Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 7
10. Lentè & Serpenti satagunt occurrere Morbo. They find the Disease to steale on insensibly, and endeauour to meet with it so.
10. MEDITATION.
THis is Natures nest of Boxes; The Heauens containe the Earth, the Earth, Cities, Cities, Men. And all these are Concentrique; the common center to them all, is decay, ruine; only that is Ecoentrique, which was neuer made, only that place, or garment rather, which we can imagine, but not demonstrate, That light, which is the very emanation of the light of God, in which the Saints shall dwell, with which the Saints shall be appareld, only that bends not to this Center, to Ruine; that which was not made of Nothing, is not threatned with this annihilation. All other things are; euen A…gels, euē our soules; they moue vponupon the same poles, they bend to the same Center; and if they were not made immortall by preseruation, their Nature could not keepe them from sinking to this center, Annihilation. In all these (the frame of the heuens, the States vpō earth, & Men in them, comprehend all) Those are the greatest mischifs, which are least discerned; the most insensible in their wayes come to bee the most sensible in their ends. The Heauens hauehave had their Dropsie, they drownd the world, and they shall hauehave their Feuer, and burn the world. Of the dropsie, the flood, the world had a foreknowledge 120 yeares before it came; and so some made prouision against it, and were sau…d… the feuer shall break out in an instant, & consume all; The dropsie did no harm to the heauens, frō whence it fell, it did not put out those lights, it did not quench those heates; but the feuer, the fire shall burne the furnace it selfe, annihilate those heauens, that b…eath it out; Though the Dog-Starre hauehave a pestilent breath, an infectious exhalation, yet because we know when it wil rise, we clo…he our selues, & wee die… our selues, and wee shadow our selues to a sufficient preuētion; but Comets and blazing starres, whose effects, or significations no man can interrupt or frustrat, no man foresaw: no Almanack tells vsus, when a blazing starre will bre…k out, the matter is carried vp in secret; no Astrologer tels vsus when the effects wil be accomplishd, for thats a secret of a higher spheare, then the other; and that which is most secret, is most dangerous. It is so also here in the societies of men, in States, & Commōwealths. Twentie rebellious drums make not so dāgerous a noise, as a few whisperers, and secret plotters in corners. The Canon doth not so much hurt against a wal, as a Myne vnderunder the wall; nor a thousand enemies that threaten, so much as a few that take an oath to say nothing. God knew many heauy sins of the people, in the wildernes and after, but still he charges thē with that one, with Murmuring, murmuring in their hearts, secret disobediences, secre… repugn…nces against his declar'd wil; and th…se are the most deadly, the most pernicious. And it is so to, with the diseases of the body; and that is my case. The pulse, the vrine, the sweat, all hauehave sworn to say nothing, to giuegive no Indication of any dangerous sicknesse. My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; my prouisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; my counsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehēsions, to work vponupon mine vnderstāding… and yet they see, that inuisibly, & I feele, that insensibly the disease preuailes. The disease hath established a Kingdome, an Empire in mee, and will hauehave certaine Arcana Imperij, secrets of State, by which it will proceed, & not be boūd to declare …hem. But yet against those secret conspiracies in the State, the Magistrate hath the ra…k … and against these insensible diseases, Phisicians hauehave their examiners; and those these imploy now.
10. EXPOSTVLATION.
MY God, my God, I hauehave bin told, and told by relation, by her own brother, that did it, by thy seruant Nazianzen, that his Sister in the vehemēcy of her prayer, did vse to threaten thee, with a holy importunitie, with a pious impudencie. I dare not doe so, O… God; but as thy seruant Augustin, wisht that Adam had not sinned, therefore that Christ might not hauehave died, may I not to this one purpose wish,Iosephus. That if the Serpent before the tentation of Eue, did goe vpright, and speake, that he did so still, because I should the sooner heare him, if he spoke, the sooner see him, if he went vpright? In his curse, I am cursed too; his creeping vndoes mee: for howsoeuer hee begin at the heele, and doe but bruise that;Iere. 9.21 yet he, and Death in him is come into our windowes; into our Eyes, and Eares, the entrāces, & inlets of our soule. He works vponupon vsus in secret, & we doe not discerne him; And one great work of his vponupon vsus, is to make vsus so like himselfe, as to sin in secret, that others may not see vsus; But his Master-piece is, to make vsus sin in secret so, as that we may not see our selus sin. For the first, the hiding of our sins from other men, hee hath induo'd that, which was his off-spring from the beginning,Io. 8.44. A lye: for man, is in Nature, yet, in posses…ion of some such sparkes of ingenuitie, & noblenesse, as that, but to disguise Euill, hee would not lye. The bodie, the sinne, is the Serpents, and the garment that couers it, the lye, is his too. These are his; but the hiding of sinne from our selues, is Hee himselfe: when we hauehave the sting of the Serpent in vsus, and doe not sting our selues, the venim of sin, and no remorse for sinn, then, as thy blessed Sonne said of Iudas, Hee is a deuill, Ioh. 6.70not that he had one, but was one, so we are become deuils to our selues, and we hauehave not only a Serpent in our bosome, but we our selues, are to our selues that Serpent. How farre did thy seruant Dauid presse vponupon thy pardon, in that petition,Ps. 19.12 Clense thou me from secret sinns? can any sin bee secret? for, a great part of our sinnes, though, sayes thy Prophet, we conceiue them in the darke, vponupon ou… bed, yet sayes he, We doe them in the light; there are many sins, which we glorie in doing, and would not doe, if no body should know thē. Thy blessed seruant August confesses, that hee was ashamed of his shamefastnes, and tendernesse of Conscience, and that he often be lied himself with sinnes, which he neuer did, lest he should be vnacceptable to his sinfull companions. But if we would conceale them, (thy Pr… phet found such a desire, and such a practise in some, whē he said,Esay 47.10. Thou hast trusted in thy wickedkednes, and thou hast sayd, None shall see me) yet can we conceale thē? Thou O God, canst heare of them by others; The voice of Abels blood, Gen. 4.10.will tell thee of Cains murder; the Heauens themselues will tell thee Heauē shal reueale his iniquity;Ier. 20.27. a smal creature alone, shall doe it,Eccle. 10.20. A bird of the ayre shall carry the voice, and tell the matter: Thou wilt trouble no Informer, thou thy selfe reuealedst Adams sin,Gen. 3.8. to thy selfe; And the manifestation of sin is so ful to thee,Eccles. 12.14. as that thou shalt reueale all to all, Thou shalt bring eueryevery worke to Iudgement, with eueryevery secret thing, and there is nothing couered, that shall not bee reuealed:Mat. 10.26. But, O my God, there is another way of knowing my sins, which thou louest better then any of these; To know them by my Confession. As Phisicke works so, it drawes the peccant humour to it selfe, that when it is gathered together, the weight of it selfe may carry that humour away, so thy Spirit returns to my Memory my former sinnes, that being so recollected, they may powre out them…elues by Confession. When I kept silence, sayes thy seruant Dauid, day, and night, thy hand was heauy vponupon mee, Psal. 32.34.But when I said,8.5. I wil confesse my transgressions vntounto the Lord, thou forgauest the iniquitie of my sinne. Thou interpretest the very pu… pose of Confession so well, as that thou scarce leauest any new Mercy for the action it selfe. This Mercy thou leauest, that thou armest vsus thereupon, against relapses into the sinnes which wee hauehave confessed. And that mercy, which thy seruant Augustine apprehends, when he sayes to thee, Thou hast forgiuē me those sinnes which I hauehave done, and those sinnes which only by thy grace I hauehave not done: they were done in our inclination to them, and euen that inclination needs thy mercy, and that Mercy he calls a Pardon. And these are most truly secret sinnes, because they were neuer done, and because no other man, nor I my selfe, but onelyonly thou knowest, how many and how great sinnes I hauehave scaped by thy grace, which without that, I should hauehave multiplied against thee.
10. PRAYER.
O Eternall, and most gracious God, who as thy Sonne Christ Iesus, though hee knew all things, yet said hee knew not the day of Iudgement, because he knew it not so, as that he might tell it vsus; so though thou knowest all my sins, yet thou knowest them not to my comfort, except thou know them by my telling them to th…e, how shall I bring to thy knowledg by that way, those sinns, which I my selfe know not? If I accuse my selfe of Originall sin, wilt thou ask me if I know what originall sin is? I know not enough of it to satisfie others, but I know enough to condemne my self, & to solicit thee. If I confesse to thee the sinnes of my youth, wilt thou aske me, if I know what those sins were? I know them not so well, as to name them all, nor am sure to liue houres enough to name them al, (for I did thē then, faster then I can speak them now, when eueryevery thing that I did, conduc'd to some sinne) but I know thē so well, as to know, that nothing but thy mercy is so infinite as they. If the naming of Sinnes, of Thought, Word, and Deed, of sinns of Omission, and of Action, of sins against thee, against my neighbour, and against my self, of sinns vnrepented, and sinnes relapsed into after Repentance, of sinnes of Ignorance, and sinnes against the testimonie of my Conscience, of sinnes against thy Commaundements, sinnes against thy Sonnes Prayer, and sinns against our owne Creed, of sins against the laws of that Church, & sinnes against the lawes of that State, in which thou hast giuen mee my station, If the naming o… these sinnes reach not home to all mine, I know what will; O Lord pardon me, me, all those sinnes, which thy Sonne Christ Iesus suffered for, who suffered for all the sinnes of all the world; for there is no sinne amongst all those which had not been my sinne, if thou hadst not beene my God, and antidated me a pardon in thy preuenting grace. And since sinne in the nature of it, retaines still so much of the author of it, that it is a Serpent, insensibly insinuating it selfe, into my Soule, let thy brazen Serpent, (the contemplation of thy Sonne crucified for me) be euermore present to me, for my recouery against the sting of the first Serpent; That so, as I hauehave a Lyon against a Lyon, The Lyon of the Tribe of Iudah, against that Lyon, that seekes whom hee may deuoure, so I may hauehave a Serpent against a Serpent, the Wisedome of the Serpent, against the Malice of the Serpent, And, both against that Lyon, and Serpent, forcible, and subtill tentations, Thy Doue with thy Oliue, in thy Arke, Humilitie, and Peace, and Reconciliation to thee, by the ordinances of thy Church… Amen.