Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel
occasion this voice, this sound, is come to me. For though he be by
death transplanted to thee, and so in possession of inexpressible
happiness there, yet here upon earth thou hast given us such a portion
of heaven, as that though men dispute whether thy saints in heaven do
know what we in earth in particular do stand in need of, yet, without
all disputation, we upon earth do know what thy saints in heaven lack
yet for the consummation of their happiness, and therefore thou hast
afforded us the dignity that we may pray for them. That therefore this
soul, now newly departed to thy kingdom, may quickly return to a joyful
reunion to that body which it hath left, and that we with it may soon
enjoy the full consummation of all in body and soul, I humbly beg at thy
hand, O our most merciful God, for thy Son Christ Jesus' sake. That that
blessed Son of thine may have the consummation of his dignity, by
entering into his last office, the office of a judge, and may have
society 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 in
the abolishing of all instruments of sin, the allurements of this world,
and the world itself; and all the temporary revenges of sin, the stings
of sickness and of death; and all the castles, and prisons, and
monuments of sin, in the grave. That time may be swallowed up in
eternity, and hope swallowed in possession, and ends swallowed in
infiniteness, and all men ordained to salvation in body and soul be one
entire and everlasting sacrifice to thee, where thou mayst receive
delight 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: they
have so good signs of the concoction of the disease, as that they may
safely proceed to purge._
XIX. MEDITATION.
All this while the physicians themselves have been patients, patiently
attending when they should see any land in this sea, any earth, any
cloud, any indication of concoction in these waters. Any disorder of
mine, any pretermission of theirs, exalts the disease, accelerates the
rages of it; no diligence accelerates the concoction, the maturity of
the disease; they must stay till the season of the sickness come; and
till it be ripened of itself, and then they may put to their hand to
gather it before it fall off, but they cannot hasten the ripening. Why
should we look for it in a disease, which is the disorder, the discord,
the irregularity, the commotion and rebellion of the body? It were
scarce 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 cannot
have it in nature, who is so regular and so pregnant, so forward to
bring her work to perfection and to light? Yet we cannot awake the July
flowers in January, nor retard the flowers of the spring to autumn. We
cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to stick on in
December. A woman that is weak cannot put off her ninth month to a tenth
for her delivery, and say she will stay till she be stronger; nor a
queen cannot hasten it to a seventh, that she may be ready for some
other 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. Nature
would not be spurred, nor forced to mend her pace; nor power, the power
of man, greatness, loves not that kind of violence neither. There are of
them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they
have their own seasons for all these, and he that knows not them shall
starve before that gift come, and ruin before the justice, and die
before the pardon save him. Some tree bears no fruit, except much dung
be laid about it; and justice comes not from some till they be richly
manured: some trees require much visiting, much watering, much labour;
and some men give not their fruits but upon importunity: some trees
require incision, and pruning, and lopping; some men must be intimidated
and syndicated with commissions, before they will deliver the fruits of
justice: 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, not
only their liberality, but their justice and their compassion, till the
solicitation of a wife, or a son, or a friend, or a servant, turn the
key. Reward is the season of one man, and importunity of another; fear
the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of
one man, and natural affection of another; and he that knows not their
seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the fruits: as nature will not,
so power and greatness will not be put to change their seasons, and
shall we look for this indulgence in a disease, or think to shake it off
before it be ripe? All this while, therefore, we are but upon a
defensive war, and that is but a doubtful state; especially where they
who are besieged do know the best of their defences, and do not know
the worst of their enemy's power; when they cannot mend their works
within, and the enemy can increase his numbers without. O how many far
more miserable, and far more worthy to be less miserable than I, are
besieged with this sickness, and lack their sentinels, their physicians
to watch, and lack their munition, their cordials to defend, and perish
before the enemy's weakness might invite them to sally, before the
disease 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, and
so 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, a
God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain
sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to
thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy
diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in
whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such
peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions,
such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of
hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved
expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such
sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane
authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove
that flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressible
texture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argument
that binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is the
reverent 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 all
should 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 house
and a grave of the same earth; so, Lord, thou givest us the same word
for our satisfaction and for our inquisition, for our instruction and
for our admiration too; for there are places that thy servants Hierom
and Augustine would scarce believe (when they grew warm by mutual
letters) of one another, that they understood them, and yet both Hierom
and Augustine call upon persons whom they knew to be far weaker than
they thought one another (old women and young maids) to read the
Scriptures, without confining them to these or those places. Neither art
thou thus a figurative, a metaphorical God in thy word only, but in thy
works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, is
metaphorical The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was a
continual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed
into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures;
circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figure
of 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 of
thy 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 a
gate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of man? How much
oftener doth he exhibit a metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal?
This hath occasioned thine ancient servants, whose delight it was to
write after thy copy, to proceed the same way in their expositions of
the Scriptures, and in their composing both of public liturgies and of
private prayers to thee, to make their accesses to thee in such a kind
of language as thou wast pleased to speak to them, in a figurative, in a
metaphorical language, in which manner I am bold to call the comfort
which I receive now in this sickness in the indication of the concoction
and maturity thereof, in certain clouds and recidences, which the
physicians observe, a discovering of land from sea after a long and
tempestuous voyage. But wherefore, O my God, hast thou presented to us
the afflictions and calamities of this life in the name of waters? so
often in the name of waters, and deep waters, and seas of waters? Must
we look to be drowned? are they bottomless, are they boundless? That is
not the dialect of thy language; thou hast given a remedy against the
deepest water by water; against the inundation of sin by baptism; and
the first life that thou gavest to any creatures was in waters:
therefore thou dost not threaten us with an irremediableness when our
affliction is a sea. It is so if we consider ourselves; so thou callest
Genezareth, which was but a lake, and not salt, a sea; so thou callest
the Mediterranean sea still the great sea, because the inhabitants saw
no other sea; they that dwelt there thought a lake a sea, and the others
thought a little sea, the greatest, and we that know not the afflictions
of others call our own the heaviest. But, O my God, that is truly great
that overflows the channel, that is really a great affliction which is
above my strength; but thou, O God, art my strength, and then what can
be above it? _Mountains shake with the swelling of thy sea_;[265]
secular mountains, men strong in power; spiritual mountains, men strong
in grace, are shaken with afflictions; but _thou layest up thy sea in
storehouses_;[266] even thy corrections are of thy treasure, and thou
wilt not waste thy corrections; when they have done their service to
humble thy patient, thou wilt call them in again, for _thou givest the
sea thy decree, that the waters should not pass thy commandment_.[267]
All our waters shall run into Jordan, and thy servants passed Jordan dry
foot;[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 sail
on the sea tell of the danger thereof_.[269] I that am yet in this
affliction, owe thee the glory of speaking of it; but, as the wise man
bids me, I say, I _may speak much and come short, wherefore in sum thou