Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 20
23.—Metusque, Relabi They warne mee of the fearefull danger of relapsing.
23. MEDITATION.
IT is not in mans body, as it is in the Citie, that when the Bell hath rung, to couer your fire, and …ake vp the embers, you may lie downe, and sleepe without feare. Though you hauehave by …ysicke and diet, raked vp the embers of your …isease, stil there is a feare of a relapse; and the greater danger is in that. …uen in pleasures, and in …ines, there is a propriety, … Meum & Tuum; and a man is most affected with that pleasure which is his, his by former en…oying and experience, and most intimidated with those paines which are his, his by a wofull …ense of them, in former …fflictions. A couetous …erson, who hath preoccupated all his senses, filled all his capacities, with the delight of gathering, wonders how any man can hauehave any taste of any pleasure in any opennesse, or liberalitie; So also in bodily paines, in a fit of the stone, th… patient wonders why any man should call the Gout a paine: And hee that hath felt neither, but the tooth-ach, is as much afraid of a …it of that, as either of the other, of either of the other. Diseases, which we …euer felt in our selues, …ome but to a compassi… of others that hauehave …ndured them; Nay, …ompassion it selfe, comes …o no great degree, if wee …aue not felt, in some …roportion, in our selues, …hat which wee lament …nd condole in another. But when wee hauehave had …hose torments in their …altation, our selues, wee …emble at a relapse. …hen wee must pant …hrough all those fierie …eats, and saile thorow …ll those ouerflowing sweats, when wee must watch through all those long nights, and mourne through all those long daies, (daies and nights, so long, as that Nature her selfe shall seeme to be peruerted, and to hau… put the longest day, and the longest night, which should bee six moneths asunder, into one naturall, vnnaturall day) when wee must stand at the same barre, expect the returne of Physitians from …heir consultations, and not bee sure of the s…me verdict, in any good Indications, when we must goe the same way ouer againe, and not see the same issue, this is a state, a condition, a calamitie, in respect of which, any other sicknesse were a …onualescence, and any greater, lesse. It addes to the affliction, that relapses are, (and for the most part iustly) imputed to our selues, as occasioned by some disorder in vsus; and so we are not onelyonly passiue, but actiue, in our owne ruine; we doe not onelyonly stand vnderunder a falling house, but pull it downe vponupon vsus; and wee are not onelyonly executed, (that implies guiltinesse) but wee are executioners, (that implies dishonor;) and executioners of our selues, (and that implies impietie.) And wee fall from that comfort which wee might hauehave in our first sicknesse, from that meditation, Alas, how generally miserable is Man, and how subiect to diseases, (for in that it is some degree of comfort, that wee are but in the sta…e common to all) we fall, I say, to this discomfort, and selfe accusing, & selfe condemning; Alas, how vnprouident, and in that, how vnthankfull to God and his instruments am I, in making so ill vse of so great benefits, in destroying so soone, so long a worke, in relapsing, by my disorder, to that from which they had deliuered mee; and so my meditation is fearefully transferred from the body to the minde, and from the consideration of the sicknesse, to that sinne, that sinfull carelesnesse, by which I hauehave occasioned my relapse. And amongst the many weights that aggrauate a relapse, this also is one, that a relapse proceeds with a more violent dispatch, and more irremediably, because it finds the Countrie weakned, and depopulated before. VponUpon a sicknesse, which as yet appeares not, wee can scarce fix a feare, because wee know not what to feare; but as feare is the busiest and irksomest affection, so is a relapse (which is still ready to come) into that, which is but newly gone, the nearest obiect, the most immediate exercise of that affection of fear….
23. EXPOSTVLATION.
MY God, my God, my God, thou mightie Father, who hast beene my Physitian; Thou glorious Sonne, who hast beene my physicke; Thou blessed Spirit, who hast prepared and applied all to mee, shall I alone bee able to ouerthrow the worke of all you, and relapse into those spirituall sicknesses, from which your infinite mercies hauehave withdrawne me? Though thou, O my God, h…ue filled my measure with merciemercy, yet my measure was not so large, as that of thy whole people, the Nation, the numerous and glorious nation of Israel; and yet how often, how often did they fall into relapses? And then, where is my assurance? how easily thou passedst ouer many other sinnes in them, and how vehemently thou insistedst in those, into which they so often relapsed; Those were their murmurings against thee, in thine Instruments, and Ministers, and their turnings vponupon other gods, and embracing the Idolatries of their neighbours. O my God, how slipperie a way, to how irrecouerable a bottome, is murmuring? and how neere thy selfe hee comes, that murmures at him, who comes from thee? The Magistrate is the garment in which thou apparellest thy selfe; and hee that shoots at the cloathes, cannot say, hee meant no ill to the man: Thy people were feareful examples of that; for, how often did their murmuring against thy Ministers, end in a departing from thee? when they would hauehave other officers, they would hauehave other gods; and still to daies murmuring, was to morrowes Idolatrie; As their murmuring induced Idolatrie, and they relapsed often into both, I hauehave found in my selfe, O my God, (O my God, thou hast found it in me, and thy finding it, hath shewed it to me) such a transmigration of sinne, as makes mee afraid of relapsing too. The soule of sinne, (for wee hauehave made sinne immortall, and it must hauehave a soule) The soule of sinne, is disobedience to thee; and when one sinne hath beene dead in mee, that soule hath passed into another sinne. Our youth dies, and the sinnes of our youth with it; some sinnes die a violent death, and some a naturall; pouertie, penurie, imprisonment, banishment, kill some sinnes in vsus, and some die of age; many waies wee become vnable to doe that sinne; but still the soule liues, and passes into another sinne; and that, that was licentiousnesse, growes ambition, and that comes to indeuotion, and spirituall coldnesse; wee hauehave three liues, in our state of sinne; and where the sinnes o… youth expire, those of our middle yeeres enter; and those of our age after them. This transmigration of sinne, found in my selfe, makes me afraid, O my God, of a Relapse: but the occasion of my feare, is more pregnant …han so; for, I hauehave had, I hauehave multiplied Relapses already. Why, O my God, is a relapse so odious to thee? Not so much their murmuring, and their Idolatry, as their relapsing into those sinnes, seemes to affect thee, in thy disobedient people. They limited the holy one of Israel, Psal. 78.41.as …hou complainest of them: That was a murmuring; but before thou chargest them with the fault it selfe, in the same place, thou chargest them, with the iterating, the redoubling of …hat fault, before the fault was named; How oft did they prouoke mee in the Wildernesse; and grieue me in the Desart? That which brings thee to that exasperation against them, as to say, that thou wouldest breake thine owne oath, Num. 14 22.rather than leaue them vnpunished, (They shall not see the land, which I sware vntounto their fathers) was because they had tempted thee ten times, infinitely; vponupon that, thou threatnest with that vehemencie, Ios. 23.12.if ye do in any wise goe backe, know for a certainty, God will no more driue out any of these Nations from before you; but they shall be snares, and traps vntounto you, and scourges in your sides, and thornes in your eies, till ye perish. No tongue, but thine owne, O my GOD, can expresse thine indignation, against a Nation relapsing to Idolatry. Idolatry in any Nation is deadly; but when the disease is complicated with a relapse (a knowledge and a profession of a former recouerie) it is desperate: And thine anger workes, not onelyonly where the euidence is pregnant, and without exception, (so thou saiest, when it is said, Deut. 13 12.That certaine men in a Citie, hauehave withdrawne others to Idolatrie, and that inquirie is made, and it is found true, the Citie, and the inhabitants, and the Cattell are to bee destroied) but where there is but a suspicion, a rumor, of such a relapse to Idolatrie, thine anger is awakened, and thine indignation stirred.I…s. 22.11. In the gouernment of thy seruant Iosua, there was a voice, that Reuben and Gad, with those of Manasseh, had built a new altar. Israel doth not send one to enquire;1.12. but the whole congregation gathered to goe vp to warre against them; and there went a Prince of eueryevery Tribe: And they obiect to them, not so much their present declination to Idolatry, as their Relapse; Num. 25 4.is the iniquity of Peor too little for vsus? An idolatry formerly committed, and punished with the slaughter of twenty foure thousand delinquents. At last Reuben, and Gad satisfie them, that that Altar was not built for Idolatry, but built as a patterne of theirs, that they might thereby professe themselues to bee of the same profession, that they were; and so the Army returned without bloud. Euen where it comes not so farre, as to an actuall Relapse into Idolatry, Thou, O my GOD, becommest sensible of it; though thou, who seest the heart all the way, preuentest all dangerous effects, where there was no ill meaning, how euer there were occasion of suspicious rumours, giuen to thine Israel, of relapsing. So odious to thee, & so aggrauating a weight vponupon sinne, is a relapse. But, O my God, why is it so? so odious? It must bee so, because hee that hath sinned, and then repented, hath weighed God and the Deuill in a ballance; hee hath heard God and the Deuill plead; and after hearing, giuen Iudgement on that side, to which he adheres, by his subsequent practise;Tertull. if he returne to his sinne, hee decrees for Satan; he prefers sinne before grace, and Satan before God; and in contempt of God, declares the precedency for his aduersary: And a contempt wounds deeper than an iniury; a relapse deeper, than a blasphemy. And when thou hast told me, that a relapse is more odious to thee, neede I aske why it is more dangerous, more pernitious to me? Is there any other measure of the greatnesse of my danger, than the greatnesse of thy displeasure? How fitly, and how fearefully hast thou expressed my case, in a storm …t Sea, if I relapse? (They mount vp to Heauen, Psa. 107 26.and they goe downe againe to the depth:) My sicknesse brought mee to thee in repentance, and my relapse hath cast mee farther from thee:Mat. 12.45. The end of that man shall be worse than the beginning, saies thy Word, thy Sonne; My beginning was sicknesse, punishment for sin; but a worse thing may follow, Io. 8.14.saies he also, if I sin againe: not onelyonly death, which is an …nd, worse than sicknesse, which was the beginning, but Hell, which is a beginning worse than that end. Mar. 14 70.Thy great seruant denied thy Sonne, and he denied him againe; but all before Repentance; here was no relapse. O, if thou haddest euer re-admitted Adam into Paradise, how abstinently would hee hauehave walked by that tree? and would not the Angels, that fell, hauehave fixed themselues vponupon thee, if thou hadst once re-admitted them to thy sight? They neuer relapsed; If I doe, must not my case be as desperate? Not so desperate, for,Ecclus. 2.18. as thy Maiestie, so is thy MercieMercy, both infinite: and thou who hast commanded me to pardon my brother seuenty seuen times, hast limited thy selfe to no Number. If death were ill in it selfe, thou wouldest neuer hauehave raised any dead Man, to life againe, because that man must necessarily die againe. If thy Mercy, in pardoning, did so farre aggrauate a Relapse, as that there were no more mercy after it, our case were the worse for that former Mercy; for who is not vnderunder, euen a necessity of sinning, whilst hee is here, if wee place this necssity in our own infirmity, and not in thy Decree? But I speak not this, O my God, as preparing a way to my Relapse out of presumption, but to preclude all accesses of desperation, though out of infirmity, I should Relapse.
23. PRAYER.
O Eternall and most gracious God, who though thou beest euer infinite, yet enlargest thy selfe, by the Number of our prayers, and takest our often petitions to thee, to be an addition to thy glory, and thy greatnesse, as euer vponupon all occa…ions, so now, O my God, I come to thy Maiestie with two Prayers, two Supplications. I hauehave Meditated vponupon the Ielouzie, which thou h…st of thine owne honour; and considered, that Nothing can come neerer a violating of that h… nor, neerer to the Nature of a scorne to thee, then to sue out thy P…rdon, and receiue the Seal…s of Reconciliation to thee, and then returne to th…t sinne, for which I needed, and had thy pardon before. I know that this comes to neare, to a making thy holy Ordinances, thy Word, thy Sacraments, thy Seales, thy Grace, instruments of my Spirituall Fornications. Since therefore thy Correction hath brought mee to such a participation of thy selfe (thy selfe, O my God, cannot bee parted) to such an intire possession of thee, as that I durst deliuer my selfe ouer to thee this Minute, If this Minute thou wouldst accept my dissolution, preserue me, O my God the God of constancie, and perseuerance, in this state, from all relapses into those sinnes, which hauehave induc'd thy former Iudgements vponupon me. But because, by too lamentable Experience, I I know how slippery my customs of sinne, hauehave made my wayes of sinne, I presume to adde this petition too, That if my infirmitie ouertake mee, thou forsake mee not. Say to my Soule, My Sonne, thou hast sinned, doe so no more;Ecclus. 21.1. but say also, that though I doe, thy Spirit of Remorce, and Compunction shall neuer depart from mee. Thy Holy Apostle, Saint Paul, 2. Cor. 11.25.was shipwrackd thrice; & yet stil saued. Though the rockes, and the sands, the heights, and the shallowes, the prosperitie, and the aduersitie of this world do diuersly threaten mee, though mine owne leakes endanger mee, yet, O God, let mee neuer put my selfe aboard with Hymeneus, Timo. 1.19.nor make shipwracke of faith, and a good Conscience, and then thy longliud, thy euerlasting Mercy, will visit me, though that, which I most earnestly pray against, should fall vponupon mee, a relapse into those sinnes, which I hauehave truely repented, and thou hast fully pardoned.
FINIS.
End of the text · John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions (1624)