Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel
My God, my God, how large a glass of the next world is this! As we have
an art, to cast from one glass to another, and so to carry the species a
great way off, so hast thou, that way, much more; we shall have a
resurrection in heaven; the knowledge of that thou castest by another
glass upon us here; we feel that we have a resurrection from sin, and
that by another glass too; we see we have a resurrection of the body
from the miseries and calamities of this life. This resurrection of my
body shows me the resurrection of my soul; and both here severally, of
both together hereafter. Since thy martyrs under the altar press thee
with their solicitation for the resurrection of the body to glory, thou
wouldst pardon me, if I should press thee by prayer for the
accomplishing of this resurrection, which thou hast begun in me, to
health. But, O my God, I do not ask, where I might ask amiss, nor beg
that which perchance might be worse for me. I have a bed of sin; delight
in 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 this
putrefaction; why dost thou not call me, as thou didst him, _with a loud
voice_,[297] since my soul is as dead as his body was? I need thy
thunder, O my God; thy music will not serve me. Thou hast called thy
servants, who are to work upon us in thine ordinance, by all these loud
names--winds, and chariots, and falls of waters; where thou wouldst be
heard, thou wilt be heard. When thy Son concurred with thee to the
making of man, there it is but a speaking, but a saying. There, O
blessed and glorious Trinity, was none to hear but you three, and you
easily hear one another, because you say the same things. But when thy
Son came to the work of redemption, thou spokest,[298] and they that
heard it took it for thunder; and thy Son himself cried with a loud
voice 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] says
he there. That which thou hast said is evident, and it is evident that
none 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 Lord
thundered from heaven_,[301] it might be heard; but this voice, thy
voice, is also a _mighty voice_;[302] not only mighty in power, it may
be heard, nor mighty in obligation, it should be heard; but mighty in
operation, it will be heard; and therefore hast thou bestowed a whole
psalm[303] upon us, to lead us to the consideration of thy voice. It is
such a voice as that thy Son says, _the dead shall hear it_;[304] and
that is my state. And why, O God, dost thou not speak to me, in that
effectual loudness? Saint John heard a voice, and _he turned about to
see the voice_:[305] sometimes we are too curious of the instrument by
what man God speaks; but thou speakest loudest when thou speakest to the
heart. _There was silence, and I heard a voice_, says one, to thy
servant Job.[306] I hearken after thy voice in thine ordinances, and I
seek 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. My
sins cry aloud; Cain's murder did so: my afflictions cry aloud; _the
floods have lifted up their voice_ (and waters are afflictions), _but
thou, O Lord, art mightier than the voice of many waters_;[307] than
many temporal, many spiritual afflictions, than any of either kind: and
why dost thou not speak to me in that voice? _What is man, and whereto
serveth he? What is his good and what is his evil?_[308] My bed of sin
is not evil, not desperately evil, for thou dost call me out of it; but
my rising out of it is not good (not perfectly good), if thou call not
louder, and hold me now I am up. O my God, I am afraid of a fearful
application of those words, _When a man hath done, then he
beginneth_;[309] when this body is unable to sin, his sinful memory sins
over his old sins again; and that which thou wouldst have us to remember
for 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 sick
in his bed:[311] thou hast not suffered that, that my servants should so
much 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 a
piece 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 taken
away_;[312] and even they that are secure from danger shall perish. How
much more might I, who was in the bed of death, die? But thou hast not
so dealt with me. As they brought out sick persons in beds, that thy
servant 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 wilt
thou do all? When wilt thou speak in thy loud voice? When wilt thou bid
me _take up my bed and walk_?[314] As my bed is my affections, when
shall 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 up
my bed and walk? Not lie down upon it, as it is my pleasure, not sink
under it, as it is my correction? But O my God, my God, the God of all
flesh, and of all spirit, to let me be content with that in my fainting
spirit, which thou declarest in this decayed flesh, that as this body is
content to sit still, that it may learn to stand, and to learn by
standing to walk, and by walking to travel, so my soul, by obeying this
thy voice of rising, may by a farther and farther growth of thy grace
proceed so, and be so established, as may remove all suspicions, all
jealousies 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 signify
great, and conveyed the infinite merits of thy Son in the water of
baptism, and in the bread and wine of thy other sacrament, unto us,
receive the sacrifice of my humble thanks, that thou hast not only
afforded me the ability to rise out of this bed of weariness and
discomfort, but hast also made this bodily rising, by thy grace, an
earnest of a second resurrection from sin, and of a third, to
everlasting glory. Thy Son himself, always infinite in himself, and
incapable of addition, was yet pleased to grow in the Virgin's womb, and
to grow in stature in the sight of men. Thy good purposes upon me, I
know, have their determination and perfection in thy holy will upon me;
there thy grace is, and there I am altogether; but manifest them so unto
me, in thy seasons, and in thy measures and degrees, that I may not only
have that comfort of knowing thee to be infinitely good, but that also
of finding thee to be every day better and better to me; and that as
thou gavest Saint Paul the messenger of Satan, to humble him so for my
humiliation, thou mayst give me thyself in this knowledge, that what
grace soever thou afford me to-day, yet I should perish to-morrow if I
had not had to-morrow's grace too. Therefore I beg of thee my daily
bread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, and
since 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 hast
infused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life: the
spiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; the
sacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the more
real 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, and
fish, and beasts, and worms, they did not importune thee, and say, Shall
we have no better creatures than these, no better companions than these?
but stayed thy leisure, and then had man delivered over to them, not
much inferior in nature to themselves. No more do I, O God, now that by
thy first mercy I am able to rise, importune thee for present
confirmation of health; nor now, that by thy mercy I am brought to see
that thy correction hath wrought medicinally upon me, presume I upon
that spiritual strength I have; but as I acknowledge that my bodily
strength is subject to every puff of wind, so is my spiritual strength
to every blast of vanity. Keep me therefore still, O my gracious God, in
such a proportion of both strengths, as I may still have something to
thank thee for, which I have received, and still something to pray for
and 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 the
house every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread with
weeds, all the body with diseases; where not only every turf, but every
stone bears weeds; not only every muscle of the flesh, but every bone of
the body hath some infirmity; every little flint upon the face of this
soil hath some infectious weed, every tooth in our head such a pain as
a constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that fear, of that sense
of 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 to
raise his rent! How many holidays to call him from his labour! Every day
is half holiday, half spent in sleep. What reparations, and subsidies,
and contributions he is put to, besides his rent! What medicines besides
his diet; and what inmates he is fain to take in, besides his own
family; what infectious diseases from other men! Adam might have had
Paradise for dressing and keeping it; and then his rent was not improved
to such a labour as would have made his brow sweat; and yet he gave it
over; how far greater a rent do we pay for this farm, this body, who pay
ourselves, who pay the farm itself, and cannot live upon it! Neither is
our labour at an end when we have cut down some weed as soon as it
sprung up, corrected some violent and dangerous accident of a disease
which would have destroyed speedily, nor when we have pulled up that
weed from the very root, recovered entirely and soundly from that
particular disease; but the whole ground is of an ill nature, the whole
soil ill disposed; there are inclinations, there is a propenseness to
diseases in the body, out of which, without any other disorder, diseases
will grow, and so we are put to a continual labour upon this farm, to a
continual study of the whole complexion and constitution of our body. In
the distempers and diseases of soils, sourness, dryness, weeping, any
kind of barrenness, the remedy and the physic is, for a great part,
sometimes in themselves; sometimes the very situation relieves them; the
hanger of a hill will purge and vent his own malignant moisture, and the
burning 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 kind