day, the crisis and examination of my conscience, breaks out my third day, myday of preparing and fitting myself for a more especial receiving of thySon in his institution of the Sacrament; in which day, though there bemany dark passages and slippery steps to them who will entangle andendanger themselves in unnecessary disputations, yet there are lighthours enough for any man to go his whole journey intended by thee, toknow that that bread and wine is not more really assimilated to my body, and to my blood, than the body and blood of thy Son is communicated tome in that action, and participation of that bread and that wine. Andhaving, O my God, walked with thee these three days, the day of thyvisitation, the day of my conscience, the day of preparing for this sealof reconciliation, I am the less afraid of the clouds or storms of myfourth day, the day of my dissolution and transmigration from hence. Nothing deserves the name of happiness that makes the remembrance ofdeath bitter; and, _O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to aman that lives at rest in his possessions, the man that hath nothing tovex him, yea unto him that is able to receive meat!_[212] Therefore hastthou, O my God, made this sickness, in which I am not able to receivemeat, my fasting day, my eve to this great festival, my dissolution. Andthis day of death shall deliver me over to my fifth day, the day of myresurrection; for how long a day soever thou make that day in the grave, yet there is no day between that and the resurrection. Then we shall allbe invested, reapparelled in our own bodies; but they who have madejust use of their former days be super-invested with glory; whereas theothers, condemned to their old clothes, their sinful bodies, shall havenothing added but immortality to torment. And this day of awaking me, and reinvesting my soul in my body, and my body in the body of Christ, shall present me, body and soul, to my sixth day, the day of judgment, which is truly, and most literally, the critical, the decretory day;both because all judgment shall be manifested to me then, and I shallassist in judging the world then, and because then, that judgment shalldeclare to me, and possess me of my seventh day, my everlasting Sabbathin thy rest, thy glory, thy joy, thy sight, thyself; and where I shalllive as long without reckoning any more days after, as thy Son and thyHoly Spirit lived with thee, before you three made any days in thecreation. 

XIV. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou didst permit darknessto be before light in the creation, yet in the making of light didst somultiply that light, as that it enlightened not the day only, but thenight too; though thou have suffered some dimness, some clouds ofsadness and disconsolateness to shed themselves upon my soul, I humblybless and thankfully glorify thy holy name, that thou hast afforded methe light of thy Spirit, against which the prince of darkness cannotprevail, nor hinder his illumination of our darkest nights, of oursaddest thoughts. Even the visitation of thy most blessed Spirit uponthe blessed Virgin, is called an overshadowing. There was the presenceof the Holy Ghost, the fountain of all light, and yet an overshadowing;nay, except there were some light, there could be no shadow. Let thymerciful providence so govern all in this sickness, that I never fallinto utter darkness, ignorance of thee, or inconsideration of myself;and let those shadows which do fall upon me, faintnesses of spirit, andcondemnations of myself, be overcome by the power of thine irresistiblelight, the God of consolation; that when those shadows have done theiroffice upon me, to let me see, that of myself I should fall intoirrecoverable darkness, thy Spirit may do his office upon those shadows, and disperse them, and establish me in so bright a day here, as may be acritical day to me, a day wherein and whereby I may give thy judgmentupon myself, and that the words of thy Son, spoken to his apostles, mayreflect upon me, _Behold I am with you always, even to the end of theworld_. [213]

FOOTNOTES:

[194] Dan. Vii. 22. 

[195] Matt. Xx. 6. 

[196] Matt. Vi. 34. 

[197] Gal. Iv. 10. 

[198] Col. Ii. 16. 

[199] 2 Cor. Vi. 2. 

[200] Rev. Vi. 17. 

[201] Eph. Vi. 11. 

[202] 3 John, 2. 

[203] Heb. I. 2. 

[204] 1 Thes. V. 8. 

[205] Matt. Xxiii. 30. 

[206] Matt. Xxii. 15. 

[207] Matt. Xxii. 23. 

[208] Matt. Xxii. 36. 

[209] Matt. Xxii. 46. 

[210] Gen. Xxxii. 26. 

[211] 2 Pet. Iii. 8. 

[212] Ecclus. Xli. 1. 

XV. INTEREA INSOMNES NOCTES EGO DUCO, DIESQUE. 

_I sleep not day nor night. _

XV. MEDITATION. 

Natural men have conceived a twofold use of sleep; that it is arefreshing of the body in this life; that it is a preparing of the soulfor the next; that it is a feast, and it is the grace at that feast;that it is our recreation and cheers us, and it is our catechism andinstructs us; we lie down in a hope that we shall rise the stronger, andwe lie down in a knowledge that we may rise no more. Sleep is an opiatewhich gives us rest, but such an opiate, as perchance, being under it, we shall wake no more. But though natural men, who have inducedsecondary and figurative considerations, have found out this second, this emblematical use of sleep, that it should be a representation ofdeath, God, who wrought and perfected his work before nature began (fornature was but his apprentice, to learn in the first seven days, and nowis his foreman, and works next under him), God, I say, intended sleeponly for the refreshing of man by bodily rest, and not for a figure ofdeath, for he intended not death itself then. But man having induceddeath upon himself, God hath taken man's creature, death, into his hand, and mended it; and whereas it hath in itself a fearful form and aspect, so that man is afraid of his own creature, God presents it to him in afamiliar, in an assiduous, in an agreeable and acceptable form, insleep; that so when he awakes from sleep, and says to himself, "Shall Ibe no otherwise when I am dead, than I was even now when I was asleep?"he may be ashamed of his waking dreams, and of his melancholy fancyingout a horrid and an affrightful figure of that death which is so likesleep. As then we need sleep to live out our threescore and ten years, so we need death to live that life which we cannot outlive. And as deathbeing our enemy, God allows us to defend ourselves against it (for wevictual ourselves against death twice every day), as often as we eat, soGod having so sweetened death unto us as he hath in sleep, we putourselves into our enemy's hands once every day, so far as sleep isdeath; and sleep is as much death as meat is life. This then is themisery of my sickness, that death, as it is produced from me and is mineown creature, is now before mine eyes, but in that form in which Godhath mollified it to us, and made it acceptable, in sleep I cannot seeit. How many prisoners, who have even hollowed themselves their gravesupon that earth on which they have lain long under heavy fetters, yet atthis hour are asleep, though they be yet working upon their own gravesby their own weight? He that hath seen his friend die to-day, or knowshe shall see it to-morrow, yet will sink into a sleep between. I cannot, and oh, if I be entering now into eternity, where there shall be no moredistinction of hours, why is it all my business now to tell clocks? Whyis none of the heaviness of my heart dispensed into mine eye-lids, thatthey might fall as my heart doth? And why, since I have lost my delightin all objects, cannot I discontinue the faculty of seeing them byclosing mine eyes in sleep? But why rather, being entering into thatpresence where I shall wake continually and never sleep more, do I notinterpret my continual waking here, to be a parasceve and a preparationto that?

XV. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, I know (for thou hast said it) that _he that keepethIsrael shall neither slumber nor sleep_:[214] but shall not that Israel, over whom thou watchest, sleep? I know (for thou hast said it) thatthere are men whose damnation sleepeth not;[215] but shall not they towhom thou art salvation sleep? or wilt thou take from them thatevidence, and that testimony that they are thy Israel, or thou theirsalvation? _Thou givest thy beloved sleep_:[216] shall I lack that sealof thy love? _You shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid_:[217]shall I be outlawed from that protection? Jonah slept in one dangerousstorm, [218] and thy blessed Son in another;[219] shall I have no use, nobenefit, no application of those great examples? _Lord, if he sleep, heshall do well_, [220] say thy Son's disciples to him of Lazarus; andshall there be no room for that argument in me? or shall I be open tothe contrary? If I sleep not, shall I not be well in their sense? Let menot, O my God, take this too precisely, too literally; _There is thatneither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes_, [221] says thy wiseservant Solomon; and whether he speak that of worldly men, or of menthat seek wisdom, whether in justification or condemnation of theirwatchfulness, we cannot tell: we can tell that there are men that cannotsleep till they have done mischief, [222] and then they can; and we cantell that the rich man cannot sleep, because his abundance will not lethim. [223] The tares were sown when the husbandmen were asleep[224]; andthe elders thought it a probable excuse, a credible lie, that thewatchmen which kept the sepulchre should say, that the body of thy Sonwas stolen away when they were asleep. [225] Since thy blessed Sonrebuked his disciples for sleeping, shall I murmur because I do notsleep? If Samson had slept any longer in Gaza, he had been taken;[226]and when he did sleep longer with Delilah, [227] he was taken. Sleep isas often taken for natural death in thy Scriptures, as for natural rest. Nay, sometimes sleep hath so heavy a sense, as to be taken for sinitself, [228] as well as for the punishment of sin, death. [229] Muchcomfort is not in much sleep, when the most fearful and most irrevocablemalediction is presented by thee in a perpetual sleep. _I will maketheir feasts, and I will make them drunk, and they shall sleep aperpetual sleep, and not wake. _[230] I must therefore, O my God, lookfarther than into the very act of sleeping before I misinterpret mywaking; for since I find thy whole hand light, shall any finger of thathand seem heavy? Since the whole sickness is thy physic, shall anyaccident in it be my poison by my murmuring? The name of watchmenbelongs to our profession; thy prophets are not only seers, endued witha power of seeing, able to see, but watchmen evermore in the act ofseeing. And therefore give me leave, O my blessed God, to invert thewords of thy Son's spouse: she said, _I sleep, but my heartwaketh_;[231] I say, I wake, but my heart sleepeth: my body is in a sickweariness, but my soul in a peaceful rest with thee; and as our eyes inour health see not the air that is next them, nor the fire, nor thespheres, nor stop upon any thing till they come to stars, so my eyesthat are open, see nothing of this world, but pass through all that, andfix themselves upon thy peace, and joy, and glory above. Almost as soonas thy apostle had said, _Let us not sleep_, [232] lest we should be toomuch discomforted if we did, he says again, _Whether we wake or sleep, let us live together with Christ_. [233] Though then this absence ofsleep may argue the presence of death (the original may exclude thecopy, the life the picture), yet this gentle sleep and rest of my soulbetroths me to thee, to whom I shall be married indissolubly, though bythis way of dissolution. 

XV. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who art able to make, and dost make, the sick bed of thy servants chapels of ease to them, and the dreams ofthy servants prayers and meditations upon thee, let not this continualwatchfulness of mine, this inability to sleep, which thou hast laid uponme, be any disquiet or discomfort to me, but rather an argument, thatthou wouldst not have me sleep in thy presence. What it may indicate orsignify concerning the state of my body, let them consider to whom thatconsideration belongs; do thou, who only art the Physician of my soul, tell her, that thou wilt afford her such defensatives, as that she shallwake ever towards thee, and yet ever sleep in thee, and that, throughall this sickness, thou wilt either preserve mine understanding from alldecays and distractions which these watchings might occasion, or thatthou wilt reckon and account with me from before those violences, andnot call any piece of my sickness a sin. It is a heavy and indelible sinthat I brought into the world with me; it is a heavy and innumerablemultitude of sins which I have heaped up since; I have sinned behind thyback (if that can be done), by wilful abstaining from thy congregationsand omitting thy service, and I have sinned before thy face, in myhypocrisies in prayer, in my ostentation, and the mingling a respect ofmyself in preaching thy word; I have sinned in my fasting, by repiningwhen a penurious fortune hath kept me low; and I have sinned even inthat fulness, when I have been at thy table, by a negligent examination, by a wilful prevarication, in receiving that heavenly food and physic. But as I know, O my gracious God, that for all those sins committedsince, yet thou wilt consider me, as I was in thy purpose when thouwrotest my name in the book of life in mine election; so into whatdeviations soever I stray and wander by occasion of this sickness, OGod, return thou to that minute wherein thou wast pleased with me andconsider me in that condition. 

FOOTNOTES:

[213] Matt. Xxviii. 20. 

[214] Psalm cxxi. 4. 

[215] 2 Pet. Ii. 3. 

[216] Psalm cxxvii. 2. 

[217] Lev. Xxvi. 6. 

[218] Jonah, i. 5. 

[219] Matt. Viii. 24. 

[220] John, xi. 12. 

[221] Eccles. Viii. 16. 

[222] Prov. Iv. 16. 

[223] Eccles. V. 12. 

[224] Matt. Xiii. 25; xxviii. 13. 

[225] Matt. Xxvi. 40. 

[226] Judges, xvi. 3. 

[227] Judges, xvi. 19. 

[228] Eph. V. 14. 

[229] 1 Thes. V. 6. 

[230] Jer. Li. 57. 

[231] Cant. V. 2. 

[232] 1 Thes. V. 6. 

[233] 1 Thes. V. 10. 

XVI. ET PROPERARE MEUM CLAMANT, E TURRE PROPINQUA, OBSTREPERĘ CAMPANĘALIORUM IN FUNERE, FUNUS. 

_From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily remembered of myburial in the funerals of others. _

XVI. MEDITATION. 

We have a convenient author, [234] who writ a discourse of bells when hewas prisoner in Turkey. How would he have enlarged himself if he hadbeen my fellow-prisoner in this sick bed, so near to that steeple whichnever ceases, no more than the harmony of the spheres, but is moreheard. When the Turks took Constantinople, they melted the bells intoordnance; I have heard both bells and ordnance, but never been so muchaffected with those as with these bells. I have lain near a steeple[235]in which there are said to be more than thirty bells, and near another, where there is one so big, as that the clapper is said to weigh morethan six hundred pounds, [236] yet never so affected as here. Here thebells can scarce solemnize the funeral of any person, but that I knewhim, or knew that he was my neighbour: we dwelt in houses near to oneanother before, but now he is gone into that house into which I mustfollow him. There is a way of correcting the children of great persons, that other children are corrected in their behalf, and in their names, and this works upon them who indeed had more deserved it. And when thesebells tell me, that now one, and now another is buried, must not Iacknowledge that they have the correction due to me, and paid the debtthat I owe? There is a story of a bell in a monastery[237] which, whenany of the house was sick to death, rung always voluntarily, and theyknew the inevitableness of the danger by that. It rung once when no manwas sick, but the next day one of the house fell from the steeple anddied, and the bell held the reputation of a prophet still. If thesebells that warn to a funeral now, were appropriated to none, may not I, by the hour of the funeral, supply? How many men that stand at anexecution, if they would ask, For what dies that man? should hear theirown faults condemned, and see themselves executed by attorney? We scarcehear of any man preferred, but we think of ourselves that we might verywell have been that man; why might not I have been that man that iscarried to his grave now? Could I fit myself to stand or sit in anyman's place, and not to lie in any man's grave? I may lack much of thegood parts of the meanest, but I lack nothing of the mortality of theweakest; they may have acquired better abilities than I, but I was bornto as many infirmities as they. To be an incumbent by lying down in agrave, to be a doctor by teaching mortification by example, by dying, though I may have seniors, others may be older than I, yet I haveproceeded apace in a good university, and gone a great way in a littletime, by the furtherance of a vehement fever, and whomsoever these bellsbring to the ground to-day, if he and I had been compared yesterday, perchance I should have been thought likelier to come to thispreferment then than he. God hath kept the power of death in his ownhands, lest any man should bribe death. If man knew the gain of death, the ease of death, he would solicit, he would provoke death to assisthim by any hand which he might use. But as when men see many of theirown professions preferred, it ministers a hope that that may light uponthem; so when these hourly bells tell me of so many funerals of men likeme, it presents, if not a desire that it may, yet a comfort whensoevermine shall come. 

XVI. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, I do not expostulate with thee, but with them who daredo that; who dare expostulate with thee, when in the voice of thy churchthou givest allowance to this ceremony of bells at funerals. Is itenough to refuse it, because it was in use among the Gentiles? so werefunerals too. Is it because some abuses may have crept in amongstChristians? Is that enough, that their ringing hath been said to driveaway evil spirits? Truly, that is so far true, as that the evil spiritis vehemently vexed in their ringing, therefore, because that actionbrings the congregation together, and unites God and his people, to thedestruction of that kingdom which the evil spirit usurps. In the firstinstitution of thy church in this world, in the foundation of thymilitant church amongst the Jews, thou didst appoint the calling of theassembly in to be by trumpet;[238] and when they were in, then thougavest them the sound of bells in the garment of thy priest. [239] In thetriumphant church, thou employest both too, but in an inverted order;we enter into the triumphant church by the sound of bells (for we enterwhen we die); and then we receive our further edification, orconsummation, by the sound of trumpets at the resurrection. The sound ofthy trumpets thou didst impart to secular and civil uses too, but thesound of bells only to sacred. Lord, let not us break the communion ofsaints in that which was intended for the advancement of it; let notthat pull us asunder from one another, which was intended for theassembling of us in the militant, and associating of us to thetriumphant church. But he, for whose funeral these bells ring now, wasat home, at his journey's end yesterday; why ring they now? A man, thatis a world, is all the things in the world; he is an army, and when anarmy marches, the van may lodge to-night where the rear comes not tillto-morrow. A man extends to his act and to his example; to that which hedoes, and that which he teaches; so do those things that concern him, sodo these bells; that which rung yesterday was to convey him out of theworld in his van, in his soul; that which rung to-day was to bring himin his rear, in his body, to the church; and this continuing of ringingafter his entering is to bring him to me in the application. Where I lieI could hear the psalm, and did join with the congregation in it; but Icould not hear the sermon, and these latter bells are a repetitionsermon to me. But, O my God, my God, do I that have this fever needother remembrances of my mortality? Is not mine own hollow voice, voiceenough to pronounce that to me? Need I look upon a death's head in aring, that have one in my face? or go for death to my neighbour's house, that have him in my bosom? We cannot, we cannot, O my God, take in toomany helps for religious duties; I know I cannot have any better imageof thee than thy Son, nor any better image of him than his Gospel; yetmust not I with thanks confess to thee, that some historical pictures ofhis have sometimes put me upon better meditations than otherwise Ishould have fallen upon? I know thy church needed not to have taken in, from Jew, or Gentile, any supplies for the exaltation of thy glory, orour devotion; of absolute necessity I know she needed not; but yet weowe thee our thanks, that thou hast given her leave to do so, and thatas, in making us Christians, thou didst not destroy that which we werebefore, natural men, so, in the exalting of our religious devotions nowwe are Christians, thou hast been pleased to continue to us thoseassistances which did work upon the affections of natural men before;for thou lovest a good man as thou lovest a good Christian; and thoughgrace be merely from me, yet thou dost not plant grace but in goodnatures. 

XVI. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who having consecrated our livingbodies to thine own Spirit, and made us temples of the Holy Ghost, dostalso require a respect to be given to these temples, even when thepriest is gone out of them, to these bodies when the soul is departedfrom them, I bless and glorify thy name, that as thou takest care in ourlife of every hair of our head, so dost thou also of every grain ofashes after our death. Neither dost thou only do good to us all in lifeand death, but also wouldst have us do good to one another, as in a holylife, so in those things which accompany our death. In thatcontemplation I make account that I hear this dead brother of ours, whois now carried out to his burial, to speak to me, and to preach myfuneral sermon in the voice of these bells. In him, O God, thou hastaccomplished to me even the request of Dives to Abraham; thou hast sentone from the dead to speak unto me. He speaks to me aloud from thatsteeple; he whispers to me at these curtains, and he speaks thy words:_Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth_. [240] Letthis prayer therefore, O my God, be as my last gasp, my expiring, mydying in thee; that if this be the hour of my transmigration, I may diethe death of a sinner, drowned in my sins, in the blood of thy Son; andif I live longer, yet I may now die the death of the righteous, die tosin; which death is a resurrection to a new life. _Thou killest and thougivest life_: whichsoever comes, it comes from thee; which way soever itcomes, let me come to thee. 

FOOTNOTES:

[234] Magius. 

[235] Antwerp. 

[236] Roan. 

[237] Roccha. 

[238] Numb. X. 2. 

[239] Exod. Xviii. 33-4. 

XVII. NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS. 

_Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die. _

XVII. MEDITATION. 

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knowsnot it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much betterthan I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may havecaused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child isthereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted intothat body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that actionconcerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when oneman dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into abetter language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employsseveral translators; some pieces are translated by age, some bysickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in everytranslation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves againfor that library where every book shall lie open to one another. Astherefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacheronly, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; buthow much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety anddignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religiousorders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it wasdetermined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If weunderstand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our eveningprayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in thatapplication, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermitagain, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he isunited to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? butwho takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends nothis ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove itfrom that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? Noman is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of thecontinent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if amanor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishesme, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to knowfor whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this abegging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were notmiserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the nexthouse, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were anexcusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, andscarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that isnot matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have nonecoined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as hetravels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is notcurrent money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer ourhome, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, andthis affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of nouse to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out andapplies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger Itake mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making myrecourse to my God, who is our only security. 

XVII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, is this one of thy ways of drawing light out ofdarkness, to make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness ofhis sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a bishop, to as manyas hear his voice in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in thisaction? Is this one of thy ways, to raise strength out of weakness, tomake him who cannot rise from his bed, nor stir in his bed, come hometo me, and in this sound give me the strength of healthy and vigorousinstructions? O my God, my God, what thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal, what hoarseness, what harshness, is not a clear organ, if thou bepleased to set thy voice to it? And what organ is not well played on ifthy hand be upon it? Thy voice, thy hand, is in this sound, and in thisone sound I hear this whole concert. I hear thy Jacob call unto his sonsand say, _Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shallbefall you in the last days_:[241] he says, That which I am now, youmust be then. I hear thy Moses telling me, and all within the compass ofthis sound, _This is the blessing wherewith I bless you before mydeath_;[242] this, that before your death, you would consider your ownin mine. I hear thy prophet saying to Hezekiah, _Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live_:[243] he makes use of his family, andcalls this a setting of his house in order, to compose us to themeditation of death. I hear thy apostle saying, _I think it meet to putyou in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must go out of thistabernacle_:[244] this is the publishing of his will, and this bell isour legacy, the applying of his present condition to our use. I hearthat which makes all sounds music, and all music perfect; I hear thy Sonhimself saying, _Let not your hearts be troubled_;[245] only I hear thischange, that whereas thy Son says there, _I go to prepare a place foryou_, this man in this sound says, I send to prepare you for a place, for a grave. But, O my God, my God, since heaven is glory and joy, whydo not glorious and joyful things lead us, induce us to heaven? Thylegacies in thy first will, in the Old Testament, were plenty andvictory, wine and oil, milk and honey, alliances of friends, ruin ofenemies, peaceful hearts and cheerful countenances, and by thesegalleries thou broughtest them into thy bedchamber, by these glories andjoys, to the joys and glories of heaven. Why hast thou changed thine oldway, and carried us by the ways of discipline and mortification, by theways of mourning and lamentation, by the ways of miserable ends andmiserable anticipations of those miseries, in appropriating the exemplarmiseries of others to ourselves, and usurping upon their miseries as ourown, to our prejudice? Is the glory of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it needs a foil of depression and ingloriousness in this world, to set it off? Is the joy of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that itneeds the sourness of this life to give it a taste? Is that joy and thatglory but a comparative glory and a comparative joy? not such in itself, but such in comparison of the joylessness and the ingloriousness of thisworld? I know, my God, it is far, far otherwise. As thou thyself, whoart all, art made of no substances, so the joys and glory which are withthee are made of none of these circumstances, essential joy, and gloryessential. But why then, my God, wilt thou not begin them here? Pardon, O God, this unthankful rashness; I that ask why thou dost not, find evennow in myself, that thou dost; such joy, such glory, as that I concludeupon myself, upon all, they that find not joys in their sorrows, gloryin their dejections in this world, are in a fearful danger of missingboth in the next. 

XVII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who hast been pleased to speak to us, not only in the voice of nature, who speaks in our hearts, and of thyword, which speaks to our ears, but in the speech of speechlesscreatures, in Balaam's ass, in the speech of unbelieving men, in theconfession of Pilate, in the speech of the devil himself, in therecognition and attestation of thy Son, I humbly accept thy voice in thesound of this sad and funeral bell. And first, I bless thy gloriousname, that in this sound and voice I can hear thy instructions, inanother man's to consider mine own condition; and to know, that thisbell which tolls for another, before it come to ring out, may take me intoo. As death is the wages of sin it is due to me; as death is the endof sickness it belongs to me; and though so disobedient a servant as Imay be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a master as thou I cannot beafraid to come; and therefore into thy hands, O my God, I commend myspirit, a surrender which I know thou wilt accept, whether I live ordie; for thy servant David made it, [246] when he put himself into thyprotection for his life; and thy blessed Son made it, when he deliveredup his soul at his death: declare thou thy will upon me, O Lord, forlife or death in thy time; receive my surrender of myself now; into thyhands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And being thus, O my God, preparedby thy correction, mellowed by thy chastisement, and conformed to thywill by thy Spirit, having received thy pardon for my soul, and askingno reprieve for my body, I am bold, O Lord, to bend my prayers to theefor his assistance, the voice of whose bell hath called me to thisdevotion. Lay hold upon his soul, O God, till that soul have thoroughlyconsidered his account; and how few minutes soever it have to remain inthat body, let the power of thy Spirit recompense the shortness of time, and perfect his account before he pass away; present his sins so to him, as that he may know what thou forgivest, and not doubt of thyforgiveness, let him stop upon the infiniteness of those sins, but dwellupon the infiniteness of thy mercy; let him discern his own demerits, but wrap himself up in the merits of thy Son Christ Jesus; breatheinward comforts to his heart, and afford him the power of giving suchoutward testimonies thereof, as all that are about him may derivecomforts from thence, and have this edification, even in thisdissolution, that though the body be going the way of all flesh, yetthat soul is going the way of all saints. When thy Son cried out uponthe cross, _My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ he spake not somuch in his own person, as in the person of the church, and of hisafflicted members, who in deep distresses might fear thy forsaking. Thispatient, O most blessed God, is one of them; in his behalf, and in hisname, hear thy Son crying to thee, _My God, my God, why hast thouforsaken me?_ and forsake him not; but with thy left hand lay his bodyin the grave (if that be thy determination upon him), and with thy righthand receive his soul into thy kingdom, and unite him and us in onecommunion of saints. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[240] Rev. Xiv. 13. 

[241] Gen. Xlix. 1. 

[242] Deut. Xxxiii. 1. 

[243] 2 Kings, xx. 1. 

[244] 2 Pet. I. 13. 

[245] John, xiv. 1. 

[246] Psalm xxxi. 5. 

 XVIII. ------------------------ AT INDE MORTUUS ES, SONITU CELERI, PULSUQUE AGITATO. 

_The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead. _

XVIII. MEDITATION. 

The bell rings out, the pulse thereof is changed; the tolling was afaint and intermitting pulse, upon one side; this stronger, and arguesmore and better life. His soul is gone out, and as a man who had a leaseof one thousand years after the expiration of a short one, or aninheritance after the life of a man in a consumption, he is now enteredinto the possession of his better estate. His soul is gone, whither? Whosaw it come in, or who saw it go out? Nobody; yet everybody is sure hehad one, and hath none. If I will ask mere philosophers what the soulis, I shall find amongst them that will tell me, it is nothing but thetemperament and harmony, and just and equal composition of the elementsin the body, which produces all those faculties which we ascribe to thesoul; and so in itself is nothing, no separable substance that overlivesthe body. They see the soul is nothing else in other creatures, and theyaffect an impious humility to think as low of man. But if my soul wereno more than the soul of a beast, I could not think so; that soul thatcan reflect upon itself, consider itself, is more than so. If I willask, not mere philosophers, but mixed men, philosophical divines, howthe soul, being a separate substance, enters into man, I shall find somethat will tell me, that it is by generation and procreation fromparents, because they think it hard to charge the soul with theguiltiness of original sin if the soul were infused into a body in whichit must necessarily grow foul, and contract original sin whether itwill or no; and I shall find some that will tell me, that it is byimmediate infusion from God, because they think it hard to maintain animmortality in such a soul, as should be begotten and derived with thebody from mortal parents. If I will ask, not a few men, but almost wholebodies, whole churches, what becomes of the souls of the righteous atthe departing thereof from the body, I shall be told by some, that theyattend an expiation, a purification in a place of torment; by some, thatthey attend the fruition of the sight of God in a place of rest, but yetbut of expectation; by some, that they pass to an immediate possessionof the presence of God. St. Augustine studied the nature of the soul asmuch as any thing, but the salvation of the soul; and he sent an expressmessenger to St. Hierome, to consult of some things concerning the soul;but he satisfies himself with this: "Let the departure of my soul tosalvation be evident to my faith, and I care the less how dark theentrance of my soul into my body be to my reason. " It is the going out, more than the coming in, that concerns us. This soul this bell tells meis gone out, whither? Who shall tell me that? I know not who it is, muchless what he was, the condition of the man, and the course of his life, which should tell me whither he is gone, I know not. I was not there inhis sickness, nor at his death; I saw not his way nor his end, nor canask them who did, thereby to conclude or argue whither he is gone. Butyet I have one nearer me than all these, mine own charity; I ask that, and that tells me he is gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. Iowe him a good opinion; it is but thankful charity in me, because Ireceived benefit and instruction from him when his bell tolled; and I, being made the fitter to pray by that disposition, wherein I wasassisted by his occasion, did pray for him; and I pray not withoutfaith; so I do charitably, so I do faithfully believe, that that soul isgone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. But for the body, how poora wretched thing is that? we cannot express it so fast, as it growsworse and worse. That body, which scarce three minutes since was such ahouse, as that that soul, which made but one step from thence to heaven, was scarce thoroughly content to leave that for heaven; that body hathlost the name of a dwelling-house, because none dwells in it, and ismaking haste to lose the name of a body, and dissolve to putrefaction. Who would not be affected to see a clear and sweet river in the morning, grow a kennel of muddy land-water by noon, and condemned to the saltnessof the sea by night? and how lame a picture, how faint a representationis that, of the precipitation of man's body to dissolution? Now all theparts built up, and knit by a lovely soul, now but a statue of clay, andnow these limbs melted off, as if that clay were but snow; and now thewhole house is but a handful of sand, so much dust, and but a peck ofrubbish, so much bone. If he who, as this bell tells me, is gone now, were some excellent artificer, who comes to him for a cloak or for agarment now? or for counsel, if he were a lawyer? if a magistrate, forjustice? Man, before he hath his immortal soul, hath a soul of sense, and a soul of vegetation before that: this immortal soul did not forbidother souls to be in us before, but when this soul departs, it carriesall with it; no more vegetation, no more sense. Such a mother-in-law isthe earth, in respect of our natural mother; in her womb we grew, andwhen she was delivered of us, we were planted in some place, in somecalling in the world; in the womb of the earth we diminish, and when sheis delivered of us, our grave opened for another; we are nottransplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with profane dust, with every wind. 

XVIII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, if expostulation be too bold a word, do thou mollify itwith another; let it be wonder in myself, let it be but problem toothers; but let me ask, why wouldst thou not suffer those that servethee in holy services, to do any office about the dead, [247] nor assistat their funeral? Thou hadst no counsellor, thou needst none; thou hastno controller, thou admittedst none. Why do I ask? In ceremonial things(as that was) any convenient reason is enough; who can be sure topropose that reason, that moved thee in the institution thereof? Isatisfy myself with this; that in those times the Gentiles wereover-full of an over-reverent respect to the memory of the dead: a greatpart of the idolatry of the nations flowed from that; an over-amorousdevotion, an over-zealous celebrating, and over-studious preserving ofthe memories, and the pictures of some dead persons; and by _the vainglory of men, they entered into the world_, [248] and their statues andpictures contracted an opinion of divinity by age: that which was atfirst but a picture of a friend grew a god in time, as the wise mannotes, _They called them gods, which were the work of an ancienthand_. [249] And some have assigned a certain time, when a picture shouldcome out of minority, and be at age to be a god in sixty years after itis made. Those images of men that had life, and some idols of otherthings which never had any being, are by one common name calledpromiscuously dead; and for that the wise man reprehends the idolater, _for health he prays to that which is weak, and for life he prays tothat which is dead_. [250] Should we do so? says thy prophet;[251]_should we go from the living to the dead?_ So much ill then beingoccasioned by so much religious compliment exhibited to the dead, thou, O God (I think), wouldst therefore inhibit thy principal holy servantsfrom contributing any thing at all to this dangerous intimation ofidolatry; and that the people might say, Surely those dead men are notso much to be magnified as men mistake, since God will not suffer hisholy officers so much as to touch them, not to see them. But thosedangers being removed, thou, O my God, dost certainly allow that weshould do offices of piety to the dead and that we should drawinstructions to piety from the dead. Is not this, O my God, a holy kindof raising up seed to my dead brother, if I, by the meditation of hisdeath produce a better life in myself? It is the blessing upon Reuben, _Let Reuben live, and not die, and let not his men be few_;[252] let himpropagate many. And it is a malediction, _That that dieth, let itdie_, [253] let it do no good in dying; for _trees without fruit_, thou, by thy apostle, callest _twice dead_. [254] It is a second death, if nonelive the better by me after my death, by the manner of my death. Therefore may I justly think, that thou madest that a way to convey tothe Egyptians a fear of thee and a fear of death, that _there was not ahouse where there was not one dead_;[255] for thereupon the Egyptianssaid, _We are all dead men_: the death of others should catechise us todeath. Thy Son Christ Jesus is the _first begotten of the dead_;[256] herises first, the eldest brother, and he is my master in this science ofdeath; but yet, for me, I am a younger brother too, to this man whodied now, and to every man whom I see or hear to die before me, and allthey are ushers to me in this school of death. I take therefore thatwhich thy servant David's wife said to him, to be said to me, _If thousave not thy life to-night, to-morrow thou shalt be slain_. [257] If thedeath of this man work not upon me now, I shall die worse than if thouhadst not afforded me this help; for thou hast sent him in this bell tome, as thou didst send to the angel of Sardis, with commission to_strengthen the things that remain, and that are ready to die_, [258]that in this weakness of body I might receive spiritual strength bythese occasions. This is my strength, that whether thou say to me, asthine angel said to Gideon, _Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shaltnot die_;[259] or whether thou say, as unto Aaron, _Thou shalt diethere_;[260] yet thou wilt preserve that which is ready to die, my soul, from the worst death, that of sin. Zimri _died for his sins_, says thySpirit, _which he sinned in doing evil; and in his sin which he did tomake Israel sin_;[261] for his sins, his many sins, and then in his sin, his particular sin. For my sins I shall die whensoever I die, for deathis the wages of sin; but I shall die in my sin, in that particular sinof resisting thy Spirit, if I apply not thy assistances. Doth it notcall us to a particular consideration that thy blessed Son varies hisform of commination, and aggravates it in the variation, when he says tothe Jews (because they refused the light offered), _You shall die inyour sin_:[262] and then when they proceeded to farther disputations, and vexations, and temptations, he adds, _You shall die in yoursins_;[263] he multiplies the former expression to a plural. In thissin, and in all your sins, doth not the resisting of thy particularhelps at last draw upon us the guiltiness of all our former sins? Maynot the neglecting of this sound ministered to me in this man's death, bring me to that misery, so that I, whom the Lord of life loved so as todie for me, shall die, and a creature of mine own shall be immortal;that I shall die, and the _worm_ of mine own conscience _shall neverdie_?[264]

XVIII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, I have a new occasion of thanks, and anew occasion of prayer to thee from the ringing of this bell. Thoutoldest me in the other voice that I was mortal and approaching todeath; in this I may hear thee say that I am dead in an irremediable, inan irrecoverable state for bodily health. If that be thy language inthis voice, how infinitely am I bound to thy heavenly Majesty forspeaking so plainly unto me? for even that voice, that I must die now, is not the voice of a judge that speaks by way of condemnation, but of aphysician that presents health in that. Thou presentest me death as thecure of my disease, not as the exaltation of it; if I mistake thy voiceherein, if I overrun thy pace, and prevent thy hand, and imagine deathmore instant upon me than thou hast bid him be, yet the voice belongs tome; I am dead, I was born dead, and from the first laying of these mudwalls in my conception, they have mouldered away, and the whole courseof life is but an active death. Whether this voice instruct me that I ama dead man now, or remember me that I have been a dead man all thiswhile. I humbly thank thee for speaking in this voice to my soul; and Ihumbly beseech thee also to accept my prayers in his behalf, by whoseoccasion this voice, this sound, is come to me. For though he be bydeath transplanted to thee, and so in possession of inexpressiblehappiness there, yet here upon earth thou hast given us such a portionof heaven, as that though men dispute whether thy saints in heaven doknow what we in earth in particular do stand in need of, yet, withoutall disputation, we upon earth do know what thy saints in heaven lackyet for the consummation of their happiness, and therefore thou hastafforded us the dignity that we may pray for them. That therefore thissoul, now newly departed to thy kingdom, may quickly return to a joyfulreunion to that body which it hath left, and that we with it may soonenjoy the full consummation of all in body and soul, I humbly beg at thyhand, O our most merciful God, for thy Son Christ Jesus' sake. That thatblessed Son of thine may have the consummation of his dignity, byentering into his last office, the office of a judge, and may havesociety of human bodies in heaven, as well as he hath had ever of souls;and that as thou hatest sin itself, thy hate to sin may be expressed inthe abolishing of all instruments of sin, the allurements of this world, and the world itself; and all the temporary revenges of sin, the stingsof sickness and of death; and all the castles, and prisons, andmonuments of sin, in the grave. That time may be swallowed up ineternity, and hope swallowed in possession, and ends swallowed ininfiniteness, and all men ordained to salvation in body and soul be oneentire and everlasting sacrifice to thee, where thou mayst receivedelight from them, and they glory from thee, for evermore. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[247] Levit. Xxi. 1. 

[248] Wisd. Xiv. 14. 

[249] Wisd. Xiii. 10. 

[250] Wisd. Xiii. 18. 

[251] Isaiah, viii. 19. 

[252] Deut. Xxxiii. 6. 

[253] Zech. Xi. 9. 

[254] Jude, 12. 

[255] Exod. Xii. 30. 

[256] Rev. I. 5. 

[257] 1 Sam. Xix. 11. 

[258] Rev. Iii. 2. 

[259] Judg. Vi, 23. 

[260] Numb. Xx. 26. 

[261] 1 Kings, xvi. 19. 

[262] John, viii. 21. 

[263] John, viii. 24. 

[264] Isaiah, lxvi. 24. 

XIX. OCEANO TANDEM EMENSO, ASPICIENDA RESURGIT TERRA; VIDENT, JUSTIS, MEDICI, JAM COCTA MEDERI SE POSSE, INDICIIS. 

_At last the physicians, after a long and stormy voyage, see land: theyhave so good signs of the concoction of the disease, as that they maysafely proceed to purge. _

XIX. MEDITATION. 

All this while the physicians themselves have been patients, patientlyattending when they should see any land in this sea, any earth, anycloud, any indication of concoction in these waters. Any disorder ofmine, any pretermission of theirs, exalts the disease, accelerates therages of it; no diligence accelerates the concoction, the maturity ofthe disease; they must stay till the season of the sickness come; andtill it be ripened of itself, and then they may put to their hand togather it before it fall off, but they cannot hasten the ripening. Whyshould we look for it in a disease, which is the disorder, the discord, the irregularity, the commotion and rebellion of the body? It werescarce a disease if it could be ordered and made obedient to our times. Why should we look for that in disorder, in a disease, when we cannothave it in nature, who is so regular and so pregnant, so forward tobring her work to perfection and to light? Yet we cannot awake the Julyflowers in January, nor retard the flowers of the spring to autumn. Wecannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to stick on inDecember. A woman that is weak cannot put off her ninth month to a tenthfor her delivery, and say she will stay till she be stronger; nor aqueen cannot hasten it to a seventh, that she may be ready for someother pleasure. Nature (if we look for durable and vigorous effects)will not admit preventions, nor anticipations, nor obligations upon her, for they are precontracts, and she will be left to her liberty. Naturewould not be spurred, nor forced to mend her pace; nor power, the powerof man, greatness, loves not that kind of violence neither. There are ofthem that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but theyhave their own seasons for all these, and he that knows not them shallstarve before that gift come, and ruin before the justice, and diebefore the pardon save him. Some tree bears no fruit, except much dungbe laid about it; and justice comes not from some till they be richlymanured: some trees require much visiting, much watering, much labour;and some men give not their fruits but upon importunity: some treesrequire incision, and pruning, and lopping; some men must be intimidatedand syndicated with commissions, before they will deliver the fruits ofjustice: some trees require the early and the often access of the sun;some men open not, but upon the favours and letters of court mediation:some trees must be housed and kept within doors; some men lock up, notonly their liberality, but their justice and their compassion, till thesolicitation of a wife, or a son, or a friend, or a servant, turn thekey. Reward is the season of one man, and importunity of another; fearthe season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season ofone man, and natural affection of another; and he that knows not theirseasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the fruits: as nature will not, so power and greatness will not be put to change their seasons, andshall we look for this indulgence in a disease, or think to shake it offbefore it be ripe? All this while, therefore, we are but upon adefensive war, and that is but a doubtful state; especially where theywho are besieged do know the best of their defences, and do not knowthe worst of their enemy's power; when they cannot mend their workswithin, and the enemy can increase his numbers without. O how many farmore miserable, and far more worthy to be less miserable than I, arebesieged with this sickness, and lack their sentinels, their physiciansto watch, and lack their munition, their cordials to defend, and perishbefore the enemy's weakness might invite them to sally, before thedisease show any declination, or admit any way of working upon itself?In me the siege is so far slackened, as that we may come to fight, andso die in the field, if I die, and not in a prison. 

XIX. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, aGod that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plainsense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it tothy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thydiminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God inwhose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, suchperegrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions, such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens ofhyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reservedexpressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, suchsinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profaneauthors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dovethat flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressibletexture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argumentthat binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is thereverent simplicity of the word, and to another the majesty of the word;and in which two men equally pious may meet, and one wonder that allshould not understand it, and the other as much that any man should. So, Lord, thou givest us the same earth to labour on and to lie in, a houseand a grave of the same earth; so, Lord, thou givest us the same wordfor our satisfaction and for our inquisition, for our instruction andfor our admiration too; for there are places that thy servants Hieromand Augustine would scarce believe (when they grew warm by mutualletters) of one another, that they understood them, and yet both Hieromand Augustine call upon persons whom they knew to be far weaker thanthey thought one another (old women and young maids) to read theScriptures, without confining them to these or those places. Neither artthou thus a figurative, a metaphorical God in thy word only, but in thyworks too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, ismetaphorical The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was acontinual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowedinto figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures;circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figureof that purity which we shall have in perfection in the new Jerusalem. Neither didst thou speak and work in this language only in the time ofthy prophets; but since thou spokest in thy Son it is so too. How often, how much more often, doth thy Son call himself a way, and a light, and agate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of man? How muchoftener doth he exhibit a metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal?This hath occasioned thine ancient servants, whose delight it was towrite after thy copy, to proceed the same way in their expositions ofthe Scriptures, and in their composing both of public liturgies and ofprivate prayers to thee, to make their accesses to thee in such a kindof language as thou wast pleased to speak to them, in a figurative, in ametaphorical language, in which manner I am bold to call the comfortwhich I receive now in this sickness in the indication of the concoctionand maturity thereof, in certain clouds and recidences, which thephysicians observe, a discovering of land from sea after a long andtempestuous voyage. But wherefore, O my God, hast thou presented to usthe afflictions and calamities of this life in the name of waters? sooften in the name of waters, and deep waters, and seas of waters? Mustwe look to be drowned? are they bottomless, are they boundless? That isnot the dialect of thy language; thou hast given a remedy against thedeepest water by water; against the inundation of sin by baptism; andthe first life that thou gavest to any creatures was in waters:therefore thou dost not threaten us with an irremediableness when ouraffliction is a sea. It is so if we consider ourselves; so thou callestGenezareth, which was but a lake, and not salt, a sea; so thou callestthe Mediterranean sea still the great sea, because the inhabitants sawno other sea; they that dwelt there thought a lake a sea, and the othersthought a little sea, the greatest, and we that know not the afflictionsof others call our own the heaviest. But, O my God, that is truly greatthat overflows the channel, that is really a great affliction which isabove my strength; but thou, O God, art my strength, and then what canbe above it? _Mountains shake with the swelling of thy sea_;[265]secular mountains, men strong in power; spiritual mountains, men strongin grace, are shaken with afflictions; but _thou layest up thy sea instorehouses_;[266] even thy corrections are of thy treasure, and thouwilt not waste thy corrections; when they have done their service tohumble thy patient, thou wilt call them in again, for _thou givest thesea thy decree, that the waters should not pass thy commandment_. [267]All our waters shall run into Jordan, and thy servants passed Jordan dryfoot;[268] they shall run into the red sea (the sea of thy Son's blood), and the red sea, that red sea, drowns none of thine: but _they that sailon the sea tell of the danger thereof_. [269] I that am yet in thisaffliction, owe thee the glory of speaking of it; but, as the wise manbids me, I say, I _may speak much and come short, wherefore in sum thouart all_. [270] Since thou art so, O my God, and affliction is a sea toodeep for us, what is our refuge? Thine ark, thy ship. In all otherafflictions, those means which thou hast ordained in this sea, insickness, thy ship is thy physician. _Thou hast made a way in the sea, and a safe path in the waters, showing that thou canst save from alldangers, yea, though a man went to sea without art_:[271] yet, where Ifind all that, I find this added; _nevertheless thou wouldst not, thatthe work of thy wisdom should be idle_. [272] Thou canst save withoutmeans, but thou hast told no man that thou wilt; thou hast told everyman that thou wilt not. [273] When the centurion believed the master ofthe ship more than St. Paul, they were all opened to a great danger;this was a preferring of thy means before thee, the author of the means:but, my God, though thou beest every where: I have no promise ofappearing to me but in thy ship, thy blessed Son preached out of aship:[274] the means is preaching, he did that; and the ship was a typeof the church, he did it there. Thou gavest St. Paul the lives of allthem that sailed with him;[275] if they had not been in the ship withhim, the gift had not extended to them. _As soon as thy Son was come outof the ship, immediately there met him, out of the tombs, a man with anunclean spirit, and no man could hold him, no not with chains. _[276] ThySon needed no use of means; yet there we apprehend the danger to us, ifwe leave the ship, the means, in this case the physician. But as theyare ships to us in those seas, so is there a ship to them too in whichthey are to stay. Give me leave, O my God, to assist myself with such aconstruction of these words of thy servant Paul to the centurion, whenthe mariners would have left the ship, _Except these abide in the ship, you cannot be safe_:[277] except they who are our ships, the physicians, abide in that which is theirs, and our ship, the truth, and the sincereand religious worship of thee and thy gospel, we cannot promiseourselves so good safety; for though we have our ship, the physician, hehath not his ship, religion; and means are not means but in theirconcatenation, as they depend and are chained together. _The ships aregreat_, says thy apostle, _but a helm turns them_;[278] the men arelearned, but their religion turns their labours to good, and thereforeit was a heavy curse when _the third part of the ships perished_:[279]it is a heavy case where either all religion, or true religion, shouldforsake many of these ships whom thou hast sent to convey us over theseseas. But, O my God, my God, since I have my ship and they theirs, Ihave them and they have thee, why are we yet no nearer land? As soon asthy Son's disciple had taken him into the ship, _immediately the shipwas at the land whither they went_. [280] Why have not they and I thisdispatch? Every thing is immediately done, which is done when thouwouldst have it done. Thy purpose terminates every action, and what wasdone before that is undone yet. Shall that slacken my hope? thy prophetfrom thee hath forbidden it. _It is good that a man should both hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. _[281] Thou puttest offmany judgments till the last day, and many pass this life without any;and shall not I endure the putting off thy mercy for a day? And yet, Omy God, thou puttest me not to that, for the assurance of future mercyis present mercy. But what is my assurance now? what is my seal? It isbut a cloud; that which my physicians call a cloud, in that which givesthem their indication. But a cloud? Thy great seal to all the world, therainbow, that secured the world for ever from drowning, was but areflection upon a cloud. A cloud itself was a pillar which guided thechurch, [282] and the glory of God not only was, but appeared in acloud. [283] Let me return, O my God, to the consideration of thy servantElijah's proceeding in a time of desperate drought;[284] he bids themlook towards the sea; they look, and see nothing. He bids them again andagain seven times; and at the seventh time they saw a little cloudrising out of the sea, and presently they had their desire of rain. Seven days, O my God, have we looked for this cloud, and now we have it;none of thy indications are frivolous, thou makest thy signs seals, andthy seals effects, and thy effects consolation and restitution, wheresoever thou mayst receive glory by that way. 

XIX. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who though thou passedst over infinitemillions of generations, before thou camest to a creation of this world, yet when thou beganst, didst never intermit that work, but continuedstday to day, till thou hadst perfected all the work, and deposed it inthe hands and rest of a sabbath, though thou have been pleased toglorify thyself in a long exercise of my patience, with an expectationof thy declaration of thyself in this my sickness, yet since thou hastnow of thy goodness afforded that which affords us some hope, if that bestill the way of thy glory, proceed in that way and perfect that work, and establish me in a sabbath and rest in thee, by this thy seal ofbodily restitution. Thy priests came up to thee by steps in the temple;thy angels came down to Jacob by steps upon the ladder; we find no stairby which thou thyself camest to Adam in paradise, nor to Sodom in thineanger; for thou, and thou only, art able to do all at once. But O Lord, I am not weary of thy pace, nor weary of mine own patience. I provokethee not with a prayer, not with a wish, not with a hope, to more hastethan consists with thy purpose, nor look that any other thing shouldhave entered into thy purpose, but thy glory. To hear thy steps comingtowards me is the same comfort as to see thy face present with me;whether thou do the work of a thousand years in a day, or extend thework of a day to a thousand years, as long as thou workest, it is lightand comfort. Heaven itself is but an extension of the same joy; and anextension of this mercy, to proceed at thy leisure, in the way ofrestitution, is a manifestation of heaven to me here upon earth. Fromthat people to whom thou appearedst in signs and in types, the Jews, thou art departed, because they trusted in them; but from thy church, towhom thou hast appeared in thyself, in thy Son, thou wilt never depart, because we cannot trust too much in him. Though thou have afforded methese signs of restitution, yet if I confide in them, and begin to say, all was but a natural accident, and nature begins to discharge herself, and she will perfect the whole work, my hope shall vanish because it isnot in thee. If thou shouldst take thy hand utterly from me, and havenothing to do with me, nature alone were able to destroy me; but if thouwithdraw thy helping hand, alas, how frivolous are the helps of nature, how impotent the assistances of art? As therefore the morning dew is apawn of the evening fatness, so, O Lord, let this day's comfort be theearnest of to-morrow's, so far as may conform me entirely to thee, towhat end, and by what way soever thy mercy have appointed me. 

FOOTNOTES:

[265] Psalm xlvi. 3. 

[266] Psalm xxxiii. 7. 

[267] Prov. Viii. 29. 

[268] Josh. Iii. 17. 

[269] Ecclus. Xliii. 24. 

[270] Ecclus. Xliii. 27. 

[271] Wisd. Xiv. 3. 

[272] Wisd. Xiv. 5. 

[273] Acts, xxvii. 11. 

[274] Luke, v. 3. 

[275] Acts, xxvii. 24. 

[276] Mark, v. 2. 

[277] Acts, xxvii. 31. 

[278] James, iii. 4. 

[279] Rev. Viii. 9. 

[280] John, vi. 21. 

[281] Lam. Iii. 26. 

[282] Exod. Xiii. 21. 

[283] Exod. Xvi. 10. 

[284] 1 Kings, xviii. 43. 

XX. ID AGUNT. 

_Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed to purge. _

XX. MEDITATION. 

Though counsel seem rather to consist of spiritual parts than action, yet action is the spirit and the soul of counsel. Counsels are notalways determined in resolutions, we cannot always say, this wasconcluded; actions are always determined in effects, we can say, thiswas done. Then have laws their reverence and their majesty, when we seethe judge upon the bench executing them. Then have counsels of wartheir impressions and their operations, when we see the seal of an armyset to them. It was an ancient way of celebrating the memory of such asdeserved well of the state, to afford them that kind of statuaryrepresentation, which was then called Hermes, which was the head andshoulders of a man standing upon a cube, but those shoulders withoutarms and hands. Altogether it figured a constant supporter of the state, by his counsel; but in this hieroglyphic, which they made without hands, they pass their consideration no farther but that the counsellor shouldbe without hands, so far as not to reach out his hand to foreigntemptations of bribes, in matters of counsel, and that it was notnecessary that the head should employ his own hand; that the same menshould serve in the execution which assisted in the counsel; but thatthere should not belong hands to every head, action to every counsel, was never intended so much as in figure and representation. For asmatrimony is scarce to be called matrimony where there is a resolutionagainst the fruits of matrimony, against the having of children, [285] socounsels are not counsels, but illusions, where there is from thebeginning no purpose to execute the determinations of those counsels. The arts and sciences are most properly referred to the head; that istheir proper element and sphere; but yet the art of proving, logic, andthe art of persuading, rhetoric, are deduced to the hand, and thatexpressed by a hand contracted into a fist, and this by a hand enlargedand expanded; and evermore the power of man, and the power of God, himself is expressed so. All things are in his hand; neither is God sooften presented to us, by names that carry our consideration uponcounsel, as upon execution of counsel; he oftener is called the Lord ofHosts than by all other names, that may be referred to the othersignification. Hereby therefore we take into our meditation the slipperycondition of man, whose happiness in any kind, the defect of any onething conducing to that happiness, may ruin; but it must have all thepieces to make it up. Without counsel, I had not got thus far; withoutaction and practice, I should go no farther towards health. But what isthe present necessary action? Purging; a withdrawing, a violating ofnature, a farther weakening. O dear price, and O strange way ofaddition, to do it by subtraction; of restoring nature, to violatenature; of providing strength, by increasing weakness. Was I not sickbefore? And is it a question of comfort to be asked now, did your physicmake you sick? Was that it that my physic promised, to make me sick?This is another step upon which we may stand, and see farther into themisery of man, the time, the season of his misery; it must be done now. O over-cunning, over-watchful, over-diligent, and over-sociable miseryof man, that seldom comes alone, but then when it may accompany othermiseries, and so put one another into the higher exaltation, and betterheart. I am ground even to an attenuation and must proceed toevacuation, all ways to exinanition and annihilation. 

XX. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, the God of order, but yet not of ambition, who assignestplace to every one, but not contention for place, when shall it be thypleasure to put an end to all these quarrels for spiritual precedences?When shall men leave their uncharitable disputations, which is to takeplace, faith or repentance, and which, when we consider faith and works?The head and the hand too are required to a perfect natural man;counsel and action too, to a perfect civil man; faith and works too, tohim that is perfectly spiritual. But because it is easily said, Ibelieve, and because it doth not easily lie in proof, nor is easilydemonstrable by any evidence taken from my heart (for who sees that, whosearches those rolls?) whether I do believe or no, is it not therefore, O my God, that thou dost so frequently, so earnestly, refer us to thehand, to the observation of actions? There is a little suspicion, alittle imputation laid upon over-tedious and dilatory counsels. Manygood occasions slip away in long consultations; and it may be a degreeof sloth, to be too long in mending nets, though that must be done. _Hethat observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the cloudsshall not reap_;[286] that is, he that is too dilatory, toosuperstitious in these observations, and studies but the excuse of hisown idleness in them; but that which the same wise and royal servant ofthine says in another place, all accept, and ask no comment upon it, _Hebecometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of thediligent maketh rich_;[287] all evil imputed to the absence, all goodattributed to the presence of the hand. I know, my God (and I bless thyname for knowing it, for all good knowledge is from thee), that thouconsiderest the heart; but thou takest not off thine eye till thou cometo the hand. Nay, my God, doth not thy Spirit intimate that thoubeginnest where we begin (at least, that thou allowest us to beginthere), when thou orderest thine own answer to thine own question, _Whoshall ascend into the hill of the Lord_? thus, _He that hath cleanhands, and a pure heart_?[288] Dost thou not (at least) send us first tothe hand? And is not the work of their hands that declaration of theirholy zeal, in the present execution of manifest idolators, called aconsecration of themselves, [289] by thy Holy Spirit? Their hands arecalled all themselves; for even counsel itself goes under that name inthy word, who knowest best how to give right names: because the counselof the priests assisted David, [290] Saul says the hand of the priest iswith David. And that which is often said by Moses, is very oftenrepeated by thy other prophets, _These and these things the Lordspake_, [291] and _the Lord said_, and _the Lord commanded_, not by thecounsels, not by the voice, but by the _hand of Moses_, and by the _handof the prophets_. Evermore we are referred for our evidence of others, and of ourselves, to the hand, to action, to works. There is somethingbefore it, believing; and there is something after it, suffering; but inthe most eminent, and obvious, and conspicuous place stands doing. Whythen, O my God, my blessed God, in the ways of my spiritual strength, come I so slow to action? I was whipped by thy rod, before I came toconsultation, to consider my state; and shall I go no farther? As hethat would describe a circle in paper, if he have brought that circlewithin one inch of finishing, yet if he remove his compass he cannotmake it up a perfect circle except he fall to work again, to find outthe same centre, so, though setting that foot of my compass upon thee, Ihave gone so far as to the consideration of myself, yet if I depart fromthee, my centre, all is imperfect. This proceeding to action, therefore, is a returning to thee, and a working upon myself by thy physic, by thypurgative physic, a free and entire evacuation of my soul by confession. The working of purgative physic is violent and contrary to nature. OLord, I decline not this potion of confession, however it may becontrary to a natural man. To take physic, and not according to theright method, is dangerous. [292] O Lord, I decline not that method inthis physic, in things that burthen my conscience, to make my confessionto him, into whose hands thou hast put the power of absolution. I knowthat "physic may be made so pleasant as that it may easily be taken; butnot so pleasant as the virtue and nature of the medicine beextinguished. "[293] I know I am not submitted to such a confession as isa rack and torture of the conscience; but I know I am not exempt fromall. If it were merely problematical, left merely indifferent whether weshould take this physic, use this confession, or no, a great physicianacknowledges this to have been his practice, to minister to many thingswhich he was not sure would do good, but never any other thing but suchas he was sure would do no harm. [294] The use of this spiritual physiccan certainly do no harm; and the church hath always thought that itmight, and, doubtless, many humble souls have found, that it hath donethem good. _I will therefore take the cup of salvation, and call uponthy name. _[295] I will find this cup of compunction as full as I haveformerly filled the cups of worldly confections, that so I may escapethe cup of malediction and irrecoverable destruction that depends uponthat. And since thy blessed and glorious Son, being offered, in the wayto his execution, a cup of stupefaction, [296] to take away the sense ofhis pain (a charity afforded to condemned persons ordinarily in thoseplaces and times), refused that ease, and embraced the whole torment, Itake not this cup, but this vessel of mine own sins into mycontemplation, and I pour them out here according to the motions of thyHoly Spirit, and any where according to the ordinances of thy holychurch. 

XX. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who having married man and womantogether, and made them one flesh, wouldst have them also to become onesoul, so as that they might maintain a sympathy in their affections, andhave a conformity to one another in the accidents of this world, good orbad; so having married this soul and this body in me, I humbly beseechthee that my soul may look and make her use of thy merciful proceedingstowards my bodily restitution, and go the same way to a spiritual. I amcome, by thy goodness, to the use of thine ordinary means for my body, to wash away those peccant humours that endangered it. I have, O Lord, ariver in my body, but a sea in my soul, and a sea swollen into the depthof a deluge, above the sea. Thou hast raised up certain hills in meheretofore, by which I might have stood safe from these inundations ofsin. Even our natural faculties are a hill, and might preserve us fromsome sin. Education, study, observation, example, are hills too, andmight preserve us from some. Thy church, and thy word, and thysacraments, and thine ordinances are hills above these; thy spirit ofremorse, and compunction, and repentance for former sin, are hills too;and to the top of all these hills thou hast brought me heretofore; butthis deluge, this inundation, is got above all my hills; and I havesinned and sinned, and multiplied sin to sin, after all these thyassistances against sin, and where is there water enough to wash awaythis deluge? There is a red sea, greater than this ocean, and there is alittle spring, through which this ocean may pour itself into that redsea. Let thy spirit of true contrition and sorrow pass all my sins, through these eyes, into the wounds of thy Son, and I shall be clean, and my soul so much better purged than my body, as it is ordained forbetter and a longer life. 

FOOTNOTES:

[285] August. 

[286] Eccles. Xi. 4. 

[287] Prov. X. 4. 

[288] Psalm xxiv. 3. 

[289] Exod. Xxxii. 29. 

[290] 1 Sam. Xxii. 17. 

[291] Lev. Viii. 36. 

[292] Galen. 

[293] Galen. 

[294] Galen. 

[295] Psalm cxvi. 13. 

[296] Mark, xv. 23. 

 XXI. -------------- ATQUE ANNUIT ILLE, QUI, PER EOS, CLAMAT, LINQUAS JAM, LAZARE, LECTUM. 

_God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Lazarus out of histomb, me out of my bed. _

XXI. MEDITATION. 

If man had been left alone in this world at first, shall I think that hewould not have fallen? If there had been no woman, would not man haveserved to have been his own tempter? When I see him now subject toinfinite weaknesses, fall into infinite sin without any foreigntemptations, shall I think he would have had none, if he had been alone?God saw that man needed a helper, if he should be well; but to makewoman ill, the devil saw that there needed no third. When God and wewere alone in Adam, that was not enough; when the devil and we werealone in Eve, it was enough. O what a giant is man when he fightsagainst himself, and what a dwarf when he needs or exercises his ownassistance for himself? I cannot rise out of my bed till the physicianenable me, nay, I cannot tell that I am able to rise till he tell me so. I do nothing, I know nothing of myself; how little and how impotent apiece of the world is any man alone? And how much less a piece ofhimself is that man? So little as that when it falls out (as it fallsout in some cases) that more misery and more oppression would be an easeto a man, he cannot give himself that miserable addition of more misery. A man that is pressed to death, and might be eased by more weights, cannot lay those more weights upon himself: he can sin alone, and sufferalone, but not repent, not be absolved, without another. Another tellsme, I may rise; and I do so. But is every raising a preferment? or isevery present preferment a station? I am readier to fall to the earth, now I am up, than I was when I lay in the bed. O perverse way, irregularmotion of man; even rising itself is the way to ruin! How many men areraised, and then do not fill the place they are raised to? No corner ofany place can be empty; there can be no vacuity. If that man do not fillthe place, other men will; complaints of his insufficiency will fill it;nay, such an abhorring is there in nature of vacuity, that if there bebut an imagination of not filling, in any man, that which is butimagination, neither will fill it, that is, rumour and voice, and itwill be given out (upon no ground but imagination, and no man knowswhose imagination), that he is corrupt in his place, or insufficient inhis place, and another prepared to succeed him in his place. A man risessometimes and stands not, because he doth not or is not believed to fillhis place; and sometimes he stands not because he overfills his place. He may bring so much virtue, so much justice, so much integrity to theplace, as shall spoil the place, burthen the place; his integrity may bea libel upon his predecessor and cast an infamy upon him, and a burthenupon his successor to proceed by example, and to bring the place itselfto an undervalue and the market to an uncertainty. I am up, and I seemto stand, and I go round, and I am a new argument of the new philosophy, that the earth moves round; why may I not believe that the whole earthmoves, in a round motion, though that seem to me to stand, when as Iseem to stand to my company, and yet am carried in a giddy and circularmotion as I stand? Man hath no centre but misery; there, and only there, he is fixed, and sure to find himself. How little soever he be raised, he moves, and moves in a circle giddily; and as in the heavens there arebut a few circles that go about the whole world, but many epicycles, andother lesser circles, but yet circles; so of those men which are raisedand put into circles, few of them move from place to place, and passthrough many and beneficial places, but fall into little circles, and, within a step or two, are at their end, and not so well as they were inthe centre, from which they were raised. Every thing serves toexemplify, to illustrate man's misery. But I need go no farther thanmyself: for a long time I was not able to rise; at last I must be raisedby others; and now I am up, I am ready to sink lower than before. 

XXI. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, how large a glass of the next world is this! As we havean art, to cast from one glass to another, and so to carry the species agreat way off, so hast thou, that way, much more; we shall have aresurrection in heaven; the knowledge of that thou castest by anotherglass upon us here; we feel that we have a resurrection from sin, andthat by another glass too; we see we have a resurrection of the bodyfrom the miseries and calamities of this life. This resurrection of mybody shows me the resurrection of my soul; and both here severally, ofboth together hereafter. Since thy martyrs under the altar press theewith their solicitation for the resurrection of the body to glory, thouwouldst pardon me, if I should press thee by prayer for theaccomplishing of this resurrection, which thou hast begun in me, tohealth. But, O my God, I do not ask, where I might ask amiss, nor begthat which perchance might be worse for me. I have a bed of sin; delightin sin is a bed: I have a grave of sin; senselessness of sin is a grave:and where Lazarus had been four days, I have been fifty years in thisputrefaction; why dost thou not call me, as thou didst him, _with a loudvoice_, [297] since my soul is as dead as his body was? I need thythunder, O my God; thy music will not serve me. Thou hast called thyservants, who are to work upon us in thine ordinance, by all these loudnames--winds, and chariots, and falls of waters; where thou wouldst beheard, thou wilt be heard. When thy Son concurred with thee to themaking of man, there it is but a speaking, but a saying. There, Oblessed and glorious Trinity, was none to hear but you three, and youeasily hear one another, because you say the same things. But when thySon came to the work of redemption, thou spokest, [298] and they thatheard it took it for thunder; and thy Son himself cried with a loudvoice upon the cross twice, [299] as he who was to prepare his coming, John Baptist, was the voice of a crier, and not of a whisperer. Still, if it be thy voice, it is a loud voice. _These words_, says thy Moses, _thou spokest with a great voice, and thou addedst no more_, [300] sayshe there. That which thou hast said is evident, and it is evident thatnone can speak so loud; none can bind us to hear him, as we must thee. _The Most High uttered his voice. _ What was his voice? _The Lordthundered from heaven_, [301] it might be heard; but this voice, thyvoice, is also a _mighty voice_;[302] not only mighty in power, it maybe heard, nor mighty in obligation, it should be heard; but mighty inoperation, it will be heard; and therefore hast thou bestowed a wholepsalm[303] upon us, to lead us to the consideration of thy voice. It issuch a voice as that thy Son says, _the dead shall hear it_;[304] andthat is my state. And why, O God, dost thou not speak to me, in thateffectual loudness? Saint John heard a voice, and _he turned about tosee the voice_:[305] sometimes we are too curious of the instrument bywhat man God speaks; but thou speakest loudest when thou speakest to theheart. _There was silence, and I heard a voice_, says one, to thyservant Job. [306] I hearken after thy voice in thine ordinances, and Iseek not a whispering in conventicles; but yet, O my God, speak louder, that so, though I do hear thee now, then I may hear nothing but thee. Mysins cry aloud; Cain's murder did so: my afflictions cry aloud; _thefloods have lifted up their voice_ (and waters are afflictions), _butthou, O Lord, art mightier than the voice of many waters_;[307] thanmany temporal, many spiritual afflictions, than any of either kind: andwhy dost thou not speak to me in that voice? _What is man, and wheretoserveth he? What is his good and what is his evil?_[308] My bed of sinis not evil, not desperately evil, for thou dost call me out of it; butmy rising out of it is not good (not perfectly good), if thou call notlouder, and hold me now I am up. O my God, I am afraid of a fearfulapplication of those words, _When a man hath done, then hebeginneth_;[309] when this body is unable to sin, his sinful memory sinsover his old sins again; and that which thou wouldst have us to rememberfor compunction, we remember with delight. _Bring him to me in his bed, that I may kill him_, [310] says Saul of David: thou hast not said so, that is not thy voice. Joash's own servants slew him when he was sickin his bed:[311] thou hast not suffered that, that my servants should somuch as neglect me, or be weary of me in my sickness. Thou threatenest, that _as a shepherd takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or apiece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel, that dwell in Samaria, in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus, in a couch, be takenaway_;[312] and even they that are secure from danger shall perish. Howmuch more might I, who was in the bed of death, die? But thou hast notso dealt with me. As they brought out sick persons in beds, that thyservant Peter's shadow might over-shadow them, [313] thou hast, O my God, over-shadowed me, refreshed me; but when wilt thou do more? When wiltthou do all? When wilt thou speak in thy loud voice? When wilt thou bidme _take up my bed and walk_?[314] As my bed is my affections, whenshall I bear them so as to subdue them? As my bed is my afflictions, when shall I bear them so as not to murmur at them? When shall I take upmy bed and walk? Not lie down upon it, as it is my pleasure, not sinkunder it, as it is my correction? But O my God, my God, the God of allflesh, and of all spirit, to let me be content with that in my faintingspirit, which thou declarest in this decayed flesh, that as this body iscontent to sit still, that it may learn to stand, and to learn bystanding to walk, and by walking to travel, so my soul, by obeying thisthy voice of rising, may by a farther and farther growth of thy graceproceed so, and be so established, as may remove all suspicions, alljealousies between thee and me, and may speak and hear in such a voice, as that still I may be acceptable to thee, and satisfied from thee. 

XXI. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who hast made little things to signifygreat, and conveyed the infinite merits of thy Son in the water ofbaptism, and in the bread and wine of thy other sacrament, unto us, receive the sacrifice of my humble thanks, that thou hast not onlyafforded me the ability to rise out of this bed of weariness anddiscomfort, but hast also made this bodily rising, by thy grace, anearnest of a second resurrection from sin, and of a third, toeverlasting glory. Thy Son himself, always infinite in himself, andincapable of addition, was yet pleased to grow in the Virgin's womb, andto grow in stature in the sight of men. Thy good purposes upon me, Iknow, have their determination and perfection in thy holy will upon me;there thy grace is, and there I am altogether; but manifest them so untome, in thy seasons, and in thy measures and degrees, that I may not onlyhave that comfort of knowing thee to be infinitely good, but that alsoof finding thee to be every day better and better to me; and that asthou gavest Saint Paul the messenger of Satan, to humble him so for myhumiliation, thou mayst give me thyself in this knowledge, that whatgrace soever thou afford me to-day, yet I should perish to-morrow if Ihad not had to-morrow's grace too. Therefore I beg of thee my dailybread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, andsince the bread of hope for some, and this day the bread of possessing, in rising by that strength, which thou the God of all strength hastinfused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life: thespiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; thesacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the morereal bread of life in an everlasting union to thee. I know, O Lord, that when thou hast created angels, and they saw thee produce fowl, andfish, and beasts, and worms, they did not importune thee, and say, Shallwe have no better creatures than these, no better companions than these?but stayed thy leisure, and then had man delivered over to them, notmuch inferior in nature to themselves. No more do I, O God, now that bythy first mercy I am able to rise, importune thee for presentconfirmation of health; nor now, that by thy mercy I am brought to seethat thy correction hath wrought medicinally upon me, presume I uponthat spiritual strength I have; but as I acknowledge that my bodilystrength is subject to every puff of wind, so is my spiritual strengthto every blast of vanity. Keep me therefore still, O my gracious God, insuch a proportion of both strengths, as I may still have something tothank thee for, which I have received, and still something to pray forand ask at thy hand. 

FOOTNOTES:

[297] John, xi. 43. 

[298] John, xii. 28. 

[299] Matt. Xxvii. 46, 50. 

[300] Deut. V. 22. 

[301] 2 Sam. Xxii. 14. 

[302] Psalm lxviii. 33. 

[303] Psalm xxix. 

[304] John, v. 25. 

[305] Rev. I. 12. 

[306] Job, iv. 16. 

[307] Psalm xciii. 3, 4. 

[308] Ecclus. Xviii, 8. 

[309] Ecclus. V. 7. 

[310] 1 Sam. Xix. 15. 

[311] 2 Chron. Xxiv. 25. 

[312] Amos, iii. 12. 

[313] Acts, v. 15. 

[314] Matt. Ix. 6. 

XXII. SIT MORBI FOMES TIBI CURA. 

_The physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals, and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that. _

XXII. MEDITATION. 

How ruinous a farm hath man taken, in taking himself! How ready is thehouse every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread withweeds, all the body with diseases; where not only every turf, but everystone bears weeds; not only every muscle of the flesh, but every bone ofthe body hath some infirmity; every little flint upon the face of thissoil hath some infectious weed, every tooth in our head such a pain asa constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that fear, of that senseof the pain. How dear, and how often a rent doth man pay for his farm!He pays twice a day, in double meals, and how little time he hath toraise his rent! How many holidays to call him from his labour! Every dayis half holiday, half spent in sleep. What reparations, and subsidies, and contributions he is put to, besides his rent! What medicines besideshis diet; and what inmates he is fain to take in, besides his ownfamily; what infectious diseases from other men! Adam might have hadParadise for dressing and keeping it; and then his rent was not improvedto such a labour as would have made his brow sweat; and yet he gave itover; how far greater a rent do we pay for this farm, this body, who payourselves, who pay the farm itself, and cannot live upon it! Neither isour labour at an end when we have cut down some weed as soon as itsprung up, corrected some violent and dangerous accident of a diseasewhich would have destroyed speedily, nor when we have pulled up thatweed from the very root, recovered entirely and soundly from thatparticular disease; but the whole ground is of an ill nature, the wholesoil ill disposed; there are inclinations, there is a propenseness todiseases in the body, out of which, without any other disorder, diseaseswill grow, and so we are put to a continual labour upon this farm, to acontinual study of the whole complexion and constitution of our body. Inthe distempers and diseases of soils, sourness, dryness, weeping, anykind of barrenness, the remedy and the physic is, for a great part, sometimes in themselves; sometimes the very situation relieves them; thehanger of a hill will purge and vent his own malignant moisture, and theburning of the upper turf of some ground (as health from cauterizing)puts a new and a vigorous youth into that soil, and there rises a kindof phoenix out of the ashes, a fruitfulness out of that which wasbarren before, and by that which is the barrenest of all, ashes. Andwhere the ground cannot give itself physic, yet it receives physic fromother grounds, from other soils, which are not the worse for havingcontributed that help to them from marl in other hills, or from slimysand in other shores, grounds help themselves, or hurt not other groundsfrom whence they receive help. But I have taken a farm at this hardrent, and upon those heavy covenants, that it can afford itself no help(no part of my body, if it were cut off, would cure another part; insome cases it might preserve a sound part, but in no case recover aninfected); and if my body may have had any physic, any medicine fromanother body, one man from the flesh of another man (as by mummy, or anysuch composition), it must be from a man that is dead, and not as inother soils, which are never the worse for contributing their marl ortheir fat slime to my ground. There is nothing in the same man to helpman, nothing in mankind to help one another (in this sort, by way ofphysic), but that he who ministers the help is in as ill case as he thatreceives it would have been if he had not had it; for he from whose bodythe physic comes is dead. When therefore I took this farm, undertookthis body, I undertook to drain not a marsh but a moat, where there was, not water mingled to offend, but all was water; I undertook to perfumedung, where no one part but all was equally unsavoury; I undertook tomake such a thing wholesome, as was not poison by any manifest quality, intense heat or cold, but poison in the whole substance, and in thespecific form of it. To cure the sharp accidents of diseases is a greatwork; to cure the disease itself is a greater; but to cure the body, the root, the occasion of diseases, is a work reserved for the greatphysician, which he doth never any other way but by glorifying thesebodies in the next world. 

XXII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, what am I put to when I am put to consider and put offthe root, the fuel, the occasion of my sickness? What Hippocrates, whatGalen, could show me that in my body? It lies deeper than so, it lies inmy soul; and deeper than so, for we may well consider the body beforethe soul came, before inanimation, to be without sin; and the soul, before it come to the body, before that infection, to be without sin:sin is the root and the fuel of all sickness, and yet that whichdestroys body and soul is in neither, but in both together. It is theunion of the body and soul, and, O my God, could I prevent that, or canI dissolve that? The root and the fuel of my sickness is my sin, myactual sin; but even that sin hath another root, another fuel, originalsin; and can I divest that? Wilt thou bid me to separate the leaven thata lump of dough hath received, or the salt, that the water hathcontracted, from the sea? Dost thou look, that I should so look to thefuel or embers of sin, that I never take fire? The whole world is a pileof fagots, upon which we are laid, and (as though there were no other)we are the bellows. Ignorance blows the fire. He that touched anyunclean thing, though he knew it not, became unclean, [315] and asacrifice was required (therefore a sin imputed), though it were done inignorance. [316] Ignorance blows this coal; but then knowledge much more;for there are that _know thy judgments, and yet not only do, but havepleasure in others that do against them_. [317] Nature blows this coal;_by nature we are the children of wrath_;[318] and the law blows it; thyapostle Saint Paul found that _sin took occasion by the law_, thattherefore, because it is forbidden, we do some things. If we break thelaw, we sin; _sin is the transgression of the law_;[319] and sin itselfbecomes a law in our members. [320] Our fathers have imprinted the seed, infused a spring of sin in us. _As a fountain casteth out her waters_, we _cast out our wickedness_, but _we have done worse than ourfathers_. [321] We are open to infinite temptations, and yet, as thoughwe lacked, we are tempted of our own lusts. [322] And not satisfied withthat, as though we were not powerful enough, or cunning enough, todemolish or undermine ourselves, when we ourselves have no pleasure inthe sin, we sin for others' sakes. When Adam sinned for Eve's sake, [323]and Solomon to gratify his wives, [324] it was an uxorious sin; when thejudges sinned for Jezebel's sake, [325] and Joab to obey David, [326] itwas an ambitious sin; when Pilate sinned to humour the people, [327] andHerod to give farther contentment to the Jews, [328] it was a popularsin. Any thing serves to occasion sin, at home in my bosom, or abroad inmy mark and aim; that which I am, and that which I am not, that which Iwould be, proves coals, and embers, and fuel, and bellows to sin; anddost thou put me, O my God, to discharge myself of myself, before I canbe well? When thou bidst me _to put off the old man_, [329] dost thoumean not only my old habits of actual sin, but the oldest of all, original sin? When thou bidst me _purge out the leaven_, [330] dost thoumean not only the sourness of mine own ill contracted customs, but theinnate tincture of sin imprinted by nature? How shall I do that whichthou requirest, and not falsify that which thou hast said, that sin isgone over all? But, O my God, I press thee not with thine own text, without thine own comment; I know that in the state of my body, which ismore discernible than that of my soul, thou dost effigiate my soul tome. And though no anatomist can say, in dissecting a body, "Here lay thecoal, the fuel, the occasion of all bodily diseases, " but yet a man mayhave such a knowledge of his own constitution and bodily inclination todiseases, as that he may prevent his danger in a great part; so, thoughwe cannot assign the place of original sin, nor the nature of it, soexactly as of actual, or by any diligence divest it, yet, having washedit in the water of thy baptism, we have not only so cleansed it, that wemay the better look upon it and discern it, but so weakened it, thathowsoever it may retain the former nature, it doth not retain the formerforce, and though it may have the same name, it hath not the same venom. 

XXII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, the God of security, and the enemy ofsecurity too, who wouldst have us always sure of thy love, and yetwouldst have us always doing something for it, let me always soapprehend thee as present with me, and yet so follow after thee, asthough I had not apprehended thee. Thou enlargedst Hezekiah's lease forfifteen years; thou renewedst Lazarus's lease for a time which we knownot; but thou didst never so put out any of these fires as that thoudidst not rake up the embers, and wrap up a future mortality in thatbody, which thou hadst then so reprieved. Thou proceedest no otherwisein our souls, O our good but fearful God; thou pardonest no sin, so asthat that sinner can sin no more; thou makest no man so acceptable asthat thou makest him impeccable. Though therefore it were a diminutionof the largeness, and derogatory to the fulness of thy mercy, to lookback upon the sins which in a true repentance I have buried in thewounds of thy Son, with a jealous or suspicious eye, as though they werenow my sins, when I had so transferred them upon thy Son, as though theycould now be raised to life again, to condemn me to death, when they aredead in him who is the fountain of life, yet were it an irregularanticipation, and an insolent presumption, to think that thy presentmercy extended to all my future sins, or that there were no embers, nocoals, of future sins left in me. Temper therefore thy mercy so to mysoul, O my God, that I may neither decline to any faintness of spirit, in suspecting thy mercy now to be less hearty, less sincere, than ituses to be, to those who are perfectly reconciled to thee, nor presumeso of it as either to think this present mercy an antidote against allpoisons, and so expose myself to temptations, upon confidence that thisthy mercy shall preserve me, or that when I do cast myself into newsins, I may have new mercy at any time, because thou didst so easilyafford me this. 

FOOTNOTES:

[315] Lev. V. 2. 

[316] Num. Xv. 24. 

[317] Rom. I. 32. 

[318] Eph. Ii. 3. 

[319] 1 John, iii. 4. 

[320] Rom. Vii. 23. 

[321] Jer. Vi. 7; vii. 26. 

[322] James, i. 14. 

[323] Gen. Iii. 6. 

[324] 1 Kings, xi. 3. 

[325] 1 Kings, xxi. 

[326] 2 Sam. Xi. 16-21. 

[327] Luke, xxiii. 23. 

[328] Acts, xii. 3. 

[329] Eph. Iv. 22. 

[330] 1 Cor. V. 7. 

XXIII. METUSQUE, RELABI. 

_They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing. _

XXIII. MEDITATION. 

It is not in man's body, as it is in the city, that when the bell hathrung, to cover your fire, and rake up the embers, you may lie down andsleep without fear. Though you have by physic and diet raked up theembers of your disease, still there is a fear of a relapse; and thegreater danger is in that. Even in pleasures and in pains, there is aproprietary, a _meum et tuum_, and a man is most affected with thatpleasure which is his, his by former enjoying and experience, and mostintimidated with those pains which are his, his by a woful sense ofthem, in former afflictions. A covetous person, who hath preoccupatedall his senses, filled all his capacities with the delight of gathering, wonders how any man can have any taste of any pleasure in any opennessor liberality; so also in bodily pains, in a fit of the stone, thepatient wonders why any man should call the gout a pain; and he thathath felt neither, but the toothache, is as much afraid of a fit of thatas either of the other of either of the other. Diseases which we neverfelt in ourselves come but to a compassion of others that have enduredthem; nay, compassion itself comes to no great degree if we have notfelt in some proportion in ourselves that which we lament and condole inanother. But when we have had those torments in their exaltationourselves, we tremble at relapse. When we must pant through all thosefiery heats, and sail through all those overflowing sweats, when we mustwatch through all those long nights, and mourn through all those longdays (days and nights, so long as that Nature herself shall seem to beperverted, and to have put the longest day, and the longest night, whichshould be six months asunder, into one natural, unnatural day), when wemust stand at the same bar, expect the return of physicians from theirconsultations, and not be sure of the same verdict, in any goodindications, when we must go the same way over again, and not see thesame issue, that is a state, a condition, a calamity, in respect ofwhich any other sickness were a convalescence, and any greater, less. Itadds to the affliction, that relapses are (and for the most part justly)imputed to ourselves, as occasioned by some disorder in us; and so weare not only passive but active in our own ruin; we do not only standunder a falling house, but pull it down upon us; and we are not onlyexecuted (that implies guiltiness), but we are executioners (thatimplies dishonour), and executioners of ourselves (and that impliesimpiety). And we fall from that comfort which we might have in our firstsickness, from that meditation, "Alas, how generally miserable is man, and how subject to diseases" (for in that it is some degree of comfortthat we are but in the state common to all), we fall, I say, to thisdiscomfort, and self-accusing, and self-condemning: "Alas, howimprovident, and in that how unthankful to God and his instruments, am Iin making so ill use of so great benefits, in destroying so soon so longa work, in relapsing, by my disorder, to that from which they haddelivered me": and so my meditation is fearfully transferred from thebody to the mind, and from the consideration of the sickness to thatsin, that sinful carelessness, by which I have occasioned my relapse. And amongst the many weights that aggravate a relapse, this also is one, that a relapse proceeds with a more violent dispatch, and moreirremediably, because it finds the country weakened, and depopulatedbefore. Upon a sickness, which as yet appears not, we can scarce fix afear, because we know not what to fear; but as fear is the busiest andirksomest affection, so is a relapse (which is still ready to come) intothat which is but newly gone, the nearest object, the most immediateexercise of that affection of fear. 

XXIII. EXPOSTULATION. 

My God, my God, my God, thou mighty Father, who hast been my physician;thou glorious Son, who hast been my physic; thou blessed Spirit, whohast prepared and applied all to me, shall I alone be able to overthrowthe work of all you, and relapse into those spiritual sicknesses fromwhich infinite mercies have withdrawn me? Though thou, O my God, havefilled my measure with mercy, yet my measure was not so large as that ofthy whole people, the nation, the numerous and glorious nation ofIsrael; and yet how often, how often did they fall into relapses! Andthen, where is my assurance? How easily thou passedst over many othersins in them, and how vehemently thou insistedst in those into whichthey so often relapsed; those were their murmurings against thee, inthine instruments and ministers, and their turnings upon other gods, andembracing the idolatries of their neighbours. O my God, how slippery away, to how irrecoverable a bottom, is murmuring; and how near thyselfhe comes, that murmurs at him who comes from thee! The magistrate is thegarment in which thou apparelest thyself, and he that shoots at theclothes cannot say he meant no ill to the man: thy people were fearfulexamples of that, for how often did their murmuring against thyministers end in a departing from thee! When they would have otherofficers, they would have other gods; and still to-day's murmuring wasto-morrow's idolatry; as their murmuring induced idolatry, and theyrelapsed often into both, I have found in myself, O my God (O my God, thou hast found it in me, and thy finding it hast showed it to me) sucha transmigration of sin, as makes me afraid of relapsing too. The soulof sin (for we have made sin immortal, and it must have a soul), thesoul of sin is disobedience to thee; and when one sin hath been dead inme, that soul hath passed into another sin. Our youth dies, and the sinsof our youth with it; some sins die a violent death, and some a natural;poverty, penury, imprisonment, banishment, kill some sins in us, andsome die of age; many ways we become unable to do that sin, but stillthe soul lives and passes into another sin; and that that waslicentiousness grows ambition, and that comes to indevotion andspiritual coldness: we have three lives in our state of sin, and wherethe sins of youth expire, those of our middle years enter, and those ofour age after them. This transmigration of sin found in myself, makes meafraid, O my God, of a relapse; but the occasion of my fear is morepregnant than so, for I have had, I have multiplied relapses already. Why, O my God, is a relapse so odious to thee? Not so much theirmurmuring and their idolatry, as their relapsing into those sins, seemsto affect thee in thy disobedient people. _They limited the holy One ofIsrael_, [331] as thou complainest of them: that was a murmuring; butbefore thou chargest them with the fault itself, in the same place thouchargest them with the iterating, the redoubling of that fault beforethe fault was named; _How oft did they provoke me in the wilderness, andgrieve me in the desert?_ That which brings thee to that exasperationagainst them, as to say, that thou wouldst break thine own oath ratherthan leave them unpunished (_They shall not see the land which I swareunto their fathers_) was because _they had tempted thee ten times_, [332]infinitely; upon that thou threatenest with that vehemency, _If you doin any wise go back, know for a certainty God will no more drive out anyof these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and trapsunto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, till yeperish_. [333] No tongue but thine own, O my God, can express thineindignation against a nation relapsing to idolatry. Idolatry in anynation is deadly, but when the disease is complicated with a relapse (aknowledge and a profession of a former recovery), it is desperate; andthine anger works, not only where the evidence is pregnant and withoutexception (so thou sayest when it is said, that certain men in a cityhave withdrawn others to idolatry, and that inquiry is made, and it isfound true; the city, and the inhabitants, and the cattle are to bedestroyed), [334] but where there is but a suspicion, a rumour, of such arelapse to idolatry, thine anger is awakened, and thine indignationstirred. In the government of thy servant Joshua, there was a voice, that Reuben and Gad, with those of Manasseh, had built a new altar. [335]Israel doth not send one to inquire, but the whole congregation gatheredto go up to war against them, [336] and there went a prince of everytribe; and they object to them, not so much their present declination toidolatry, as their relapse: _Is the iniquity of Peor too little forus?_[337] an idolatry formerly committed, and punished with theslaughter of twenty-four thousand delinquents. At last Reuben and Gadsatisfy them, that that altar was not built for idolatry, but built as apattern of theirs, that they might thereby profess themselves to be ofthe same profession that they were, and so the army returned withoutblood. Even where it comes not so far as to an actual relapse intoidolatry, thou, O my God, becomest sensible of it; though thou, whoseest the heart all the way, preventest all dangerous effects wherethere was no ill meaning, however there were occasion of suspiciousrumours given to thine Israel of relapsing. So odious to thee, and soaggravating a weight upon sin is a relapse. But, O my God, why is it so?so odious? It must be so, because he that hath sinned and then repented, hath weighed God and the devil in a balance; he hath heard God and thedevil plead, and after hearing given judgment on that side to which headheres by his subsequent practice;[338] if he return to his sin, hedecrees for Satan, he prefers sin before grace, and Satan before God;and in contempt of God, declares the precedency for his adversary; and acontempt wounds deeper than an injury, a relapse deeper than ablasphemy. And when thou hast told me that a relapse is more odious tothee, need I ask why it is more dangerous, more pernicious to me? Isthere any other measure of the greatness of my danger, than thegreatness of thy displeasure? How fitly and how fearfully hast thouexpressed my case in a storm at sea, if I relapse; _They mount up toheaven, and they go down again to the depth_![339] My sickness broughtme to thee in repentance, and my relapse hath cast me farther from thee. _The end of that man shall be worse than the beginning_, [340] says thyWord, thy Son; my beginning was sickness, punishment for sin: but _aworse thing may follow_, [341] says he also, if I sin again; not onlydeath, which is an end worse than sickness, which was the beginning, buthell, which is a beginning worse than that end. Thy great servantdenied thy Son, [342] and he denied him again, but all before repentance;here was no relapse. O, if thou hadst ever readmitted Adam intoParadise, how abstinently would he have walked by that tree! And wouldnot the angels that fell have fixed themselves upon thee, if thou hadstonce readmitted them to thy sight? They never relapsed; if I do, mustnot my case be as desperate? Not so desperate; for _as thy majesty, sois thy mercy_, [343] both infinite; and thou, who hast commanded me topardon my brother seventy-seven times, hast limited thyself to nonumber. If death were ill in itself, thou wouldst never have raised anydead man to life again, because that man must necessarily die again. Ifthy mercy in pardoning did so far aggravate a relapse, as that therewere no more mercy after it, our case were the worse for that formermercy; for who is not under even a necessity of sinning whilst he ishere, if we place this necessity in our own infirmity, and not in thydecree? But I speak not this, O my God, as preparing a way to my relapseout of presumption, but to preclude all accesses of desperation, thoughout of infirmity I should relapse. 

XXIII. PRAYER. 

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou beest ever infinite, yet enlargest thyself by the number of our prayers, and takest our oftenpetitions to thee to be an addition to thy glory and thy greatness, asever upon all occasions, so now, O my God, I come to thy majesty withtwo prayers, two supplications. I have meditated upon the jealousy whichthou hast of thine own honour, and considered that nothing comes nearera violating of that honour, nearer to the nature of a scorn to thee, than to sue out thy pardon, and receive the seals of reconciliation tothee, and then return to that sin for which I needed and had thy pardonbefore. I know that this comes too near to a making thy holy ordinances, thy word, thy sacraments, thy seals, thy grace, instruments of myspiritual fornications. Since therefore thy correction hath brought meto such a participation of thyself (thyself, O my God, cannot beparted), to such an entire possession of thee, as that I durst delivermyself over to thee this minute, if this minute thou wouldst accept mydissolution, preserve me, O my God, the God of constancy andperseverance, in this state, from all relapses into those sins whichhave induced thy former judgments upon me. But because, by toolamentable experience, I know how slippery my customs of sin have mademy ways of sin, I presume to add this petition too, that if my infirmityovertake me, thou forsake me not. Say to my soul, _My son, thou hastsinned, do so no more_;[344] but say also, that though I do, thy spiritof remorse and compunction shall never depart from me. Thy holy apostle, St. Paul, was shipwrecked thrice, [345] and yet still saved. Though therocks and the sands, the heights and the shallows, the prosperity andthe adversity of this world, do diversely threaten me, though mine ownleaks endanger me, yet, O God, let me never put myself aboard withHymenęus, nor _make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience_, [346] andthen thy long-lived, thy everlasting mercy, will visit me, though thatwhich I most earnestly pray against, should fall upon me, a relapse intothose sins which I have truly repented, and thou hast fully pardoned. 

FOOTNOTES:

[331] Psalm lxxviii. 41. 

[332] Numb. Xiv. 22, 23. 

[333] Josh. Xxiii. 12, 13. 

[334] Deut. Xiii. 12-16. 

[335] Josh. Xxii. 11, 12. 

[336] Josh. Xxii. 11, 12. 

[337] Josh. Xxii. 17. 

[338] Tertullian. 

[339] Psalm cvii. 26. 

[340] Matt. Xii. 45. 

[341] John, v. 14. 

[342] Mark, xiv. 70. 

[343] Ecclus. Ii. 18. 

[344] Ecclus. I. 21. 

[345] 2 Cor. Xi. 25. 

[346] 1 Tim. I. 19. 

_DEATH'S DUEL, _

_OR, A CONSOLATION TO THE SOULAGAINST THE DYING LIFE AND LIVINGDEATH OF THE BODY. _

_DELIVERED IN A SERMON AT WHITEHALL, BEFORETHE KING'S MAJESTY, IN THE BEGINNINGOF LENT, 1630. _

_BY THAT LATE LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE, JOHN DONNE, DR. IN DIVINITY, AND DEANOF ST. PAUL'S, LONDON. _

_BEING HIS LAST SERMON, AND CALLED BY HISMAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD, THE DOCTOR'S OWNFUNERAL SERMON. _

_TO THE READER_

_This sermon was, by sacred authority, styled the author's own funeralsermon, most fitly, whether we respect the time or matter. It waspreached not many days before his death, as if, having done this, thereremained nothing for him to do but to die; and the matter is ofdeath--the occasion and subject of all funeral sermons. It hath beenobserved of this reverend man, that his faculty in preaching continuallyincreased, and that, as he exceeded others at first, so at last heexceeded himself. This is his last sermon; I will not say it istherefore his best, because all his were excellent. Yet thus much: adying man's words, if they concern ourselves, do usually make thedeepest impression, as being spoken most feelingly, and with leastaffectation. Now, whom doth it concern to learn both the danger andbenefit of death? Death is every man's enemy, and intends hurt to all, though to many he be occasion of greatest good. This enemy we must allcombat dying, whom he living did almost conquer, having discovered theutmost of his power, the utmost of his cruelty. May we make such use ofthis and other the like preparatives, that neither death, whensoever itshall come, may seem terrible, nor life tedious, how long soever itshall last. _

_DEATH'S DUEL_

PSALM LXVIII. 20, _in fine_. 

_And unto God the Lord belong the issues of death (i. E. From death). _

Buildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain andsupport them, and of their buttresses that comprehend and embrace them, and of their contignations that knit and unite them. The foundationssuffer them not to sink, the buttresses suffer them not to swerve, andthe contignation and knitting suffers them not to cleave. The body ofour building is in the former part of this verse. It is this: _He thatis our God is the God of salvation_; _ad salutes_, of salvations in theplural, so it is in the original; the God that gives us spiritual andtemporal salvation too. But of this building, the foundation, thebuttresses, the contignations, are in this part of the verse whichconstitutes our text, and in the three divers acceptations of the wordsamongst our expositors: _Unto God the Lord belong the issues fromdeath_, for, first, the foundation of this building (that our God is theGod of all salvation) is laid in this, that _unto_ this _God the Lordbelong the issues of death_; that is, it is in his power to give us anissue and deliverance, even then when we are brought to the jaws andteeth of death, and to the lips of that whirlpool, the grave. And so inthis acceptation, this _exitus mortis_, this issue of death is_liberatio į morte_, a deliverance from death, and this is the mostobvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words, and that uponwhich our translation lays hold, the _issues from death_. And then, secondly, the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building, thathe that is our God is the God of all salvation, are thus raised; _untoGod the Lord belong the issues of death_, that is, the disposition andmanner of our death; what kind of issue and transmigration we shall haveout of this world, whether prepared or sudden, whether violent ornatural, whether in our perfect senses or shaken and disordered bysickness, there is no condemnation to be argued out of that, no judgmentto be made upon that, for, howsoever they die, _precious in his sight isthe death of his saints_, and with him are the issues of death; the waysof our departing out of this life are in his hands. And so in this senseof the words, this _exitus mortis_, the issues of death, is _liberatioin morte_, a deliverance in death; not that God will deliver us fromdying, but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death, of whatkind soever our passage be. And in this sense and acceptation of thewords, the natural frame and contexture doth well and pregnantlyadminister unto us. And then, lastly, the contignation and knitting ofthis building, that he that is our God is the God of all salvations, consists in this, _Unto_ this _God the Lord belong the issues of death_;that is, that this God the Lord having united and knit both natures inone, and being God, having also come into this world in our flesh, hecould have no other means to save us, he could have no other issue outof this world, nor return to his former glory, but by death. And so inthis sense, this _exitus mortis_, this issue of death, is _liberatio permortem_, a deliverance by death, by the death of this God, our LordChrist Jesus. And this is Saint Augustine's acceptation of the words, and those many and great persons that have adhered to him. In all thesethree lines, then, we shall look upon these words, first, as the God ofpower, the Almighty Father rescues his servants from the jaws of death;and then as the God of mercy, the glorious Son rescued us by taking uponhimself this issue of death; and then, between these two, as the God ofcomfort, the Holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessedimpressions beforehand, that what manner of death soever be ordained forus, yet this _exitus mortis_ shall be _introitus in vitam_, our issue indeath shall be an entrance into everlasting life. And these threeconsiderations: our deliverance _ą morte, in morte, per mortem_, fromdeath, in death, and by death, will abundantly do all the offices of thefoundations, of the buttresses, of the contignation, of this ourbuilding; that he that is our God is the God of all salvation, because_unto_ this _God the Lord belong the issues of death_. 

First, then, we consider this _exitus mortis_ to be _liberatio ą morte_, that with _God the Lord are the issues of death_; and therefore in allour death, and deadly calamities of this life, we may justly hope of agood issue from him. In all our periods and transitions in this life, are so many passages from death to death; our very birth and entranceinto this life is _exitus ą morte_, an issue from death, for in ourmother's womb we are dead, so as that we do not know we live, not somuch as we do in our sleep, neither is there any grave so close or soputrid a prison, as the womb would be unto us if we stayed in it beyondour time, or died there before our time. In the grave the worms do notkill us; we breed, and feed, and then kill those worms which weourselves produced. In the womb the dead child kills the mother thatconceived it, and is a murderer, nay, a parricide, even after it isdead. And if we be not dead so in the womb, so as that being dead wekill her that gave us our first life, our life of vegetation, yet we aredead so as David's idols are dead. In the womb we have _eyes and seenot, ears and hear not_. [347] There in the womb we are fitted for worksof darkness, all the while deprived of light; and there in the womb weare taught cruelty, by being fed with blood, and may be damned, thoughwe be never born. Of our very making in the womb, David says, _I amwonderfully and fearfully made_, and _such knowledge is too excellentfor me_, [348] for even that _is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful inour eyes_;[349] ipse fecit nos, _it is he that made us, and not weourselves_, [350] nor our parents neither. _Thy hands have made andfashioned me round about_, saith Job, _and_ (as the original word is)_thou hast taken pains about me, and yet_ (says he) _thou dost destroyme_. Though I be the masterpiece of the greatest master (man is so), yetif thou do no more for me, if thou leave me where thou madest me, destruction will follow. The womb, which should be the house of life, becomes death itself if God leave us there. That which God threatens sooften, the shutting of a womb, is not so heavy nor so discomfortable acurse in the first as in the latter shutting, nor in the shutting ofbarrenness as in the shutting of weakness, when _children are come tothe birth, and no strength to bring forth_. [351]

It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness. And in that vehement imprecation, the prophet expresses the highest ofGod's anger, _Give them, O Lord, what wilt thou give them? give them amiscarrying womb. _ Therefore as soon as we are men (that is, inanimated, quickened in the womb), though we cannot ourselves, our parents have tosay in our behalf, _Wretched man that he is, who shall deliver him fromthis body of death?_[352] if there be no deliverer. It must be he thatsaid to Jeremiah, _Before I formed thee I knew thee, and before thoucamest out of the womb I sanctified thee_. We are not sure that therewas no kind of ship nor boat to fish in, nor to pass by, till Godprescribed Noah that absolute form of the ark. [353] That word which theHoly Ghost, by Moses, useth for the ark, is common to all kind of boats, _thebah_; and is the same word that Moses useth for the boat that he wasexposed in, that his mother laid him in an ark of bulrushes. But we aresure that Eve had no midwife when she was delivered of Cain, thereforeshe might well say, _Possedi virum ą Domino, I have gotten a man fromthe Lord_, [354] wholly, entirely from the Lord; it is the Lord thatenabled me to conceive, the Lord that infused a quickening soul intothat conception, the Lord that brought into the world that which himselfhad quickened; without all this might Eve say, my body had been but thehouse of death, and _Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, To God the Lordbelong the issues of death_. But then this _exitus ą morte_ is but_introitus in mortem_; this issue, this deliverance, from that death, the death of the womb, is an entrance, a delivering over to anotherdeath, the manifold deaths of this world; we have a winding-sheet in ourmother's womb which grows with us from our conception, and we come intothe world wound up in that winding-sheet, for we come to seek a grave. And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees, so when thewomb hath discharged us, yet we are bound to it by cords of hestę, bysuch a string as that we cannot go thence, nor stay there; we celebrateour own funerals with cries even at our birth; as though our threescoreand ten years' life were spent in our mother's labour, and our circlemade up in the first point thereof; we beg our baptism with anothersacrament, with tears; and we come into a world that lasts many ages, but we last not. _In domo Patris_, says our Saviour, speaking of heaven, _multę mansiones_, divers and durable; so that if a man cannot possess amartyr's house (he hath shed no blood for Christ), yet he may have aconfessor's, he hath been ready to glorify God in the shedding of hisblood. And if a woman cannot possess a virgin's house (she hath embracedthe holy state of marriage), yet she may have a matron's house, she hathbrought forth and brought up children in the fear of God. _In domoPatris, in my Father's house_, in heaven, there _are manymansions_;[355] but here, upon earth, the _Son of man hath not where tolay his head_, [356] saith he himself. _Nonne terram dedit filiishominum?_ How then hath God given this earth to the sons of men? He hathgiven them earth for their materials to be made of earth, and he hathgiven them earth for their grave and sepulchre, to return and resolve toearth, but not for their possession. _Here we have no continuingcity_, [357] nay, no cottage that continues, nay, no persons, no bodies, that continue. Whatsoever moved Saint Jerome to call the journeys of theIsraelites in the wilderness, [358] mansions; the word (the word is_nasang_) signifies but a journey, but a peregrination. Even the Israelof God hath no mansions, but journeys, pilgrimages in this life. By whatmeasure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh? _The days of the years ofmy pilgrimage. _[359] And though the apostle would not say _morimur_, that whilst we are in the body we are dead, yet he says, _perigrinamur_, whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage, and we are _absentfrom the Lord_:[360] he might have said dead, for this whole world isbut an universal churchyard, but our common grave, and the life andmotion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking ofburied bodies in their grave, by an earthquake. That which we call lifeis but _hebdomada mortium_, a week of death, seven days, seven periodsof our life spent in dying, a dying seven times over; and there is anend. Our birth dies in infancy, and our infancy dies in youth, and youthand the rest die in age, and age also dies and determines all. Nor doall these, youth out of infancy, or age out of youth, arise so, as thephoenix out of the ashes of another phoenix formerly dead, but as awasp or a serpent out of a carrion, or as a snake out of dung. Our youthis worse than our infancy, and our age worse than our youth. Our youthis hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not; andour age is sorry and angry, that it cannot pursue those sins which ouryouth did; and besides, all the way, so many deaths, that is, so manydeadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of thislife, as that death itself would be an ease to them that suffer them. Upon this sense doth Job wish that God had not given him an issue fromthe first death, from the womb, _Wherefore thou hast brought me forthout of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye seen me! Ishould have been as though I had not been. _[361] And not only theimpatient Israelites in their murmuring (_would to God we had died bythe hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt_), [362] but Elijah himself, when he fled from Jezebel, and went for his life, as that text says, under the juniper tree, requested that he might die, and said, _It isenough now, O Lord, take away my life_. [363] So Jonah justifies hisimpatience, nay, his anger, towards God himself: _Now, O Lord, take, Ibeseech thee, my life from me, for it is better to die than tolive_. [364] And when God asked him, _Dost thou well to be angry forthis?_ he replies, _I do well to be angry, even unto death_. How muchworse a death than death is this life, which so good men would so oftenchange for death! But if my case be as Saint Paul's case, _quotidičmorior_, that I die daily, that something heavier than death fall uponme every day; if my case be David's case, _tota die mortificamur; allthe day long we are killed_, that not only every day, but every hour ofthe day, something heavier than death fall upon me; though that be trueof me, _Conceptus in peccatis, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin didmy mother conceive me_ (there I died one death); though that be true ofme, _Natus filius irę_, I was born not only the child of sin, but thechild of wrath, of the wrath of God for sin, which is a heavier death:yet _Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, with God the Lord are the issuesof death_; and after a Job, and a Joseph, and a Jeremiah, and a Daniel, I cannot doubt of a deliverance. And if no other deliverance conducemore to his glory and my good, yet he hath the keys of death, [365] andhe can let me out at that door, that is, deliver me from the manifolddeaths of this world, the _omni die_, and the _tota die_, the everyday's death and every hour's death, by that one death, the finaldissolution of body and soul, the end of all. But then is that the endof all? Is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that thebody shall suffer (for of spiritual death we speak not now). It is not, though this be _exitus ą morte_: it is _introitus in mortem_; though itbe an issue from manifold deaths of this world, yet it is an entranceinto the death of corruption and putrefaction, and vermiculation, andincineration, and dispersion in and from the grave, in which every deadman dies over again. It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ, not to diethis death, not to see corruption. What gave him this privilege? NotJoseph's great proportion of gums and spices, that might have preservedhis body from corruption and incineration longer than he needed it, longer than three days, but it would not have done it for ever. Whatpreserved him then? Did his exemption and freedom from original sinpreserve him from this corruption and incineration? It is true thatoriginal sin hath induced this corruption and incineration upon us; ifwe had not sinned in Adam, _mortality had not put on immortality_[366](as the apostle speaks), nor _corruption had not put on incorruption_, but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world withoutany mortality, any corruption at all. But yet since Christ took sin uponhim, so far as made him mortal, he had it so far too as might have madehim see this corruption and incineration, though he had no original sinin himself; what preserved him then? Did the hypostatical union of bothnatures, God and man, preserve him from this corruption andincineration? It is true that this was a most powerful embalming, to beembalmed with the Divine Nature itself, to be embalmed with eternity, was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever. Andhe was embalmed so, embalmed with the Divine Nature itself, even in hisbody as well as in his soul; for the Godhead, the Divine Nature, did notdepart, but remained still united to his dead body in the grave; but yetfor all this powerful embalming, his hypostatical union of both natures, we see Christ did die; and for all his union which made him God and man, he became no man (for the union of the body and soul makes the man, andhe whose soul and body are separated by death as long as that statelasts, is properly no man). And therefore as in him the dissolution ofbody and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union, so there isnothing that constrains us to say, that though the flesh of Christ hadseen corruption and incineration in the grave, this had not been anydissolution of the hypostatical union, for the Divine nature, theGodhead, might have remained with all the elements and principles ofChrist's body, as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of hisperson, his body and his soul. This incorruption then was not inJoseph's gums and spices, nor was it in Christ's innocency, andexemption from original sin, nor was it (that is, it is not necessary tosay it was) in the hypostatical union. But this incorruptibleness of hisflesh is most conveniently placed in that; _Non dabis, thou wilt notsuffer thy Holy One to see corruption_; we look no further for causes orreasons in the mysteries of religion, but to the will and pleasure ofGod; Christ himself limited his inquisition in that _ita est, even so, Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight_. Christ's body did not seecorruption, therefore, because God had decreed it should not. The humblesoul (and only the humble soul is the religious soul) rests himself uponGod's purposes and the decrees of God which he hath declared andmanifested, not such as are conceived and imagined in ourselves, thoughupon some probability, some verisimilitude; so in our present casePeter proceeds in his sermon at Jerusalem, and so Paul in his atAntioch. [367] They preached Christ to have been risen without seeingcorruption, not only because God had decreed it, but because he hadmanifested that decree in his prophet, therefore doth Saint Paul cite byspecial number the second Psalm for that decree, and therefore bothSaint Peter and Saint Paul cite for it that place in the sixteenthPsalm;[368] for when God declares his decree and purpose in the expresswords of his prophet, or when he declares it in the real execution ofthe decree, then he makes it ours, then he manifests it to us. Andtherefore, as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of ourreason, but by faith we rest on God's decree and purpose--(it is so, OGod, because it is thy will it should be so)--so God's decrees are everto be considered in the manifestation thereof. All manifestation iseither in the word of God, or in the execution of the decree; and whenthese two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be:when therefore I find those marks of adoption and spiritual filiationwhich are delivered in the word of God to be upon me; when I find thatreal execution of his good purpose upon me, as that actually I do liveunder the obedience and under the conditions which are evidences ofadoption and spiritual filiation; then, so long as I see these marks andlive so, I may safely comfort myself in a holy certitude and a modestinfallibility of my adoption. Christ determines himself in that, thepurpose of God was manifest to him; Saint Peter and Saint Paul determinethemselves in those two ways of knowing the purpose of God, the word ofGod before the execution of the decree in the fulness of time. It wasprophesied before, said they, and it is performed now, Christ is risenwithout seeing corruption. Now, this which is so singularly peculiar tohim, that his flesh should not see corruption, at his second coming, hiscoming to judgment, shall extend to all that are then alive; their hestęshall not see corruption, because, as the apostle says, and says as asecret, as a mystery, _Behold I shew you a mystery, we shall not allsleep_ (that is, not continue in the state of the dead in the grave), _but we shall all be changed in an instant_, we shall have adissolution, and in the same instant a redintegration, a recompacting ofbody and soul, and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection, but no sleeping in corruption; but for us that die now and sleep in thestate of the dead, we must all pass this posthume death, this deathafter death, nay, this death after burial, this dissolution afterdissolution, this death of corruption and putrefaction, of vermiculationand incineration, of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave, when these bodies that have been the children of royal parents, and theparents of royal children, must say with Job, _Corruption, thou art myfather, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister_. Miserableriddle, when the same worm must be my mother, and my sister and myself!Miserable incest, when I must be married to my mother and my sister, andbe both father and mother to my own mother and sister, beget and bearthat worm which is all that miserable penury; when my mouth shall befilled with dust, and the _worm shall feed, and feed sweetly_[369] uponme; when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction, if the poorestalive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in beingmade equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust. _One diethat his full strength, being wholly at ease and in quiet; and anotherdies in the bitterness of his soul, and never eats with pleasure_; but_they lie down alike in the dust, and the worm covers them_. [370] InJob and in Isaiah, [371] it covers them and is spread under them, _theworm is spread under thee, and the worm covers thee_. There are the matsand the carpets that lie under, and there are the state and the canopythat hang over the greatest of the sons of men. Even those bodies thatwere _the temples of the Holy Ghost_ come to this dilapidation, to ruin, to rubbish, to dust; even the Israel of the Lord, and Jacob himself, hath no other specification, no other denomination, but that _vermisJacob_, thou worm of Jacob. Truly the consideration of this posthumedeath, this death after burial, that after God (with whom are the issuesof death) hath delivered me from the death of the womb, by bringing meinto the world, and from the manifold deaths of the world, by laying mein the grave, I must die again in an incineration of this flesh, and ina dispersion of that dust. That that monarch, who spread over manynations alive, must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead, and there but so long as that lead will last; and that private andretired man, that thought himself his own for ever, and never cameforth, must in his dust of the grave be published, and (such are therevolutions of the grave) be mingled with the dust of every highway andof every dunghill, and swallowed in every puddle and pond. This is themost inglorious and contemptible vilification, the most deadly andperemptory nullification of man, that we can consider. God seems to havecarried the declaration of his power to a great height, when he sets theprophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, and says, _Son of man, canthese bones live?_ as though it had been impossible, and yet they did;the Lord laid _sinews upon them, and flesh, and breathed into them, andthey did live_. But in that case there were bones to be seen, somethingvisible, of which it might be said, Can this thing live? But in thisdeath of incineration and dispersion of dust, we see nothing that wecall that man's. If we say, Can this dust live? Perchance it cannot; itmay be the mere dust of the earth, which never did live, never shall. Itmay be the dust of that man's worm, which did live, but shall no more. It may be the dust of another man, that concerns not him of whom it wasasked. This death of incineration and dispersion is, to natural reason, the most irrecoverable death of all; and yet _Domini Domini sunt exitusmortis, unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_; and byrecompacting this dust into the same body, and remaining the same bodywith the same soul, he shall in a blessed and glorious resurrection giveme such an issue from this death as shall never pass into any otherdeath, but establish me into a life that shall last as long as the Lordof Life himself. 

And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of thesewords (_unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_); That though fromthe womb to the grave, and in the grave itself, we pass from death todeath, yet, as Daniel speaks, _the Lord our God is able to deliver us, and he will deliver us_. 

And so we pass unto our second accommodation of these words (_unto Godthe Lord belong the issues of death_); that it belongs to God, and notto man, to pass a judgment upon us at our death, or to conclude adereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof. 

Those indications which the physicians receive, and those presagitionswhich they give for death or recovery in the patient, they receive andthey give out of the grounds and the rules of their art; but we have nosuch rule or art to give a presagition of spiritual death and damnationupon any such indication as we see in any dying man; we see oftenenough to be sorry, but not to despair; we may be deceived both ways: weuse to comfort ourself in the death of a friend, if it be testified thathe went away like a lamb, that is, without any reluctation; but Godknows that may be accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction, and insensibility of his present state. Our blessed Saviour sufferedcolluctations with death, and a _sadness even in his soul to death_, andan agony even to a bloody sweat in his body, and expostulations withGod, and exclamations upon the cross. He was a devout man who said uponhis death-bed, or death-turf (for he was a hermit), _Septuaginta annosDomino servivisti, et mori times?_ Hast thou served a good masterthreescore and ten years, and now art thou loth to go into his presence?Yet Hilarion was loth. Barlaam was a devout man (a hermit too) that saidthat day he died, _Cogita te hodie cępisse servire Domino, et hodiefiniturum_, Consider this to be the first day's service that ever thoudidst thy Master, to glorify him in a Christianly and a constant death, and if thy first day be thy last day too, how soon dost thou come toreceive thy wages! Yet Barlaam could have been content to have stayedlonger forth. Make no ill conclusions upon any man's lothness to die, for the mercies of God work momentarily in minutes, and many timesinsensibly to bystanders, or any other than the party departing. Andthen upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors, Christ himselfhath forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion; for hisown death had those impressions in it; he was reputed, he was executedas a malefactor, and no doubt many of them who concurred to his deathdid believe him to be so. Of sudden death there are scarce examples befound in the Scriptures upon good men, for death in battle cannot becalled sudden death; but God governs not by examples but by rules, andtherefore make no ill conclusion upon sudden death nor upon distempersneither, though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence anddistrust in the mercies of God. The tree lies as it falls, it is true, but it is not the last stroke that fells the tree, nor the last word norgasp that qualifies the soul. Still pray we for a peaceable life againstviolent death, and for time of repentance against sudden death, and forsober and modest assurance against distempered and diffident death, butnever make ill conclusions upon persons overtaken with such deaths;_Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, to God the Lord belong the issues ofdeath_. And he received Samson, who went out of this world in such amanner (consider it actively, consider it passively in his own death, and in those whom he slew with himself) as was subject to interpretationhard enough. Yet the Holy Ghost hath moved Saint Paul to celebrateSamson in his great catalogue, [372] and so doth all the church. Ourcritical day is not the very day of our death, but the whole course ofour life. I thank him that prays for me when the bell tolls, but I thankhim much more that catechises me, or preaches to me, or instructs me howto live. _Fac hoc et vive_, there is my security, the mouth of the Lordhath said it, _do this and thou shalt live_. But though I do it, yet Ishall die too, die a bodily, a natural death. But God never mentions, never seems to consider that death, the bodily, the natural death. Goddoth not say, Live well, and thou shalt die well, that is, an easy, aquiet death; but, Live well here, and thou shalt live well for ever. Asthe first part of a sentence pieces well with the last, and neverrespects, never hearkens after the parenthesis that comes between, sodoth a good life here flow into an eternal life, without anyconsideration what manner of death we die. But whether the gate of myprison be opened with an oiled key (by a gentle and preparing sickness), or the gate be hewn down by a violent death, or the gate be burnt downby a raging and frantic fever, a gate into heaven I shall have, for fromthe Lord is the cause of my life, and _with God the Lord are the issuesof death_. And further we carry not this second acceptation of thewords, as this _issue of death_ is _liberatio in morte_, God's care thatthe soul be safe, what agonies soever the body suffers in the hour ofdeath. 

But pass to our third part and last part: As this issue of death is_liberatio per mortem_, a deliverance by the death of another. _Sufferentiam Job audiisti, et vidisti finem Domini_, says Saint James(v. 11), _You have heard of the patience of Job_, says he: all thiswhile you have done that, for in every man, calamitous, miserable man, aJob speaks. Now, _see the end of the Lord_, sayeth that apostle, whichis not that end that the Lord proposed to himself (salvation to us), northe end which he proposes to us (conformity to him), but _see the end ofthe Lord_, says he, the end that the Lord himself came to, death, and apainful and a shameful death. But why did he die? and why die so? _QuiaDomini Domini sunt exitus mortis_ (as Saint Augustine, interpreting thistext, answers that question), [373] because to this _God our Lordbelonged the issues of death. Quid apertius diceretur?_ says he there, what can be more obvious, more manifest than this sense of these words?In the former part of this verse it is said, He that is _our God is theGod of salvation; Deus salvos faciendi_, so he reads it, the God thatmust save us. Who can that be, says he, but Jesus? For therefore thatname was given him because he was to save us. And to this Jesus, sayshe, this Saviour, [374] _belong the issues of death_; _Nec oportuit eumde hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis_: being come into this lifein our mortal nature, he could not go out of this life any other way butby death. _Ideo dictum_, says he, therefore it is said, _to God the Lordbelonged the issues of death; ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvosfacturum_, to show that his way to save us was to die. And from thistext doth Saint Isidore prove that Christ was truly man (which as manysects of heretics denied, as that he was truly God), because to him, though he were _Dominus Dominus_ (as the text doubles it), God the Lord, yet to _him, to God the Lord belonged the issues of death_; _oportuiteum pati_; more cannot be said than Christ himself says of himself;_These things Christ ought to suffer_;[375] he had no other way butdeath: so then this part of our sermon must needs be a passion sermon, since all his life was a continual passion, all our Lent may well be acontinual Good Friday. Christ's painful life took off none of the painsof his death, he felt not the less then for having felt so much before. Nor will any thing that shall be said before lessen, but rather enlargethe devotion, to that which shall be said of his passion at the time ofdue solemnization thereof. Christ bled not a drop the less at the lastfor having bled at his circumcision before, nor will you a tear the lessthen if you shed some now. And therefore be now content to consider withme how _to this God the Lord belonged the issues of death_. That God, this Lord, the Lord of life, could die, is a strange contemplation; thatthe Red Sea could be dry, that the sun could stand still, that an ovencould be seven times heat and not burn, that lions could be hungry andnot bite, is strange, miraculously strange, but super-miraculous thatGod _could_ die; but that God _would_ die is an exaltation of that. Buteven of that also it is a super-exaltation, that God should die, mustdie, and _non exitus_ (said Saint Augustine), God the Lord had no issuebut by death, and _oportuit pati_ (says Christ himself), all this Christought to suffer, was bound to suffer; _Deus ultimo Deus_, says David, God is the God of revenges, he would not pass over the son of manunrevenged, unpunished. But then _Deus ultionum libere egit_ (says thatplace), the God of revenges works freely, he punishes, he spares whom hewill. And would he not spare himself? he would not: _Dilectio fortis utmors, love is strong as death_;[376] stronger, it drew in death, thatnaturally is not welcome. _Si possibile_ says Christ, _if it bepossible, let this cup pass_, when his love, expressed in a formerdecree with his Father, had made it impossible. _Many waters quench notlove. _[377] Christ tried many: he was baptised out of his love, and hislove determined not there; he mingled blood with water in his agony, andthat determined not his love; he wept pure blood, all his blood at allhis eyes, at all his pores, in his flagellation and thorns (_to the Lordour God belonged the issues of blood_), and these expressed, but thesedid not quench his love. He would not spare, nay, he could not sparehimself. There was nothing more free, more voluntary, more spontaneousthan the death of Christ. It is true, _libere egit_, he diedvoluntarily; but yet when we consider the contract that had passedbetween his Father and him, there was an _oportuit_, a kind of necessityupon him: all this _Christ ought to suffer_. And when shall we date thisobligation, this _oportuit_, this necessity? When shall we say thatbegan? Certainly this decree by which Christ was to suffer all this wasan eternal decree, and was there any thing before that that was eternal?Infinite love, eternal love; be pleased to follow this home, and toconsider it seriously, that what liberty soever we can conceive inChrist to die or not to die; this necessity of dying, this decree is aseternal as that liberty; and yet how small a matter made he of thisnecessity and this dying? His Father calls it but a bruise, and but abruising of his heel[378] (the serpent shall bruise his heel), and yetthat was, that the serpent should practise and compass his death. Himself calls it but a baptism, as though he were to be the better forit. I _have a baptism to be baptised with_, [379] and he was in pain tillit was accomplished, and yet this baptism was his death. The Holy Ghostcalls it joy (_for the joy which was set before him he endured thecross_), [380] which was not a joy of his reward after his passion, but ajoy that filled him even in the midst of his torments, and arose fromhim; when Christ calls his _calicem_ a cup, and no worse (_Can ye drinkof my cup_)[381], he speaks not odiously, not with detestation of it. Indeed it was a cup, _salus mundo_, a health to all the world. And _quidretribuam_, says David, _What shall I render to the Lord?_[382] Answeryou with David, _Accipiam calicem, I will take the cup of salvation_;take it, that cup is salvation, his passion, if not into your presentimitation, yet into your present contemplation. And behold how that Lordthat was God, yet could die, would die, must die for our salvation. ThatMoses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration, both SaintMatthew and Saint Mark[383] tells us, but what they talked of, onlySaint Luke; _Dicebant excessum ejus_, says he, _They talked of hisdisease, of his death, which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem_. [384]The word is of his _exodus_, the very word of our text, _exitus_, his_issue by death_. Moses, who in his exodus had prefigured this issue ofour Lord, and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea, hadforetold in that actual prophecy, Christ passing of mankind through thesea of his blood; and Elias, whose exodus and issue of this world was afigure of Christ's ascension; had no doubt a great satisfaction intalking with our blessed Lord, _de excessu ejus_, of the fullconsummation of all this in his death, which was to be accomplished atJerusalem. Our meditation of his death should be more visceral, andaffect us more, because it is of a thing already done. The ancientRomans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death;they could not name death, no, not in their wills; there they could notsay, _Si mori contigerit_, but _si quid humanitas contingat_, not if orwhen I die, but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me. To usthat speak daily of the death of Christ (he was crucified, dead, andburied), can the memory or the mention of our own death be irksome orbitter? There are in these latter times amongst us that name deathfreely enough, and the death of God, but in blasphemous oaths andexecrations. Miserable men, who shall therefore be said never to havenamed Jesus, because they have named him too often; and therefore hearJesus say, _Nescivi vos, I never knew you_, because they made themselvestoo familiar with him. Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his deathonly in a holy and joyful sense, of the benefit which they and all theworld were to receive by that. Discourses of religion should not be outof curiosity, but to edification. And then they talked with Christ ofhis death at that time when he was in the greatest height of glory, thatever he admitted in this world, that is, his transfiguration. And we areafraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death, butnourish in them a vain imagination of immortality and immutability. But_bonum est nobis esse hic_ (as Saint Peter said there), _It is good todwell here_, in this consideration of his death, and therefore transferwe our tabernacle (our devotions) through some of those steps which Godthe Lord made to his _issue of death_ that day. Take in the whole dayfrom the hour that Christ received the passover upon Thursday unto thehour in which he died the next day. Make this present day that day inthy devotion, and consider what he did, and remember what you have done. Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament (which was after theeating of the passover), he proceeded to that act of humility, to washhis disciples' feet, even Peter's, who for a while resisted him. In thypreparation to the holy and blessed sacrament, hast thou with a sincerehumility sought a reconciliation with all the world, even with thosethat have been averse from it, and refused that reconciliation fromthee? If so, and not else, thou hast spent that first part of his lastday in a conformity with him. After the sacrament he spent the time tillnight in prayer, in preaching, in psalms: hast thou considered that aworthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holinessafter, as well as in a preparation before? If so, thou hast therein alsoconformed thyself to him; so Christ spent his time till night. At nighthe went into the garden to pray, and he prayed prolixious, he spent muchtime in prayer, how much? Because it is literally expressed, that heprayed there three several times, [385] and that returning to hisdisciples after his first prayer, and finding them asleep, said, _Couldye not watch with me one hour_, [386] it is collected that he spent threehours in prayer. I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentest, or howthou disposedst of thyself, when it grew dark and after last night. Ifthat time were spent in a holy recommendation of thyself to God, and asubmission of thy will to his, it was spent in a conformity to him. Inthat time, and in those prayers, was his agony and bloody sweat. I willhope that thou didst pray; but not every ordinary and customary prayer, but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositivelyin a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases, puts theeinto a conformity with him. About midnight he was taken and bound with akiss, art thou not too conformable to him in that? Is not that tooliterally, too exactly thy case, at midnight to have been taken andbound with a kiss? From thence he was carried back to Jerusalem, firstto Annas, then to Caiaphas, and (as late as it was) then he was examinedand buffeted, and delivered over to the custody of those officers fromwhom he received all those irrisions, and violences, the covering of hisface, the spitting upon his face, the blasphemies of words, and thesmartness of blows, which that gospel mentions: in which compass fellthat gallicinium, that crowing of the cock which called up Peter to hisrepentance. How thou passedst all that time thou knowest. If thou didstany thing that needest Peter's tears, and hast not shed them, let me bethy cock, do it now. Now, thy Master (in the unworthiest of hisservants) looks back upon thee, do it now. Betimes, in the morning, sosoon as it was day, the Jews held a council in the high priest's hall, and agreed upon their evidence against him, and then carried him toPilate, who was to be his judge; didst thou accuse thyself when thouwakedst this morning, and wast thou content even with false accusations, that is, rather to suspect actions to have been sin, which were not, than to smother and justify such as were truly sins? Then thou spentestthat hour in conformity to him; Pilate found no evidence against him, and therefore to ease himself, and to pass a compliment upon Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, who was at that time at Jerusalem (because Christ, being a Galilean, was of Herod's jurisdiction), Pilate sent him toHerod, and rather as a madman than a malefactor; Herod remanded him(with scorn) to Pilate, to proceed against him; and this was about eightof the clock. Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition, thisexamination, this agitation, this cribration, this pursuit of thyconscience; to sift it, to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thypresent sins, from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board, andfrom the substance to the circumstance of thy sins? That is time spentlike thy Saviour's. Pilate would have saved Christ, by using theprivilege of the day in his behalf, because that day one prisoner was tobe delivered, but they choose Barabbas; he would have saved him fromdeath, by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him, scourging and crowning with thorns, and loading him with many scornfuland ignominious contumelies; but they regarded him not, they pressed acrucifying. Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin, by fasting, by alms, by disciplines and mortifications, in way of satisfaction to the justiceof God? That will not serve, that is not the right way; we press anutter crucifying of that sin that governs thee: and that conforms theeto Christ. Towards noon Pilate gave judgment, and they made such hasteto execution as that by noon he was upon the cross. There now hangs thatsacred body upon the cross, rebaptized in his own tears, and sweat, andembalmed in his own blood alive. There are those bowels of compassionwhich are so conspicuous, so manifested, as that you may see themthrough his wounds. There those glorious eyes grew faint in their sight, so as the sun, ashamed to survive them, departed with his light too. And then that Son of God, who was never from us, and yet had now come anew way unto us in assuming our nature, delivers that soul (which wasnever out of his Father's hands) by a _new way_, a voluntary emission ofit into his Father's hands; for though _to this God our Lord belongedthese issues of death_, so that considered in his own contract, he mustnecessarily die, yet at no breach or battery which they had made uponhis sacred body issued his soul; but _emisit_, he gave up the ghost; andas God breathed a soul into the first Adam, so this second Adam breathedhis soul into God, into the hands of God. 

There we leave you in that blessed dependency, to hang upon him thathangs upon the cross, there bathe in his tears, there suck at hiswounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you aresurrection, and an ascension into that kingdom which He hath preparedfor you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. 

FOOTNOTES:

[347] Psalm cxv. 6. 

[348] Psalm cxxxix. 6. 

[349] Psalm cxviii. 23. 

[350] Psalm c. 3. 

[351] Isaiah, xxxvii. 3. 

[352] Rom. Vii. 24. 

[353] Gen. Vi. 14. 

[354] Gen. Iv. 1. 

[355] John, xiv. 2. 

[356] Matt. Viii. 20. 

[357] Heb. Xiii. 14. 

[358] Exod. Xvii. 1. 

[359] Gen. Xlvii. 9. 

[360] 2 Cor. V. 6. 

[361] Job, x. 18, 19. 

[362] Exod. Xvi. 3. 

[363] 1 Kings, xix. 4. 

[364] Jonah, iv. 3. 

[365] Rev. I. 18. 

[366] 1 Cor. Xv. 33. 

[367] Acts, ii. 31; xiii. 35. 

[368] Ver. 10. 

[369] Job, xxiv. 20. 

[370] Job, xxi. 23, 25, 26. 

[371] Isaiah, xiv. 11. 

[372] Heb. Xi. 

[373] De Civitate Dei, lib. Xvii. 

[374] Matt. I. 21. 

[375] Luke, xxiv. 26. 

[376] Cant. Viii. 6. 

[377] _Ibid. _ 7. 

[378] Gen. Iii. 15. 

[379] Luke, xii. 50. 

[380] Heb. Xii. 2. 

[381] Matt. Xx. 22. 

[382] Psalm cxvi. 12. 

[383] Matt. Xvii. 3; Mark, ix. 4. 

[384] Luke, ix. 31. 

[385] Luke, xxii. 41. 

[386] Matt. Xxvi. 40. 

Transcribers Notes:

I corrected an error in Footnote 1. The original book saidMatt. Xiii. 16, which I corrected to verse 15. 

I corrected an error in Footnote 65. The original book saidJer. , which I corrected to Lam.