Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 19
…. Si… morbi fomes tibi cura; …he Physitians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coales, and fuell of the disease, and seeke to purge or correct that.
…2. MEDITATION.
HOw ruinous a farme hath man taken, in …aking himselfe? how …eady is the house eue…y day to fall downe, and how is all the groun… ouer-spread with weeds … all the body with diseases? where not onelyonly eueryevery turfe, but eueryevery stone … beares weeds; not onelyonly eueryevery muscle of the flesh, but eueryevery bone of the body, hath some infirmitie … eueryevery little flint vponupon the face of this soile, hath some infectious weede, eueryevery tooth in our head, such a paine, as a constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that feare, of that sense of the paine. How deare, and how of…n a rent doth Man …ay for this farme? hee …ies twice a day, in …ouble meales, and how …tle time he hath to raise … rent? How many ho… daies to call him from …s labour? EueryEvery day is …alfe-holy day, halfe spent …n sleepe. What repara…ions, and subsidies, and …ontributions he is put to, …esides his rent? What …edicines, besides his di…? and what Inmates …e is faine to take in, besides …is owne familie, what infectious diseases, from other men. Adam might hauehave had Paradise for dressing and keeping it; and then his ren… was not improued to such a labour, as would hauehave made his brow sweat; and yet he gaue it ouer; how farre greater a rent doe wee pay for this farme, this body, who pay our selues, who pay the farme it selfe, and cannot liue vponupon it? Neither is our labour at an end, when wee hauehave cut downe some weed, as soone as it sprung vp, corrected some violent …nd dangerous accident of a disease, which would …aue destroied speedily; …or when wee hauehave pulled vp that weed, from the very root, recouered …ntirely and soundly, from that particular disease; but the whole ground is of an ill na…ure, the whole soile ill disposed; there are …nclinations, there is a propensnesse to diseases in the body, out of which without any other disorder, diseases will grow, and so wee are put to a continuall labour vponupon this farme, to a continuall studie of the whole complexion and constitution of our body. In the distempers and diseases of soiles, sourenesse, drinesse, weeping, any kinde of barrennesse, the remedy and the physicke, is, for a great part, sometimes in themselues; sometime the very situation releeues them, the hanger of a hill, will purge and vent his owne malignant moisture; and the burning of the vpper …urfe of some ground (as …ealth from cauterizing) …uts a new and a vigorous youth into that soile, …nd there rises a kinde of Phoenix out of the ashes, … fruitfulnesse out of that which was barren before, and by that, which is the barrennest of all, ashes. And where the ground cannot giuegive it …elfe physicke, yet it receiues Physicke from other grounds, from other soiles, which are not the worse, for hauing contributed that helpe to them, fro… Marle in other hils, o… from slimie sand in othe… shoares: grounds help themselues, or hurt no other grounds, fro… whence they receiu… helpe. But I hauehave take… a farme at this hard rent and vponupon those heau… couenants, that it can afford it selfe no helpe; (no part of my body, if it were cut off, would cure another part; in som… ca…es it might preserue a sound part, but in no case recouer an infected) …nd, if my body may hauehave …ny Physicke, any Medi…ine from another body, one Man from the flesh of another Man (as by Mummy, or any such composition,) it must …ee from a man that is dead, and not, as in other soiles, which are neuer the worse for contributing their Marle, or their fat slime to my ground. There is nothing in the same man, to helpe man, nothing in mankind to helpe one another, (in this sort, by way of Physicke) but that hee who ministers the helpe, is in as ill case, as he that receiues it would hauehave beene, if he had not had it; for hee, from whose body the Physicke comes, is dead. When therefore I tooke this farme, vndertooke this body, I vndertooke to draine, not a marish, but a moat, where there was, not water mingled to offend, but all was water; I vndertooke to perfume dung, where no one part, but all was equally vnsauory; I vndertooke to make such a thing wholsome, as was not poison by any manifest quality, intense heat, or cold, but poison in the whole substance, and in the specifique forme of it. To cure the s…arpe accidents of diseases, is a great worke; to cure the disease it selfe, is a greater; but to cure the body, the root, the occasion of diseases, is a worke reserued for the great Physitian, which he doth ne…er any other way, but by glorifying these bodies in the next world.
22. EXPOSTVLATION.
MY God, my God, what am I put to, when I am put to consider, and put off, the root, the fuell, the occasion of my sicknesse? What Hypocrates, what Galen, could shew mee that in my body? It lies deeper than so; it lies in my soule: And deeper than so; for we may wel consider the body, before the soule came, before inanimation, to bee without sinne; and the soule b… fore it come to the body, before that infection, to be without sinne; sinne is the root, and the fuell of all sicknesse, and yet that which destroies body & soule, is in neither, but in both together; It is in the vnion … of the body and soule; and, O my God, could I preuent that, or can I dissolue that? The root, and the fuell of my sicknesse, is my sinne, my actuall sinne; but euen that sinne hath another root, another fuell, originall sinne; and can I deuest that? Wilt thou bid me to separate the leuen, that a lumpe of Dowe hath receiued, or the salt, that the water hath contracted, from the Sea? Dost thou looke, that I should so looke to the fuell, or embers of sinne, that I neuer take fire? The whole world is a pile of fagots, vpō which w…e are laid, and (as though there were no other) we are the bellowes. Ignorance blowes the fire, Leu. 5.2He that touched any vncleane thing, though he knew it not, became vncleane, Num. 15 22.and a sacrifice was required, (therefore a sin imputed) though it were done in ignorance. Ignorance blowes this Coale; but thē knowledge much more; for,Rom. 1.32. there are that know thy iudgements, and yet not onelyonly doe, but hauehave pleasure in others, that doe against them. Nature blowes this Coale; Eph. 2.3.By nature wee are the children of wrath: And the Law blowes it, thy Apostle, Saint Paul, …ound, That sinne tooke occasion by the Law, that therefore because it is forbidden, we do some things. If wee breake the Law, wee sinne;1 …o. 3.4. Sinne is the transgression of the Law; And sinne it selfe becomes a Law in our members. Rom. 7.23.Our fathers hauehave imprinted the seed, infused a spring of sinne in vsus:Ier. 6.7. As a fountaine casteth out her waters, wee cast out our wickednesse; 7.26.but we hauehave done worse than our fathers. We are open to infinite tentations, and yet, as though we lacked,Iacob. 1.14. we are tempted of our owne lusts. And not satisfied with that, as though we wer… not powerfull enough, or cunning enough, to demolish, or vndermine our selues, when wee our selues hauehave no pleasure in the sinne, we sinne for others sakes.Gen. 3.6. When Adam sinned for Eues sake, and Salomon to gratifie his wiues,1 Reg. 1….3. it was an vxorious sinne: When the Iudges sinned for Iezabels sake,1 Reg. 21 and Ioab to obey Dauid, 1 Par. 22 3.it was an ambitious sinne:Lu…. 23.23. When Pilat sinned to humor the people, Act. 12.3.and Herod to giuegive farther contentment to the Iewes, it was a popular sinne: Any thing serues, to occasion sin, at home, in my bosome, or abroad, in my Marke, and aime; that which I am, and that which I am not, that which I would be, proues coales, and embers, and fuell, and bellowes to sin; and dost thou put me, O my God, to discharge my selfe, of my selfe, before I can be well? When …hou bidst me to put off …he old Man, Eph. 4.22.doest thou meane, not onelyonly my old habits of actuall sin, but the oldest of all, originall sinne? When thou biddest me purge out the …euen, 1 Cor. 5.7.dost thou meane, not only the sowrenesse of mine owne ill contracted customes, but the innate tincture of sin, imprinted by Nature? How shall I doe that which thou requirest, and not falsifie that which thou hast said, that sin is gone ouer all? But, O my God, I presse thee not, with thine owne text, without thine owne comment; I know that in the state of my body, which is more discernible, than that of my soule, thou dost effigiate my Soule to me. And though no Anatomist can say, in dissecting a body, here lay the coale, the fuell, the occasion of all bodily diseases, but yet a man may hauehave such a knowledge of his owne constitution, and bodily inclination to diseases, as that he may preuent his danger in a great part: so though wee cannot assigne the place of originall sinne, nor the Nature of it, so exactly, as of actuall, or by any diligence deuest it, yet hauing washed it in the water of thy Baptisme, wee hauehave not onelyonly so cleansed it, that wee may the better look vponupon it, and discerne it, but so weakned it, that howsoeuer it may retaine the former nature, it doth not retaine the former force, and though it may hauehave the same name, it hath not the same venome.
22. PRAYER.
O Eternall and most gracious God, the God of securitie, and the enemie of securitie too, who wouldest hauehave vsus alwaies sure of thy louelove, and yet wouldest hauehave vsus alwaies doing something for it, let mee alwaies so apprehend thee, as present with me, and yet so follow after thee, as though I had not apprehended thee. Thou enlargedst Ezechias lease for fifteene yeeres; Thou renewedst Lazarus his lease, for a time, which we know not: But thou didst neuer so put out any of these fires, as that thou didst not rake vp the embers, and wrap vp a future mortalitie, in that body, which thou hadst then so reprieued. Thou proceedest no otherwise in our soules, O our good, but fearefull God: Thou pardonest no sinne so, as that that sinner can sinne no more; thou makest no man so acceptable, as that thou mak…st him impeccable. Though therefore it were a diminution of the largenesse, and derogatorie to the fulnesse of thy merciemercy, to looke backe vponupon those sinnes which in a true repentance … I hauehave buried in the wounds of …hy Sonne, with a iealous or suspicious eie, as though they were now my sinnes, when I had so …ransferred them vponupon …hy Sonne, as though …hey could now bee raised to life againe, to condemne mee to death, when they are dead in …im, who is the fountaine of life, yet were it an irregular anticipation, and an insolent presumption, to think… that thy present merciemercy extended to all my future sinnes, or that there were no embers, no coales of future sinnes left in mee. Temper therefore thy merciemercy so to my soule, O my God, that I may neither decline to any faintnesse of spirit, in suspecting thy merciemercy now, to bee lesse hearty, lesse sincere, than it vses to be, to those who are perfitly reconciled to thee, nor presume so of it, as either to thinke this present merciemercy an antidote against all poisons, and so expose my selfe to tentations, vponupon confidence that this thy merciemercy shall preserue mee, or that when I doe cast my selfe into new sinnes, I may hauehave new merciemercy at any time, because thou didst so easily afford mee this.