Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel
Mephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatest
man, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have not
so much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure for
infinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave; he that hath
his grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buried
in the same grave; he that hath no grave but a dunghill, he that hath no
more earth but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hath
not that earth which he is, but even in that is another's slave, hath as
much proportion to God, as if all David's worthies, and all the world's
monarchs, and all imagination's giants, were kneaded and incorporated
into one, and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons of
men, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever I
be, as _God calls things that are not, as though they were_, I, who am
as though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, why
comes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost thou melt me, scatter me,
pour me like water upon the ground so instantly? Thou stayedst for the
first world, in Noah's time, one hundred and twenty years; thou stayedst
for a rebellious generation in the wilderness forty years, wilt thou
stay no minute for me? Wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thy
citation and thy judgment, but one act? Thy summons, thy battle, thy
victory, thy triumph, all but one act; and lead me captive, nay, deliver
me captive to death, as soon as thou declarest me to be enemy, and so
cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, and
for that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but that
the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, my
God, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentle
air. Thy first breath breathed a soul into me, and shall thy breath blow
it out? Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathes
communion and consolation here, and consummation hereafter; shall thy
breath in this chamber breathe dissolution and destruction, divorce and
separation? Surely it is not thou, it is not thy hand. The devouring
sword, the consuming fire, the winds from the wilderness, the diseases
of the body, all that afflicted Job, were from the hands of Satan; it is
not thou. It is thou, thou my God, who hast led me so continually with
thy hand, from the hand of my nurse, as that I know thou wilt not
correct me, but with thine own hand. My parents would not give me over
to a servant's correction, nor my God to Satan's. I am _fallen into the
hands of God_ with David, and with David I see that his mercies are
great.[7] For by that mercy, I consider in my present state, not the
haste and the despatch of the disease, in dissolving this body, so much
as the much more haste and despatch, which my God shall use, in
re-collecting and re-uniting this dust again at the resurrection. Then I
shall hear his angels proclaim the _Surgite mortui_, Rise, ye dead.
Though I be dead, I shall hear the voice; the sounding of the voice and
the working of the voice shall be all one; and all shall rise there in a
less minute than any one dies here.
II. PRAYER.
O most gracious God, who pursuest and perfectest thine own purposes, and
dost not only remember me, by the first accesses of this sickness, that
I must die, but inform me, by this further proceeding therein, that I
may die now; who hast not only waked me with the first, but called me
up, by casting me further down, and clothed me with thyself, by
stripping me of my self, and by dulling my bodily senses to the meats
and eases of this world, hast whet and sharpened my spiritual senses to
the apprehension of thee; by what steps and degrees soever it shall
please thee to go, in the dissolution of this body, hasten, O Lord, that
pace, and multiply, O my God, those degrees, in the exaltation of my
soul toward thee now, and to thee then. My taste is not gone away, but
gone up to sit at David's table, _to taste, and see, that the Lord is
good_.[8] My stomach is not gone, but gone up, so far upwards toward the
_supper of the Lamb_, with thy saints in heaven, as to the table, to the
communion of thy saints here in earth. My knees are weak, but weak
therefore that I should easily fall to and fix myself long upon my
devotions to thee. _A sound heart is the life of the flesh_;[9] and a
heart visited by thee, and directed to thee, by that visitation is a
sound heart. _There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine
anger._[10] Interpret thine own work, and call this sickness correction,
and not anger, and there is soundness in my flesh. _There is no rest in
my bones, because of my sin_;[11] transfer my sins, with which thou art
so displeased, upon him with whom thou art so well pleased, Christ
Jesus, and there will be rest in my bones. And, O my God, who madest
thyself a light in a bush, in the midst of these brambles and thorns of
a sharp sickness, appear unto me so that I may see thee, and know thee
to be my God, applying thyself to me, even in these sharp and thorny
passages. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who was not the less the King
of heaven for thy suffering him to be crowned with thorns in this world.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Matt. xiii. 15.
[2] 2 Kings, iv. 40.
[3] Prov. xiii. 17.
[4] Isaiah, lviii. 8.
[5] 1 Sam. xxiv. 15.
[6] 2 Sam. ix. 8.
[7] 2 Sam. xxiv. 14.
[8] Psalm xxxiv. 8.
[9] Prov. xiv. 30.
[10] Psalm xxxviii. 3.
[11] Psalm xxxviii. 3.
III. DECUBITUS SEQUITUR TANDEM.
_The patient takes his bed._
III. MEDITATION.
We attribute but one privilege and advantage to man's body above other
moving creatures, that he is not, as others, grovelling, but of an
erect, of an upright, form naturally built and disposed to the
contemplation of heaven. Indeed it is a thankful form, and recompenses
that soul, which gives it, with carrying that soul so many feet higher
towards heaven. Other creatures look to the earth; and even that is no
unfit object, no unfit contemplation for man, for thither he must come;
but because man is not to stay there, as other creatures are, man in his
natural form is carried to the contemplation of that place which is his
home, heaven. This is man's prerogative; but what state hath he in this
dignity? A fever can fillip him down, a fever can depose him; a fever
can bring that head, which yesterday carried a crown of gold five feet
towards a crown of glory, as low as his own foot to-day. When God came
to breathe into man the breath of life, he found him flat upon the
ground; when he comes to withdraw that breath from him again, he
prepares him to it by laying him flat upon his bed. Scarce any prison so
close that affords not the prisoner two or three steps. The anchorites
that barked themselves up in hollow trees and immured themselves in
hollow walls, that perverse man that barrelled himself in a tub, all
could stand or sit, and enjoy some change of posture. A sick bed is a
grave, and all that the patient says there is but a varying of his own
epitaph. Every night's bed is a type of the grave; at night we tell our
servants at what hour we will rise, here we cannot tell ourselves at
what day, what week, what month. Here the head lies as low as the foot;
the head of the people as low as they whom those feet trod upon; and
that hand that signed pardons is too weak to beg his own, if he might
have it for lifting up that hand. Strange fetters to the feet, strange
manacles to the hands, when the feet and hands are bound so much the
faster, by how much the cords are slacker; so much the less able to do
their offices, by how much more the sinews and ligaments are the looser.
In the grave I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends,
and in the accents of those words which their love may afford my memory;
here I am mine own ghost, and rather affright my beholders than instruct
them; they conceive the worst of me now, and yet fear worse; they give
me for dead now, and yet wonder how I do when they wake at midnight, and
ask how I do to-morrow. Miserable, and (though common to all) inhuman
posture, where I must practise my lying in the grave by lying still, and
not practise my resurrection by rising any more.
III. EXPOSTULATION.
My God and my Jesus, my Lord and my Christ, my strength and my
salvation, I hear thee, and I hearken to thee, when thou rebukest thy
disciples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; _Suffer
little children to come to me_, sayest thou.[12] Is there a verier child
than I am now? I cannot say, with thy servant Jeremy, _Lord, I am a
child, and cannot speak_; but, O Lord, I am a sucking child, and cannot
eat; a creeping child, and cannot go; how shall I come to thee? Whither
shall I come to thee? To this bed? I have this weak and childish
frowardness too, I cannot sit up, and yet am loth to go to bed. Shall I
find thee in bed? Oh, have I always done so? The bed is not ordinarily
thy scene, thy climate: Lord, dost thou not accuse me, dost thou not
reproach to me my former sins, when thou layest me upon this bed? Is not
this to hang a man at his own door, to lay him sick in his own bed of
wantonness? When thou chidest us by thy prophet for lying in _beds of
ivory_[13], is not thine anger vented; not till thou changest our beds
of ivory into beds of ebony? David swears unto thee, _that he will not
go up into his bed, till he had built thee a house_.[14] To go up into
the bed denotes strength, and promises ease; but when thou sayest, _that
thou wilt cast Jezebel into a bed_, thou makest thine own comment upon
that; thou callest the bed tribulation, great tribulation.[15] How shall
they come to thee whom thou hast nailed to their bed? Thou art in the
congregation, and I in a solitude: when the centurion's servant lay sick
at home,[16] his master was fain to come to Christ; the sick man could
not. Their friend lay sick of the palsy, and the four charitable men
were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come.[17] Peter's wife's
mother lay sick of a fever, and Christ came to her; she could not come
to him.[18] My friends may carry me home to thee, in their prayers in
the congregation; thou must come home to me in the visitation of thy
Spirit, and in the seal of thy sacrament. But when I am cast into this
bed my slack sinews are iron fetters, and those thin sheets iron doors
upon me; and, _Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and the
place where thine honour dwelleth_.[19] I lie here and say, _Blessed are
they that dwell in thy house_;[20] but I cannot say, _I will come into
thy house_; I may say, _In thy fear will I worship towards thy holy
temple_;[21] but I cannot say in thy holy temple. And, _Lord, the zeal
of thy house eats me up_,[22] as fast as my fever; it is not a
recusancy, for I would come, but it is an excommunication, I must not.
But, Lord, thou art Lord of hosts, and lovest action; why callest thou
me from my calling? _In the grave no man shall praise thee_; in the door
of the grave, this sick bed, no man shall hear me praise thee. Thou hast
not opened my lips that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but that my
mouth might show forth thy praise. But thine apostle's fear takes hold
of me, _that when I have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway_;[23] and therefore am I cast down, that I might not be cast
away. Thou couldst take me by the head, as thou didst Habbakuk, and
carry me so; by a chariot, as thou didst Elijah,[24] and carry me so;
but thou carriest me thine own private way, the way by which thou
carriedst thy Son, who first lay upon the earth and prayed, and then had
his exaltation, as himself calls his crucifying; and first descended