Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 1
1. Insultus Morbi primus; The first alteration, The first grudging of the sicknesse.
1. MEDITATION.
VAriable, and therfore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz'd with a sodaine change, & alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate vponupon our meats, and drink, and Ayre, and exercises, and we hew, and wee polish eueryevery stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long & a regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, ouerthrowes all, demolishes all; a Sicknes vnpreuented for all our diligence, vnsuspected for all our curiosi…ie; nay, vndeserued, if we consider only disorder, summons vsus, seizes vsus, possesses vsus, destroyes vsus in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by God; who as hee is immortall himselfe, had put a coale, a beame of Immortalitie into vsus, which we might hauehave blowen into a flame, but blew it ou…, by our first sinne; wee beggard our selues by hearkning after false riches, and infatuated our selues by hearkning after false knowledge. So that now, we doe not onelyonly die, but die vponupon the Rack, die by the torment of sicknesse; nor that onelyonly, but are pre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these ielousies and suspitions, and apprehensions of Sicknes, before we can cal it a sicknes; we are not sure we are ill; one hand askes the other by the pulse, and our eye askes our own vrine, how we do. O multiplied misery we die, and cannot enioy death, because wee die in this torment of sicknes; we are tormented with sicknes, & cannot stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehē sions and presages, prophecy those torments, which induce that death before either come… and our dissolution is conceiued in these first changes, quickned in the sicknes it selfe, and borne in death, which be…res date from these first changes. Is this the honour which Man hath by being a litle world, That he hath these earthquakes in him selfe, sodaine shakings; these lightnings, sodaine flashes; these thunders, sodaine noises; these E…clypses, sodain offuscations, & darknings of his senses; these blazing stars sodaine fiery exhalations; these riuers of blood, sodaine red waters? Is he a world to himselfe onelyonly therefore, that he ha…h inough in himself, not only to destroy, and execute himselfe, but to presage that execution vponupon himselfe; to as…ist the sicknes, to antidate the sicknes, to make the sicknes the more irremediable, by sad apprehensions, and as if hee would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water vponupon the coales, so to wrap a hote feuer in cold Melancholy, least the feuer alone shold not destroy fast enough, without this contribution, nor perfit the work (which is destruction) except we ioynd an artificiall sicknes, of our owne melancholy, to our natural, our vnnaturall feuer. O perplex'd discomposition, O ridling distemper, O miserable condition of Man.
1. EXPOSTVLATION.
IF I were but meere dust & ashes, I might speak vntounto the Lord, for the Lordes hand made me of this dust, and the Lords hand shall recollect these ashes; the Lords hand was the wheele, vponupon which this vessell of …lay was framed, and the Lordes hand is the Vrne, in which these ashes shall be preseru'd. I am the dust, & the ashes of the Temple of the H. Ghost; and what Marble is so precious? But I am more then dust & ashes; I am my best part, I am my soule. And being so, the breath of God, I may breath back these pious expostulations to my God. My God, my God, why is not my soule, as fensible as my body? Why hath not my soule these apprehensions, these presages, these changes, those antidates, those iealousies, those suspitions of a sinne … as well as my body of a sicknes? why is there not alwayes a pulse in my Soule, to beat at the approch of a tentation to sinne? why are there not alwayes waters in mine eyes, to testifie my spiritual sicknes? I stand in the way of tentations, (naturally, necessarily, all men doe so: for there is a Snake in eueryevery path, tentations in eueryevery vocation) but I go, I run, I flie into the wayes of tētation, which I might shun; nay, I breake into houses, wher the plague is; I presse into places of tentation, and tempt the deuill himselfe, and solicite & importune them, who had rather be left vnsolicited by me. I fall sick of Sin, and am bedded and bedrid, buried and putrified in the practise of Sin, and all this while ha…e no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sicknesse; O heighth, O depth of misery, where the first Symptome of the sicknes is Hell, & where I neuer fee the feuer of lust, of enuy, of ambition, by any other light, then the darknesse and horror of Hell it selfe… & where the first Messenger that speaks to me doth not say… Thou mayst die, no, nor Thou must die, but Thou art dead: and where the first notice, that my Soule hath of her sicknes, is irrecouerablenes, irremediablenes: but, O my God, Iob did not charge thee foolishly, in his temporall afflictions, nor may I in my spirituall. Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our Soule, but we do not examine it; a voice in our conscience, but wee doe not hearken vntounto it. We talk it out, we iest it out, we drinke it out, we sleepe it out; and when wee wake, we doe not say with Iacob, Gen. 28.16.Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not: but though we might know it, we do not, we wil not. But will God pretend to make a Watch, and leaue out the springe? to make so many various wheels in the faculties of the Soule, and in the organs of the body, and leaue out Grace, that should moue them? or wil God make a springe, and not wind it vp? Infuse his first grace, & not second it with more, without which, we can no more vse his first grace, when we hauehave it, then wee could dispose our selues by Nature, to hauehave it? But alas, that is not our case; we are all prodigall sonnes, and not disinherited; wee hauehave receiued our portion, and misspent it, not bin denied it. We are Gods tenants heere, and yet here, he, our Land-lord payes vsus Rents; not yearely, nor quarterly, but hourely, and quarterly; EueryEvery minute he renewes his mercy, but wee will not vnderstand, Mat. 13… 16.least that we should be conuerted, and he should heale vsus.
1. PRAYER.
O Eternall, and most gracious God, who considered in thy selfe, art a Circle, first and last, and altogether; but considered in thy working vponupon vsus, art a direct line, and leadest vsus from our beginning, through all our wayes, to our end, enable me by thy grace, to looke forward to mine end, and to looke backward to, to the cō siderations of thy mercies afforded mee from the beginning; that so by that practise of considering thy mercy, in my beginning in this world, when thou plā tedst me in the Christian Church, and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world, whē thou writest me in the Booke of life, in my Election, I may come to a holy consideration of thy mercy, in the beginning of all my actions here… That in all the begin…nings, in all the accesses and approches of spiri…tuall sicknesses of Sinn, may heare and hearke… to that voice,2 Reg. 4.40. O thou Ma… of God, there is death in th… pot, and so refraine from that, which I was so hungerly, so greedily flying to.Prou. 13.17. A faithfull Am…bassador is health, says thy wise seruant Solomon … Thy voice receiued, in the beginning of a sicknesse, of a sinne, is true health. If I can see that light betimes, and heare that voyce early, Then shall my light breake forth as the morning, Esa. 58.8and my health shall spriug foorth speedily. Deliuer mee therefore, O my God, from these vaine imaginations; that it is an ouercurious thing, a dangerous thing, to come to that tendernesse, that rawnesse, that scrupulousnesse, to feare eueryevery concupiscence, eueryevery offer of Sin, that this suspicious, & iealous diligence will turne to an inordinate deiection of spirit, and a diffidence in thy care & prouidence; bu… keep me still establish'd, both in a constant assurance, that thou wil… speake to me at the beginning of eueryevery such sicknes, at the approach of eueryevery such Sinne; and that, if I take knowledg of that voice then, an… flye to thee, thou wil… preserue mee from falling, or raise me againe when by naturall infirmitie… I am fallen: do… this, O Lord, for his sake who knowes our naturall infirmities, for he had them; and knowes the weight of our sinns, for he paid a deare price for them, thy Sonne, our Sauiour, Chr: Iesus, Amen.