Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel
thou hast not left thy holy one in hell, thy Son is not there); but
these spots upon my breast, and upon my soul, shall appear to me as the
constellations of the firmament, to direct my contemplation to that
place where thy Son is, thy right hand.
XIII. PRAYER.
O eternal and most gracious God, who as thou givest all for nothing, if
we consider any precedent merit in us, so givest nothing for nothing, if
we consider the acknowledgment and thankfulness which thou lookest for
after, accept my humble thanks, both for thy mercy, and for this
particular mercy, that in thy judgment I can discern thy mercy, and find
comfort in thy corrections. I know, O Lord, the ordinary discomfort that
accompanies that phrase, that the house is visited, and that, that thy
marks and thy tokens are upon the patient; but what a wretched and
disconsolate hermitage is that house which is not visited by thee, and
what 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 thy
chafing of the wax, that thou mightst seal me to thee: these spots are
but the letters in which thou hast written thine own name and conveyed
thyself to me; whether for a present possession, by taking me now, or
for a future reversion, by glorifying thyself in my stay here, I limit
not, I condition not, I choose not, I wish not, no more than the house
or land that passeth by any civil conveyance. Only be thou ever present
to me, O my God, and this bedchamber and thy bedchamber shall be all one
room, and the closing of these bodily eyes here, and the opening of the
eyes 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 critical
days._
XIV. MEDITATION.
I would not make man worse than he is, nor his condition more miserable
than it is. But could I though I would? As a man cannot flatter God, nor
overpraise him, so a man cannot injure man, nor undervalue him. Thus
much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those false
happinesses which he hath in this world, have their times, and their
seasons, and their critical days; and they are judged and denominated
according to the times when they befall us. What poor elements are our
happinesses made of, if time, time which we can scarce consider to be
any thing, be an essential part of our happiness! All things are done in
some place; but if we consider place to be no more but the next hollow
superficies of the air, alas! how thin and fluid a thing is air, and how
thin a film is a superficies, and a superficies of air! All things are
done in time too, but if we consider time to be but the measure of
motion, 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, and
the other is not yet), and that which you call present, is not now the
same that it was when you began to call it so in this line (before you
sound that word present, or that monosyllable now, the present and the
now is past). If this imaginary, half-nothing time, be of the essence of
our happinesses, how can they be thought durable? Time is not so; how
can they be thought to be? Time is not so; not so considered in any of
the parts thereof. If we consider eternity, into that time never
entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is a
short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it
is, though time had never been. If we consider, not eternity, but
perpetuity; not that which had no time to begin in, but which shall
outlive time, and be when time shall be no more, what a minute is the
life of the durablest creature compared to that! and what a minute is
man's life in respect of the sun's, or of a tree? and yet how little of
our life is occasion, opportunity to receive good in; and how little of
that occasion do we apprehend and lay hold of? How busy and perplexed a
cobweb is the happiness of man here, that must be made up with a
watchfulness to lay hold upon occasion, which is but a little piece of
that which is nothing, time? and yet the best things are nothing without
that. Honours, pleasures, possessions, presented to us out of time? in
our 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 them
who give it; nor pleasures to us, who have lost our sense to taste
them; nor possessions to us, who are departing from the possession of
them. Youth is their critical day, that judges them, that denominates
them, that inanimates and informs them, and makes them honours, and
pleasures, and possessions; and when they come in an unapprehensive age,
they come as a cordial when the bell rings out, as a pardon when the
head is off. We rejoice in the comfort of fire, but does any man cleave
to it at midsummer? We are glad of the freshness and coolness of a
vault, but does any man keep his Christmas there; or are the pleasures
of the spring acceptable in autumn? If happiness be in the season, or in
the climate, how much happier then are birds than men, who can change
the climate and accompany and enjoy the same season ever.
XIV. EXPOSTULATION.
My God, my God, wouldst thou call thyself the ancient of days,[194] if
we were not to call ourselves to an account for our days? Wouldst thou
chide us for _standing idle here all the day_,[195] if we were sure to
have more days to make up our harvest? When thou bidst us _take no
thought for to-morrow, for sufficient unto the day_ (to every day) _is
the evil thereof_,[196] is this truly, absolutely, to put off all that
concerns the present life? When thou reprehendest the Galatians by thy
message to them, _That they observed days, and months, and times, and
years_,[197] when thou sendest by the same messenger to forbid the
Colossians all critical days, indicatory days, _Let no man judge you in
respect of a holy day, or of a new moon, or of a sabbath_,[198] dost
thou take away all consideration, all distinction of days? Though thou
remove them from being of the essence of our salvation, thou leavest
them for assistances, and for the exaltation of our devotion, to fix
ourselves, at certain periodical and stationary times, upon the
consideration of those things which thou hast done for us, and the
crisis, the trial, the judgment, how those things have wrought upon us
and disposed us to a spiritual recovery and convalescence. For there is
to every man a day of salvation. _Now is the accepted time, now is the
day 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 whole
armour of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day_.[201] So
far then our days must be critical to us, as that by consideration of
them, we may make a judgment of our spiritual health, for that is the
crisis of our bodily health. Thy beloved servant, St. John, wishes to
Gaius, _that he may prosper in his health, so as his soul
prospers_;[202] for if the soul be lean the marrow of the body is but
water; if the soul wither, the verdure and the good estate of the body
is but an illusion and the goodliest man a fearful ghost. Shall we, O my
God, determine our thoughts, and shall we never determine our
disputations upon our climacterical years, for particular men and
periodical years, for the life of states and kingdoms, and never
consider these in our long life, and our interest in the everlasting
kingdom? We have exercised our curiosity in observing that Adam, the
eldest of the eldest world, died in his climacterical year, and Shem,
the eldest son of the next world, in his; Abraham, the father of the
faithful, in his, and the blessed Virgin Mary, the garden where the
root of faith grew, in hers. But they whose climacterics we observe,
employed their observation upon their critical days, the working of thy
promise of a Messias upon them. And shall we, O my God, make less use of
those days who have more of them? We, who have not only the day of the
prophets, the first days, but the last days, in which thou hast spoken
unto us by thy Son?[203] We are the children of the day,[204] for thou
hast shined in as full a noon upon us as upon the Thessalonians: they
who were of the night (a night which they had superinduced upon
themselves), the Pharisees, pretended, _that if they had been in their
fathers' 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 of
the Son, stone those prophets again, and crucify that Son again, for all
those evident indications and critical judicatures which are afforded
us? Those opposed adversaries of thy Son, the Pharisees, with the
Herodians, watched a critical day; then when the state was incensed
against him, came to tempt him in the dangerous question of
tribute.[206] They left him, and that day was the critical day to the
Sadducees. The same day, says thy Spirit in thy word, the Sadducees came
to him to question him about the resurrection,[207] and them he
silenced; they left him, and this was the critical day for the Scribe,
expert in the law, who thought himself learneder than the Herodian, the
Pharisee, or Sadducee; and he tempted him about the great
commandment,[208] and him Christ left without power of replying. When
all was done, and that they went about to begin their circle of vexation
and temptation again, Christ silences them so, that as they had taken
their critical days, to come in that and in that day, so Christ imposes
a critical day upon them. _From that day forth_, says thy Spirit, _no
man durst ask him any more questions_.[209] This, O my God, my most
blessed God, is a fearful crisis, a fearful indication, when we will
study, and seek, and find, what days are fittest to forsake thee in; to
say, 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 old
religion, 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] though
thou 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 myself
this day. Since _a day is as a thousand years with thee_,[211] let, O
Lord, a day be as a week to me; and in this one, let me consider seven
days, seven critical days, and judge myself that I be not judged by
thee. First, this is the day of thy visitation, thy coming to me; and
would I look to be welcome to thee, and not entertain thee in thy coming
to me? We measure not the visitations of great persons by their apparel,
by their equipage, by the solemnity of their coming, but by their very
coming; and therefore, howsoever thou come, it is a crisis to me, that
thou wouldst not lose me who seekest me by any means. This leads me from
my first day, thy visitation by sickness, to a second, to the light and
testimony of my conscience. There I have an evening and a morning, a sad
guiltiness in my soul, but yet a cheerful rising of thy Sun too; thy