Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel
into hell, and then had his ascension. There is another station (indeed
neither are stations but prostrations) lower than this bed; to-morrow I
may be laid one story lower, upon the floor, the face of the earth; and
next day another story, in the grave, the womb of the earth. As yet God
suspends me between heaven and earth, as a meteor; and I am not in
heaven because an earthly body clogs me, and I am not in the earth
because 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, though
he die not, he that hurt him must take care of his healing, and
recompense 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, in
making the memory of this sickness beneficial to me; and if my body fall
yet lower, thou wilt take my soul out of this bath, and present it to
thy Father, washed again, and again, and again, in thine own tears, in
thine own sweat, in thine own blood.
III. PRAYER.
O most mighty and most merciful God, who, though thou have taken me off
of 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 could
stand and see thy throne, the heavens, yet hast not removed from me that
light by which I can lie and see thyself; who, though thou have weakened
my bodily knees, that they cannot bow to thee, hast yet left me the
knees of my heart; which are bowed unto thee evermore; as thou hast made
this bed thine altar, make me thy sacrifice; and as thou makest thy Son
Christ Jesus the priest, so make me his deacon, to minister to him in a
cheerful surrender of my body and soul to thy pleasure, by his hands. I
come unto thee, O God, my God, I come unto thee, so as I can come, I
come 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 wilt
make all my bed in my sickness_;[26] all my bed; that which way soever I
turn, I may turn to thee; and as I feel thy hand upon all my body, so I
may find it upon all my bed, and see all my corrections, and all my
refreshings to flow from one and the same, and all from thy hand. As
thou hast made these feathers thorns, in the sharpness of this sickness,
so, Lord, make these thorns feathers again, feathers of thy dove, in the
peace of conscience, and in a holy recourse to thine ark, to the
instruments of true comfort, in thy institutions and in the ordinances
of 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 terrify
my soul with saying, Now I have met thee there where thou hast so often
departed 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 heart
upon my bed, and be still_[27]; to provide a bed for all my former sins
whilst I lie upon this bed, and a grave for my sins before I come to my
grave; and when I have deposited them in the wounds of thy Son, to rest
in that assurance, that my conscience is discharged from further
anxiety, and my soul from further danger, and my memory from further
calumny. 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 for
me, 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 a
diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the
world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is. And if those pieces
were extended, and stretched out in man as they are in the world, man
would be the giant, and the world the dwarf; the world but the map, and
the man the world. If all the veins in our bodies were extended to
rivers, and all the sinews to veins of mines, and all the muscles that
lie 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 to
them in the world, the air would be too little for this orb of man to
move in, the firmament would be but enough for this star; for, as the
whole world hath nothing, to which something in man doth not answer, so
hath man many pieces of which the whole world hath no representation.
Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far as to
consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our
creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach
from east to west, from earth to heaven; that do not only bestride all
the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts
reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a
close prison, in a sick bed, any where, and any one of my creatures, my
thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and
overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere. And then, as the
other world produces serpents and vipers, malignant and venomous
creatures, and worms and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that
world which produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of
divers parents and kinds; so this world, ourselves, produces all these
in us, in producing diseases, and sicknesses of all those sorts:
venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, and
manifold and entangled diseases made up of many several ones. And can
the other world name so many venomous, so many consuming, so many
monstrous creatures, as we can diseases of all these kinds? O miserable
abundance, O beggarly riches! how much do we lack of having remedies for
every disease, when as yet we have not names for them? But we have a
Hercules against these giants, these monsters; that is, the physician;
he musters up all the forces of the other world to succour this, all
nature to relieve man. We have the physician, but we are not the
physician. Here we shrink in our proportion, sink in our dignity, in
respect of very mean creatures, who are physicians to themselves. The
hart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knows an herb, which being
eaten throws off the arrow: a strange kind of vomit. The dog that
pursues it, though he be subject to sickness, even proverbially, knows
his grass that recovers him. And it may be true, that the drugger is as
near to man as to other creatures; it may be that obvious and present
simples, easy to be had, would cure him; but the apothecary is not so
near him, nor the physician so near him, as they two are to other
creatures; man hath not that innate instinct, to apply those natural
medicines to his present danger, as those inferior creatures have; he is
not his own apothecary, his own physician, as they are. Call back
therefore thy meditation again, and bring it down: what's become of
man's great extent and proportion, when himself shrinks himself and
consumes himself to a handful of dust; what's become of his soaring
thoughts, his compassing thoughts, when himself brings himself to the
ignorance, to the thoughtlessness, of the grave? His diseases are his
own, but the physician is not; he hath them at home, but he must send
for the physician.
IV. EXPOSTULATION.
I have not the righteousness of Job, but I have the desire of Job: _I
would 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 far
wouldst thou have me go with the physician? I know thou hast made the
matter, and the man, and the art; and I go not from thee when I go to
the physician. Thou didst not make clothes before there was a shame of
the nakedness of the body, but thou didst make physic before there was
any grudging of any sickness; for thou didst imprint a medicinal virtue
in many simples, even from the beginning; didst thou mean that we should
be sick when thou didst so? when thou madest them? No more than thou
didst mean, that we should sin, when thou madest us: thou foresawest
both, but causedst neither. Thou, Lord, promisest here trees, _whose
fruit shall be for meat, and their leaves for medicine_.[29] It is the
voice of thy Son, _Wilt thou be made whole?_[30] that draws from the
patient a confession that he was ill, and could not make himself well.
And it is thine own voice, _Is there no physician?_[31] that inclines
us, disposes us, to accept thine ordinance. And it is the voice of the
wise man, both for the matter, physic itself, _The Lord hath created
medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise shall not abhor
them_,[32] and for the art, and the person, the physician cutteth off a
long disease. In all these voices thou sendest us to those helps which
thou 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 of
the physician_;[33] and wilt not thou afford me an understanding of
those words? Thou, who sendest us for a blessing to the physician, dost
not make it a curse to us to go when thou sendest. Is not the curse
rather in this, that only he falls into the hands of the physician, that
casts himself wholly, entirely upon the physician, confides in him,
relies upon him, attends all from him, and neglects that spiritual
physic which thou also hast instituted in thy church. So to fall into
the 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 the
physician_.[34] Reveal therefore to me thy method, O Lord, and see
whether I have followed it; that thou mayest have glory, if I have, and
I pardon, if I have not, and help that I may. Thy method is, _In time of
thy sickness, be not negligent_: wherein wilt thou have my diligence
expressed? _Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole._[35] O
Lord, I do; I pray, and pray thy servant David's prayer, _Have mercy
upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are
vexed_:[36] I know that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, to
induce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health.
When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, to
commiserate, as in misery? But is prayer for health in season, as soon
as I am sick? Thy method goes further: _Leave off from sin, and order
thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness_.[37] Have
I, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holy
detestation of my former sin. Is there any more? In thy method there is
more: _Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat
offering, 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 for
whom thou lentest it: and now in thy method, and by thy steps, I am come
to that, _Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created
him; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him_.[39] I send
for 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 I
look _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 and
strength, as that without thee all health is but the fuel, and all