Chapter 4

[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.

[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 see he fears, and I fear with him; I overtake him, I overrun him, in his fear, 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 more sharpness, because he would not have me see it. He knows that his fear shall not disorder the practice and exercise of his art, but he knows that my fear may disorder the effect and working of his practice. As the ill affections of the spleen complicate and mingle themselves with every infirmity of the body, so doth fear insinuate itself in every action or passion of the mind; and as wind in the body will counterfeit any disease, and seem the stone, and seem the gout, so fear will counterfeit any disease of the mind. It shall seem love, a love of having; and it is but a fear, a jealous and suspicious fear of losing. It shall seem valour in despising and undervaluing danger; and it is but fear in an overvaluing of opinion and estimation, and a fear of losing that. A man that 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 feed him; not afraid of the sound of drums and trumpets and shot and those which they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of some particular harmonious instrument; so much afraid as that with any of these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of the field. I know not what fear is, nor I know not what it is that I fear now; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the increase of the disease; I should belie nature if I should deny that I feared this; and if I should say that I feared death, I should belie God. My weakness is from nature, who hath but her measure; my strength is from God, who possesses and distributes infinitely. As then every cold air is not a damp, every shivering is not a stupefaction; so every fear is not a fearfulness, every declination is not a running away, every debating is not a resolving, every wish that it were not thus, is not a murmuring nor a dejection, though it be thus; but as myphysician's fear puts not him from his practice, neither doth mine put me from receiving from God, and man, and myself, spiritual and civil and moral assistances and consolations.

VI. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I find in thy book that fear is a stifling spirit, a spirit of suffocation; thatIshbosheth could not speak, nor reply in his own defence to Abner, because he was afraid.[70]It was thy servant Job'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 with me.[71]Shall a fear of thee take away my devotion to thee? Dost thou command me to speak to thee, and command me to fear thee; and do these destroy one another? There is no perplexity in thee, my God; no inextricableness 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 my day of prosperity and confidence. I must then speak to thee at all times, but when must I fear thee? At all times too. When didst thou rebuke any petitioner with the name of importunate? Thou hast proposed to us a parable of a judge[72]that did justice at last, because the client was importunate, and troubled him; but thou hast told us plainly, that thy use in that parable was not that thou wast troubled with our importunities, but (as thou sayest there)that we should always pray. And to the same purpose thou proposest another,[73]that if I press my friend, when he is in bed atmidnight, to lend me bread, though he will not rise because I am his friend, yet because of mine importunity he will. God will do this whensoever thou askest, and never call it importunity. Pray in thy bed at midnight, and God will not say, I will hear thee to-morrow upon thy knees, at thy bedside; pray upon thy knees there 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 fear thee; come to thee and speak to thee, in all places, at all hours, and fear thee? Dare I ask this question? There is more boldness in the question than in the coming; I may do it though I fear thee; I cannot do it except I fear thee. So well hast thou provided that we should always fear thee, as that thou hast provided that we should fear no person but thee, nothing but thee; no men? No. Whom?The Lord is my help and my salvation, whom shall I fear?[74]Great enemies? Not great enemies, for no enemies are great to them that fear thee.Fear not the people of this land, for they are bread to you;[75]they shall not only not eat us, not eat our bread, but they shall be our bread. Why should we fear them? But for all this metaphorical bread, victory over enemies that thought 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 and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.[76]Never? Though it be well with them at one time, may they not fear that it may be worse?Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil?[77]says thy servant David. Though his own sin had made them evil, he feared them not. No? not ifthis evil determine in death? Not though in a death; not though in a death inflicted by violence, by malice, by our own desert;fear not the sentence of death,[78]if thou fear God. Thou art, O my God, so far from admitting us that fear thee to fear others, as that thou makest others to fear us; asHerod feared John, because he was a holy and a just man, and observed him.[79]How fully then, O my abundant God, how gently, O my sweet, my easy God, dost thou unentangle me in any scruple arising out of the consideration of thy fear! Is not this that which thou intendest when thou sayest,The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him;[80]the secret, the mystery of the right use of fear. Dost thou not mean this when thou sayest,we shall understand the fear of the Lord?[81]Have it, and have benefit by it; have it, and stand under it; be directed by it, and not be dejected with it. And dost thou not propose that church for our example when thou sayest, the church of Judeawalked in the fear of God;[82]they had it, but did not sit down lazily, nor fall down weakly, nor sink under it. There is a fear which weakens men in the service of God.Adam was afraid, because he was naked.[83]They who have put off thee are a prey to all. They may fear, forThou wilt laugh when their fear comes upon them, as thou hast told them more than once.[84]And thou wilt make them fear where no cause of fear is, as thou hast told them more than once too.[85]There is a fear that is a punishment of former wickednesses, and induces more. Though some said of thy Son, Christ Jesus,that he was a good man, yet no man spake openly for fear of the Jews. Joseph was his disciple,but secretly, for fear of the Jews.[86]The disciples kept some meetings, but with doors shut for fear of the Jews. O my God, thou givest us fear for ballast to carry us steadily in all weathers. But thou wouldst ballast us with such sand as should have gold in it, with that fear which is thy fear; forthe fear of the Lord is his treasure.[87]He that hath that lacks nothing that man can have, nothing that God does give. Timorous men thou rebukest:Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?[88]Such thou dismissest from thy service with scorn, though of them there went from Gideon's army twenty-two thousand, and remained but ten thousand.[89]Such thou sendest farther than so; thither from whence they never return:The fearful and the unbelieving, into that burning lake which is the second death.[90]There is a fear and there is a hope, which are equal abominations to thee; for, they were confounded because they hoped,[91]says thy servant Job; because they had misplaced, miscentred their hopes, they hoped, and not in thee, and such shall fear, and not fear thee. But in thy fear, my God, and my fear, my God, and my hope, is hope, and love, and confidence, and peace, and every limb and ingredient of happiness enwrapped; for joy includes all, and fear and joy consist together, nay, constitute one another.The women departed from the sepulchre,[92]the women who were made supernumerary apostles, apostles to the apostles; mothers of the church, and of the fathers, grandfathers of the church, the apostles themselves; the women, angels of the resurrection, went from the sepulchre with fear and joy; they ran, says the text, and they ran upon those two legs, fear and joy; and both was the right leg; they joy in thee, O Lord, that fear thee, and fear thee only, 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 the Lord thy God; he doeth neither that doeth not both; he omits neither, that does one. Therefore when thy servant David had said thatthe fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,[93]and his son had repeated it again,[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 to fear 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 his deliverance, yet,moved with fear, prepared an ark, for the saving of his 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 in this, that I lie here possessed with that fear which is thy fear, both that this sickness is thy immediate correction, and not merely a natural accident, and therefore fearful, because it is a fearful thing to fall into thy hands; and that this fear preserves me from all inordinate fear, arising out of the infirmity of nature, because thy hand being upon 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, and true joy too, of all fear, and of all hope too, as thou hast given me a repentance, not to be repented of, so give me, O Lord, a fear, of whichI may not be afraid. Give me tender and supple and conformable affections, that as I joy with them that joy, and mourn with them that mourn, so I may fear with them that fear. And since thou hast vouchsafed to discover to me, in his fear whom thou hast admitted to be my assistance in this sickness, that there is danger therein, let me not, O Lord, go about to overcome the sense of that fear, so far as to pretermit the fitting and preparing of myself for the worst that may be feared, the passage out of this life. Many of thy blessed martyrs have passed out of this life without any show of fear; but thy most blessed Son himself did not so. Thy martyrs were known to be but men, and therefore it pleased thee to fill them with thy Spirit and thy power, in that they did more than men; thy Son was declared by thee, and by himself, to be God; and it was requisite that he should declare himself to be man also, in the weaknesses of man. Let me not therefore, O my God, be ashamed of these fears, but let me feel them to determine where his fear did, in a present submitting of all to thy will. And when thou shalt have inflamed and thawed my former coldnesses and indevotions with these heats, and quenched my former heats with these sweats and inundations, and rectified my former presumptions and negligences with these fears, be pleased, O Lord, as one made so by thee, to think me fit for thee; and whether it be thy pleasure to dispose of this body, this garment, so as to put it to a farther wearing in this world, or to lay it up in the common wardrobe, the grave, for the next, glorify thyself in thy choice now, and glorify it then, with that glory, which thy Son, our Saviour Christ Jesus, hath purchased for them whom thou makest partakers of his resurrection. Amen.

[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.

[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 there must be an autumn too; but whether an autumn of the disease or me, it is not my part to choose; but if it be of me, it is of both; my disease cannot survive me, I may overlive it. Howsoever, his desiring of others argues his candour, and his ingenuity; if the danger be great, he justifies his proceedings, and he disguises nothing that calls in witnesses; and if the danger be not great, he is not ambitious, that is so ready to divide the thanks and the honour of that work which he begun alone, with others. It diminishes not the dignity of a monarch that he derive part of his care upon others; God hath not made many suns, but he hath made many bodies that receive and give light. The Romans began with one king; they came to two consuls; they returned in extremities to one dictator: whether in one or many, the sovereignty is the same in all states and the danger is not the more, and the providence is the more, where there are more physicians; as the state is the happier where businesses are carried by more counsels than can be in one breast, how large soever. Diseases themselves hold consultations, and conspire how they may multiply, and join with one another, and exalt one another's force so; and shall we not call physicians to consultations? Death is in an old man's door, he appears and tells him so, and death is at a young man's back, and says nothing; age is a sickness,and youth is an ambush; and we need so many physicians as may make up a watch, and spy every inconvenience. There is scarce any thing that hath not killed somebody; a hair, a feather hath done it; nay, that which is our best antidote against it hath done it; the best cordial hath been deadly poison. Men have died of joy, and almost forbidden their friends to weep for them, when they have seen them die laughing. Even that tyrant, Dionysius (I think the same that suffered so much after), who could not die of that sorrow, of that high fall, from a king to a wretched private man, died of so poor a joy as to be declared by the people at a theatre that 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 more assistants the better. Who comes to a day of hearing, in a cause of any importance, with one advocate? In our funerals we ourselves have no interest; there we cannot advise, we cannot direct; and though some nations (the Egyptians in particular) built themselves better tombs than houses because they were to dwell longer in them, yet amongst ourselves, the greatest man of style whom we have had, the Conqueror, was left, as soon as his soul left him, not only without persons to assist at his grave but without a grave. Who will keep us then we know not; as long as we can, let us admit as much help as we can; another and another physician is not another and another indication and symptom of death, but another and another assistant, and proctor of life: nor do they so much feed the imagination with apprehension of danger, as the understanding with comfort. Let not one bring learning, another diligence, another religion, but every one bring all; and as many ingredients enter into a receipt, so may many men make the receipt. But why do I exercise my meditation so long upon this, of havingplentiful help in time of need? Is not my meditation rather to be inclined another way, to condole and commiserate their distress who have none? How many are sicker (perchance) than I, and laid in their woful straw at home (if that 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 a physician then, than to be an officer after; of whom, the first that takes knowledge, is the sexton that buries them, who buries them in oblivion too! For they do but fill up the number of the dead in the bill, but we shall never hear their names, till we read them in the book of life with our own. How many are sicker (perchance) than I, and thrown into 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 but visited! How many are sicker (perchance) than all we, and have not this hospital to cover them, not this straw to lie in, to die in, but have their gravestone under them, and breathe out their souls in the ears and in the eyes of passengers, harder than their bed, the flint of the street? that taste of no part of our physic, but a sparing diet, to whom ordinary porridge would be julep enough, the refuse of our servants bezoar enough, and the offscouring of our kitchen tables cordial enough. O my soul, when thou art not enough awake to bless thy God enough for his plentiful mercy in affording thee many helpers, remember how many lack them, and help them to them or to those other things which they lack as much as them.

VII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, thy blessed servant Augustine begged of thee that Moses might come and tell him what he meant by some places of Genesis: may I have leave to ask of that Spirit that writ that book, why, when David expected news from Joab's army,[99]and that the watchman told him that he 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, the word signifies so, and is so ever accepted,good news; but I see not the logic nor the rhetoric, how David would prove or persuade that his news was good because he was alone, except a greater company might have made great impressions of danger, by imploring and importuning present supplies. Howsoever that be, I am sure that that which thy apostle says to Timothy,Only Luke is with me,[101]Luke, and nobody but Luke, hath a taste of complaint and sorrow in it: though Luke want no testimony of ability, of forwardness, of constancy, and perseverance, in assisting that great building which St. Paul laboured in, yet St. Paul is affected with that, that there was none but Luke to assist. We take St. Luke to have been a physician, and it admits the application the better that in the presence of one good physician we may be glad of more. It was not only a civil spirit of policy, or order, that moved Moses's father-in-law to persuade him to divide the burden of government and judicature with others, and take others to his assistance,[102]but it was also thy immediate Spirit, O my God, that moved Mosesto present unto thee seventy of the elders of Israel,[103]to receive of that Spirit, which was upon Moses only before, such a portion as might ease him in the government of that people; though Moses alone had endowments above all, thou gavest him other assistants. I consider thy plentiful goodness, O my God, in employing angels more than one in so many of thy remarkable works. Of thy Son, thou sayest,Let all the angels of God worship him;[104]if that be in heaven, upon earth he says,that he could command twelve legions of angels;[105]and when heaven and earth shall 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]The angels that celebrated his birth to the shepherds,[107]the angels that celebrated his second birth, his resurrection, to the Maries,[108]were in the plural, angels associated with angels. In Jacob's ladder,[109]they who ascended and descended, and maintained the trade between heaven and earth, between thee and us, they who have the commission, and charge to guide us in all our ways,[110]they who hastened Lot,[111]and in him, us, from places of danger and temptation, they who are appointed to instruct and govern us in the church here,[112]they who are sent to punish the disobedient and refractory,[113]that they are to be mowers and harvestmen[114]after we are grown up in one field, the church, at the day of judgment, they that are to carry our souls whither they carried Lazarus,[115]they who attended at the several gates of the new Jerusalem,[116]to admit us there; all these who administer to thy servants, from the first to their last, are angels, angels in the plural, in every service angels associated with angels. Thepower of a single angel we see in that one, who in one night destroyed almost two hundred thousand in Sennacherib's army,[117]yet thou often employest many; as we know the power of salvation is abundantly in any one evangelist, and yet thou hast afforded us four. Thy Son proclaims of himself thatthe Spirit hath anointed him to preach the Gospel,[118]yet he hath given othersfor the perfecting of the saints in the work of the ministry.[119]Thou hast made himBishop of our souls,[120]but there are others bishops too. He gave the Holy Ghost,[121]and others gave it also. Thy way, O my God (and, O my God, thou lovest to walk in thine own ways, for they are large), thy way from the beginning, is multiplication of thy helps; and therefore it were a degree of ingratitude not to accept this mercy of affording me many helps for my bodily health, as a type and earnest of thy gracious purpose now and ever to afford me the same assistances. That for thy great help, thy word, I may seek that not from comers nor conventicles nor schismatical singularities, but from the association and communion of thy Catholic church, and those persons whom thou hast always furnished that church withal: and that I may associate thy word with thy sacrament, thy seal with thy patent; and in that sacrament associate the sign with the thing signified, the bread with the body of thy Son, so as I may be sure to have received both, and to be made thereby (as thy blessed servant Augustine says) the ark, and the monument, and the tomb of thy most blessed Son, that he, and all the merits of his death, may, by that receiving, be buried in me, to my quickening in this world, and my immortal establishing in the next.

VII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who gavest to thy servants in the wilderness thy manna, bread so conditioned, qualified so, as that to every man manna tasted like that which that man liked best, I humbly beseech thee to make this correction, which I acknowledge to be part of my daily bread, to taste so to me, not as I would but as thou wouldst have it taste, and to conform my taste, and make it agreeable to thy will. Thou wouldst have thy corrections taste of humiliation, but thou wouldst have them taste of consolation too; taste of danger, but taste of assurance too. As therefore thou hast imprinted in all thine elements of which our bodies consist two manifest qualities, so that as thy fire dries, so it heats too; and as thy water moists, so it cools too; so, O Lord, in these corrections which are the elements of our regeneration, by which our souls are made thine, imprint thy two qualities, those two operations, that, as they scourge us, they may scourge us into the way to 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 therefore in this particular circumstance, O Lord (but none of thy judgments are circumstances, they are all of all substance of thy good purpose upon us), 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 thou canst throw me beyond the help of man, let me by the same light see that no 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 good purposewhich thou hast sealed concerning me. Let me think no degree of this thy correction casual, or without signification; but yet when I have read it in that language, as a correction, let me translate it into another, and read it as a mercy; and which of these is the original, and which is the translation; whether thy mercy or thy correction were thy primary and original intention in this sickness, I cannot conclude, though death conclude me; for as it must necessarily appear to be a correction, so I can have no greater argument of thy mercy, than to die in thee and by that death to be united to him who died for me.

[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.

[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 new discoveries. Let him be a world, and himself will be the land, and misery the sea. His misery (for misery is his, his own; of the happiness even of this world, he is but tenant, but of misery the freeholder; of happiness he is but the farmer, but the usufructuary, but of misery the lord, the proprietary), his misery, as the sea, swells above all the hills, and reaches to the remotest parts of this earth, man; who of himself is but dust, and coagulated and kneaded into earth by tears; his matter is earth, his form misery. In this world that is mankind, the highest ground, the eminentest hills, are kings; and have they line and lead enough to fathom this sea, and say, My misery is but this deep? Scarce any misery equal to sickness, and they are subject to that equally with their lowest subject. A glass is not the lessbrittle, because a king's face is represented in it; nor a king the less brittle, because God is represented in him. They have physicians continually about them, and therefore sickness, or the worst of sicknesses, continual fear of it. Are they gods? He that called them so cannot flatter. They are gods, but sick gods; and God is presented to us under many human affections, as far as infirmities: God is called angry, and sorry, and weary, and heavy, but never a sick God; for then he might die like men, as our gods do. The worst that they could say in reproach and scorn 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 infirmer condition. A god, and need a physician? A Jupiter, and need an Æsculapius? that must have rhubarb to purge his choler lest he be too angry, and agarick to purge his phlegm lest he be too drowsy; that as Tertullian says of the Egyptian gods, plants and herbs, that "God was beholden to man for growing in his garden," so we must say of these gods, their eternity (an eternity of threescore and ten years) is in the apothecary's shop, and not in the metaphorical deity. But their deity is better expressed in their humility than in their height; when abounding and overflowing, as God, in means of doing good, they descend, as God, to a communication of their abundances with men according to their necessities, then they are gods. No man is well that understands not, that values not his being well; that hath not a cheerfulness and a joy in it; and whosoever hath this joy hath a desire to communicate, to propagate that which occasions his happiness and his joy to others; for every man loves witnesses of his happiness, and the best witnesses are experimental witnesses; they who have tasted of that in themselves which makes us happy. It consummates therefore, it perfects the happiness of kings,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, thatwhen a rich man 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, What fellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him.[122]Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errors aggravated, 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 in them. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently or irreverently of thee, that give themselves that liberty in speaking of thy vicegerents, kings; for thou who gavest Augustus the empire, gavest it to Nero too; and as Vespasian had it from thee, so had Julian. Though kings deface in themselves thy first image in their own soul, thou givest no man leave to deface thy second image, imprinted indelibly in their power. But thou knowest, O God, that if I should be slack in celebrating thy mercies to me exhibited by that royal instrument, my sovereign, to many other faults that touch upon allegiance I should add the worst of all, ingratitude, which constitutes an ill man; and faults which are defects in any particular function are not so great as those that destroy our humanity. It is not so ill to be an ill subject as to be an ill man; for he hath an universal illness, ready to flow and pour out itself into any mould, any form, and to spend itself in any function. As therefore thy Son did uponthe 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 to thee in all my sacrifices of thanks, for that which he enjoys, and in all my prayers for the continuance and enlargement of them. But let me stop, my God, and consider; will not this look like a piece of art and cunning, to convey into the world an opinion that I were more particular in his care than other men? and that herein, in a show of humility and thankfulness, I magnify myself more than there is cause? But let not that jealousy stop me, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thy mercy exhibited by him. This which he doth now, in assisting so my bodily health, I know is common to me with many: many, many have tasted of that expression of his graciousness. Where he can give health by his own 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 cure it, though perchance not only by one title and interest, nor only as one king. To those that need it not, in that kind, and so cannot have it by his own hand, he sends a donative of health in sending his physician. The holy king St. Louis, in France, and our Maud, is celebrated for that, that personally they visited hospitals, and assisted in the cure even of loathsome diseases. And when that religious Empress Placilla, the wife of Theodosius, was told that she diminished herself too much in those personal assistances and might do enough in sending relief, she said she would send in that capacity as a Christian, as a fellow-member of the body of thy Son, with them. So thy servant David applies himself to his people, so he incorporates himself in his people, by calling them his brethren, his bones, his flesh;[123]and when they fell under thy hand, even to the pretermitting of himself, he presses upon thee by prayer 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's house.[124]It is kingly to give; when Araunah gave that great and free present to David, that place, those instruments for sacrifice, and the sacrifices themselves, it is said there by thy Spirit,All these things did Araunah give, as a king, to the king.[125]To give is an approaching to the condition of kings, but to give health, an approaching to the King of kings, to thee. But this his assisting to my bodily health, thou knowest, O God, and so do some others of thine honourable 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, first of any man, conceived a hope that I might be of some use in thy church and descended to an intimation, to a persuasion, almost to a solicitation, that I would embrace that calling. And thou who hadst put that 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 by this man of God, and God of men, put into the pool and recovered: when I asked, perchance, a stone, he gave me bread; when I asked, perchance, a scorpion, he gave me a fish; when I asked a temporal office, he denied not, 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 only a witness, but an instance, that our Jehoshaphat hath a care to ordainpriests, as well as judges:[126]and not only to send physicians for temporal but to be the physician for spiritual health.

VIII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou have reserved thy treasure of perfect joy and perfect glory to be given by thine own hands then, when, by seeing thee as thou art in thyself, and knowing thee as we are known, we shall possess in an instant, and possess for ever, all that 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 the earnest we may give some estimate of the treasure, humbly and thankfully I acknowledge, that thy blessed Spirit instructs me to make a difference of thy blessings in this world, by that difference of the instruments by which it hath pleased thee to derive them unto me. As we see thee here in a glass, so we receive from thee here by reflection and by instruments. Even casual things come from thee; and that which we call fortune here hath another name above. Nature reaches out her hand and gives us corn, and wine, and oil, and milk; but thou fillest her hand before, and thou openest her hand that she may rain down her showers upon us. Industry reaches out her hand to us and gives us fruits of our labour for ourselves and our posterity; but thy hand guides that hand when it sows and when it waters, and the increase is from thee. Friends reach out their hands and prefer us; but thy hand supports that hand that supports us. Of all these thy instruments have I received thy blessing, O God; but bless thy name most for thegreatest; that, as a member of the public, and as a partaker of private favours too, by thy right hand, thy powerful hand set over us, I have had my portion not only in the hearing, but in the preaching of thy Gospel. Humbly beseeching thee, that as thou continuest thy wonted goodness upon the whole world by the wonted means and instruments, the same sun and moon, the same nature and industry, so to continue the same blessings upon this 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 sons ready to give an account and able to stand in that judgment, for their faithful stewardship and dispensation of thy talents so abundantly committed 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 a physician in thy proportion, who are the greatest in heaven, as he hath been in soul and body to me, in his proportion, who is the greatest upon earth.

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