Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 11
14. Id que notant Criticis, Medici euenisse Diebus. The Phisicians obserue these accidents to hauehave fallen vponupon the criticall dayes.
14. MEDITATION.
I Would not make Man worse then hee is, Nor his Condition more miserable then it is. But could I though I would? As a Man cannot flatter God, nor oue… prayse him, so a Man cannot iniure Man, no… vnderualue him. Thus much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those false Happinesses, which he hath in this World, hauehave their times, & their seasons, and their Critical d…yes, & they are Iudged, and Denominated according to the times, when they befall vsus. What poore Elements are our happinesses made off, if Tyme, Tyme which wee can scarce consider to be any thing, be an ess…ntial part of our h…pines? All things are done in some place; but if we consider place to be no more, but the next hollow Superficies of the Ayre, Alas, how thinne, & fluid a thing is Ayre, and how thinne a filme is a Superficies, and a Superficies of Ayre? All things are done in time too; but if we consider Tyme to be but the Measure of Motion, and howsoeuer it may seeme to hauehave three stations, past, present, and future, yet the first and last of these are not (one is not, now, & the other is not yet) And that which you call present, is not now the same that it wa…, when you began to call it so in this Line, (before you sound that word, present, or that Monosyllable, now, the present, & the Now is past,) if this Imaginary halfe-nothing, Tyme be of the Essence of our Happinesses, how can they be thought durable? Tyme is not so; How can they bee thought to be? Tyme is not so; not so, considered in any of the parts thereof. If we consider Eternity, into that, Tyme neuer Entred; Eternity is not an euerlasting flux of Tyme; but Tyme is as a short parenthesis in a longe period; and Eternity had bin the same, as it is, though time had neuer beene; If we consider, not Eternity, bu… Perpetuity, not that which had no tyme to beginne in, but whic… shall out-liue Tyme an… be, when Tyme shall be… no more, wh…t A Minu… is the life of the Durablest Creature, compare… to that? And what … Minute is Mans life i… respect of the Sunnes, o… of a tree? and yet how little of our life is Occasion… opportunity to receyu… good in; and how litle of that occasion, doe wee apprehend, and lay hold of? How busie, and perplexed a Cobweb, is the Happinesse of Man here, that must bee made vp with a Watchfulnesse, to lay hold vponupon Occasion, which is but a little peece of that, which is Nothing, Tyme? And yet the best things are Nothing without that. Honors, Pleasures, Possessions, presented to vsus, out of time, in our decrepit, and distasted, & vnapprehensiue Age, loose their office, & loose their Name; They are not Honors to vsus, that shall neuer appeare, nor come abroad into the Eyes of the people, to receiue Honor, from them who giuegive it: Nor pleasures to vsus, who hauehave lost our sense to taste them… nor possessions to vsus, who are departing from the possession of them. Youth is their Criticall Day; that Iudges them, that Denominates them, that inanimates, and informes them, and makes them Honors, and pleasures, and possessions, & when they come in an vnapprehensiue Age, they come as a Cordiall when the bell rings out, as a Pardon, when the Head is off. We reioyce in the Comfort of fire, but does any Man cleaue to it at Midsomer; Wee are glad of the freshnesse, & coolenes of a Vault, but does any Man keepe his Christmas there; or are the pleasures of the Spring acceptable in Autumne? If happinesse be in the season, or in the Clymate, how much happier then are Birdes then Men, who can change the Climate, and accompanie, and enioy the same season euer.
14. EXPOSTVLATION.
MY God, my God wouldest thou cal thy selfe the Ancient of dayes, Dan. 7, 9.if we were not to call our selues to an account for our dayes? wouldest thou chide vsus Mat. 20.6.for standing idle heere all the day, if we were sure to hauehave more dayes, to make vp our haru…st? When thou biddest vsus take no thought for tomorrow; 6…34.for sufficient vntounto the day (to eueryevery day) is the euill thereof, is this truely, absolutely, to put of all that concernes the present life? When thou reprehendest the Galatians 4.10.by thy Message to them, That they obserued dayes, and Moneths, and Tymes, and Yeares, when thou sendest by the same Messenger, to forbid the Colossians all Criticall dayes, 2.16…Indicatory dayes, Let no Man Iudge you, in respect of a holyday, or of a new Moone, or of a Saboth, doest thou take away all Consideration, all destinction of dayes? Though thou remoue them from being of the Essence of our Saluation, thou leauest them for assistances, and for the Exaltation of our Deuotion, to fix our selues, at certaine periodicall, & stationary times, vponupon the consideration of those things, which thou hast done for vsus, and the Crisis, the triall, the iudgment, how those things hauehave wrought vponupon vsus, and disposed vsus to a spirituall recouery, and conualescence. For there is to eueryevery man a day of saluation, 2. Cor. 6.2.Now is the accepted time, now is the day of saluation, And there is a great day of thy wrath, Apoc. 6.17.which no man shal be able to stand in; And there are euill dayes before, and therfore thou warnest vsus, and armest vsus,Eph. 6.1. Take vntounto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand in the euill day. So far thē our daies must be criticall to vsus, as that by consideration of them, we may make a Iudgment of our spiritual health; for that is the crisis of our bodily health; Thy beloued seruant S. Ioh. wishes to Gaius, 3. Ioh. v. 2.that he may prosper in his health so as his soule prospers; …or if the Soule be leane, the marrow of the Body is but water; if the Soule wither, the verdure and the good estate of the body, is but an i…lusion, & the goodliest man, a fearefull ghost. Shall wee, O my God, determine our thoughts, & shal we neuer determin our disputations vponupon our Climaclericall yeares, for particular men, and periodical yeres, for the life of states and kingdoms, and neuer cōsider these in our long life, & our interest in the euerlasting kingdome? We hauehave exercisd our curiosity in obseruing that Adam … the eldest of the eldest world, died in his climactericall yere, & Sem the eldest son of the next world, in his; Abrahā the father of the faithfull, in his, & the blessed Virgin Mary, the garden, where the root of faith grew, in hers. But they whose Climacteriques wee obserue, imployd their obseruation vponupon their critical dayes, the working of thy promise of a Messias vpō them. And shall we, O my God, make lesse vse of those dayes, who hauehave more of thē? We… who hauehave not only the day of the Prophets, Heb. 1.2.the first dayes, but the last daies, in which thou hast spoken vntounto vsus, by thy Son? We are the children of the day, 2. Thes. 5.8.for thou hast shind in as ful a Noone, vponupon vsus, as vponupon the Thessaloniās; They who were of the night, (a Night, which they had superinduc'd vponupon thē selues) the Pharises; pretended, That if they had bin in their Fathers daies, Mat. 23.30…(those indicatory, and iudicatory, those Criticall dayes) they would not hauehave been partakers of the bloud of the Prophets; And shal we who are in the day, these Daies, not of the Prophets, but of the Son, stone those Prophets againe, and crucifie that Son againe, for all those euident Indications, and critical Iudicatures which are afforded vsus? Those opposd aduersaries of thy Son, the pharises with the Herodiās, watch'd a Critical day; Then whē the State was incensd against him,Mat. 22.15: they came to tempt him in the dāgerous question of Tribute. They left him, & that day was the Critical day to the Saduces, The same day, saies thy Spirit, in thy word, the Saduces came to him to question him about the Resurrection;V. 23. and them hee silenc'd; They left him; & this was the Criticall day for the Scribe, expert in the Law, who thoght himselfe learneder then the Herodian, V. 34.the Pharise or Saduce; and he tēpted him about the great Commādement; & him… Christ left without power of replying. When all was done, & that they wēt about to begin their circle of vexation, and tentation again, Christ silē ces them so, that, as they had taken their Criticall dayes, to come, in That, and in that day, so Christ imposes a Criticall day vponupon them, From that day forth, V. 46.saies thy Spirit, no man durst aske him any more questions. This, O my God, my most blessed God, is a fearefull Crisis, a fearefull Indication, when we will study, and seeke, and finde, what dayes are fittest to forsake thee in; To say, Now, Religion is in a Neutralitie in the world, and this is my day, the day of libertie; Now I may make new friends by changing my old religiō, and this is my day, the day of aduancement. But O my God, with thy seruāt Iacobs holy boldnes, who though thou lamedst him, Gen. 32.26.would not let thee goe, till thou hadst giuen him a blessing, Though thou hauehave laid me vponupon my hearse, yet thou shalt not depart from mee, from this bed, till thou hauehave giuen me a Crisis, a Iudgment vponupon my selfe this day. 2 Pet. 3.8Since a day is as a thousand yeres with thee, Let, O Lord, a day, be as a weeke to me; and in this one, let me cōsider seuen daies, seuen critical daies, and iudge my selfe, that I be not iudged by thee. First, this is the day of thy visitatiō, thy comming to me; and would I looke to be welcome to thee, and not entertaine thee …n thy comming to me? We measure not the visitations of great persons, by their apparel, by their equipage, by the solemnity of their cōming, but by their very cōming; and therefore, howsoeuer thou come, it is a Crisis to me, that thou wouldest not loose me, who seekst me by any means. This leads me from my first day, thy visitation by sicknes, to a secōd, to th… light, and testimony of my Conscience. There I hauehave an euening, & a morning; a sad guiltinesse in my soule, but yet a cheerfull rising of thy Son to… Thy Euenings and Mornings made dayes in the Creation, and there is no mention of Nights; My sadnesses for sins are euenings, but they determin not in night, but deliuer me ouer to the day, the day of a Conscience deiected, but then rectified, accused, but then …cquitted, by thee, by him, who speaks thy word, & who is thy word, thy Son. From this day, the Crisis and examinatiō of my Cōscience, breaks out my third day, my day of preparing, & fitting my selfe for a more especial receiuing of thy Sonne, in his institutiō of the Sacrament: In which day though th…re be many dark passages, & slippry steps, to them who wil entangle, and endanger themselues, in vnnecessary disputations, yet there are light houres inough, for any man, …o goe his whole iourney intended by thee; to know, that that Bread and Wine, is not more really assimilated to my body, & to my blood, then the Body and blood of thy Sonne, is communicated to me in that action, and participation of that bread, and that wine. And hauing, O my God, walkd with thee these three dayes, The day of thy visitation, the day of my Conscience, The day of preparing for this seale of Reconciliation, I am the lesse afraid of the clouds or storms of my fourth day, the day of my dissolution & trāsmigratiō frō hence. Nothing deserues the name of happines, that makes the remēbrāce of death bitter;Ecclus. 41.1. And O death … bitter is the remēbrance of thee, to a man that liues at rest, in his possessions, the Man that hath Nothing to vexe him, yea vntounto him, that is able to receiue meat? Therefore hast thou, O my God, made this sicknes, in which I am not able to receiue meate, my fasting day, my Eue, to this great festiual, my dissolution. And this day of death shall deliuer me ouer to my fift day, the day of my Resurrection; for how long a day soeuer thou make that day in the graue, yet there is no day between that, and the Resurrection. Then wee shall all bee inuested, reapparelled in our owne bodies; but they who hauehave made iust vse of their former dayes, be superinuested with glorie, wheras the others, condemned to their olde clothes, their sinfull bodies, shall hauehave Nothing added, but immortalitie to torment. And this day of awaking me, and reinuesting my Soule, in my body, and my body in the body of Christ, shall present mee, Bodie, and Soule, to my sixt day, The day of Iudgement; which is truely, and most literally, the Critical, the Decretory day; both because all Iudgement shall bee manifested to me then, and I shall assist in iudging the world then… and because then, that Iudgement shall declare to me, and possesse mee of my Seuenth day, my Euerlasting Saboth in thy rest, th… glory, thy ioy, thy sight, thy s…lfe; and where I shall liue as long, without reckning any more Dayes after, as thy Sonne, and thy Holy Spirit liued with thee, before you three made any Dayes in the Creation.
14. PRAYER.
O Eternall and most gracious God, who though thou didst permit darknesse to be before light in the Creation, yet in the making of light, didst so multiplie that light, as that it enlightned not the day only, but the night too, though thou hauehave suffered some dimnesse, some clouds of sadnesse & disconsolatenesse to shed themselues vponupon my soule, I humbly blesse and thankfully glorifie thy holy name, that thou hast afforded mee the light of thy spirit, against which the prince of darkenesse cannot preuaile, nor hinder his illumination of our darkest nights, of our saddest thoughts. Euen the visitation of thy most blessed Spirit, vponupon the blessed Virgin, is called an ouershadowing: There wa… the presence of the Holy Ghost, the fountaine of all light, and yet an ouershadowing; Nay except there were some light, there could bee no shadow. Let thy mercifull prouidence so gouerne all in this sicknesse, that I neuer fall into vtter darknesse, ignorance of thee, or inconsideration of my selfe; and let those shadowes which doe fall vponupon mee, faintnesses of Spirit, and condemnations of my selfe, bee ouercome by the power of thine irresistible light, the God of consolation; that when those shadowes hauehave done their office vponupon mee, to let me see, that of my selfe I should fall into irrecouerable darknesse, thy spirit may doe his office vponupon those shadowes, and disperse them, and establish mee in so bright a day here, as may bee a Criticall day to me, a day wherein, and whereby I may giuegive thy Iudgement vponupon my selfe, and that the words of thy sonne, spoken to his Apostles, may reflect vponupon me,Mat. 28.20. B…hold, I am with you alwaies, euen to the end of the world.