Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 5
8. Et Rex ipse suum mittit. The King sends his owne Phisician.
8. MEDITATION.
STil when we return to that Meditation, that Man, is a World, we find new discoueries. Let him be a world, and him self will be the land, and misery the sea. His misery, (for misery is his, his own; of the happinesses euen of this world, h…e is but tenant, but of misery the free-holder; of happines hee is but the farmer, but the vsufructuary but of misery, the Lord, the proprietary) his misery, as the sea, swells aboue all the hilles, and reaches to the remotest parts of this earth, Man; who of himselfe is bu… dust, and coagula…ed and kneaded into earth; by teares, his ma…te… is …arth, his forme, misery. In this world, that is Mankinde, the highest ground, the eminētest hils, are kings; and hauehave they line, and lead enough to fadome this sea, and say, My misery is but this deepe? Scarce any misery equal to sicknesse; and they are subiect to that equally, with their lowest subiect. A glasse is not the lesse brittle, because a Kings face is represented in it, nor a King the lesse brittle, because God is represented in him. They hauehave Phisicians continually about them, & therfore sicknesses, or the worst of sicknesses, continuall feare of it. Are they gods? He that calld them so, cannot flatter. They are Gods, but sick… gods; and God is presented to vsus vnderunder many human affections, as fa… as infirmities; God is called angry, and sorry, and weary, and heauy; bu… neuer a sicke God: for then hee might die like men, as our gods do. The worst that they could say in reproch, & scorn… of the gods of the Heathē, was, that perchance they were asleepe; but Gods that are so sicke, as that they cannot sleepe; are in an infirmer condition. A God, and need a Phisician? A Iupiter & need an Aesulapius? that must hauehave Rh…ubarbe to purge his Choller, lest he be too angry, and Agarick to purge his s…gme, lest he be too drowsie; that as Tertullian saies of the Aegyptian gods, plants and herbes, That God was beholden to Man, for growing in his garden, so wee must say of these gods… Their eternity, (an eternity of threescore & ten yeares) is in the Apothecaryes shop, and not in the Metaphoricall Deity. But their Deitye is betten expressed in their humility, then in their …eighth; when abounding and ouerflowing, as God, in means of doing good, they descend, as God, to a communication of their abundāces with men, according to their necessities, then they are Gods. No man is well, that vnderstands not, that values not his being well; that hath not a cheerefulnesse, and a ioy in it; and whosoeuer hath this Ioy, hath a desire to communicate, to propagate that, which occasions his happinesse, and his Ioy, to others; for eueryevery man loues witnesses of his happinesse; and the best witnesses, are experimentall witnesses; they who hauehave tasted of that in themselues, which makes vsus happie: It consummate… therefore, it perfits the happinesse of Kings, to confer, to transfer, honor, and riches, and (as they can) health, vponupon those that need them.
.8 EXPOSTVLATION.
MY God, may God, I hauehave a warning from the Wise man, Ecclus. 13.23.tha… when a rich man speaketh, eueryevery man holdeth his tong… and looke what hee saith, they extoll it to the clouds; but if a poore man speake, they say, what fellowe is this? And if hee stumble, they will help to ouerthrow him. Therefore may my words be vnderualued, and my errors aggrauated, if I offer to speak of Kings; but not by thee, O my God, because I speak of them as they are in thee, & of thee, as thou art in them. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently, or irreuerently of thee, that giuegive themselues that liberty, in speaking of thy Vice-gerents, Kings:Augustus, for thou who gauest Augustus the Empire, gauest it to Nero to, and as Vespasian had it from thee, so had Iulian; Though Kings deface in themselues thy first image, in their owne soule, thou giuest no man leaue to deface thy second Image, imprinted indelibly in their power. But thou knowest, O God, that if I should be slacke in celebrating thy mercies to mee exhibited by that royall Instrument… my Sou…raigne, to many other faults, that touch vponupon Allegiance, I should add the worst of all, Ingratitude; which consti…utes an il man, & faults which are defects in any particular sunction, are not so great, as those that destroy our humanitie … It is not so ill, to bee an ill subiect, as to be an ill man … for he hath an vniuersall illnesse, ready to blow… and powre out it selfe into any mold, any form, and to spend it selfe in any function. As therfore thy Son did vponupon the Coyne, I look vponupon the King, and I ask… whose image, & whose inscription hee hath; and he hath thine; And I giuegive vntounto thee, that which i… thine, I recommend his happines to thee, in al… my sacrifices of thanks, for that which hee enioyes, and in al my praiers, for the continuance and inlargement of thē But let me stop, my G…d, and consider; will no… this look like a piece of art, & cunning, to conuey into the world an opinion, that I were more particularly in his care, then other men? And that heerein, in a a shew of humilitie, and thankefulnesse, I magnifie my selfe more then there is cause? But let not that iealousie stopp mee, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thy mercy exhibited by him. This which hee doth now, in assisting so my bodily health, I know is common to me with many? Many, many… hauehave tasted of that expression of his gracio…snes. Where hee …an giuegive health by his owne hands, hee doth… and to more then any of his predecessors hauehave done: Therefore hath God reserued one diseas… for him, that hee onelyonly might cure it, though perchance not onelyonly by one Title, and Interest, nor only as one king. To those that need it not, in that kind, and so cannot hauehave it by his owne hand, he sends a donatiue of health, in sending his Phisician: The holy King S. Lewis in France, & our Maud is celebrated for that, that persōally they visited Hospitals, & assisted in the Cure, euen of loathsome Diseases. And when that religious Empress Placilla, the wife of Theodosius was told, that she diminished her …elfe to much in those personal assistances, & might doe enough in sending …eliefe, shee said, Shee would send in that capacitie, as Empresse, but shee would go to, in that capacitie, as a Christian, as a fellow member of the body o… thy Son, with them. 2 Sam. 19.12.So thy seruāt Dauid applies him selfe to his people, so he incorporates himselfe in his people, by calling them his brethren, his bones, his flesh; and when they fel vnderunder thy hand, euen to the pretermitting of himselfe, he presses vponupon thee, by praye… for them;2 Sam. 24.…. I hauehave si…ned, but these sheepe what hauehave they donne? let thine hand I pray thee be against me and against my fathers house. It is kingly to giuegive;v. 17. whē Araumah gaue that great, & free present to Dauid, that place, those instrumēts for sacrifice, and the sacrifices themselues, it is said there, by thy Spirit, Al these things did Araumah giuegive, as a King, to the King. To giuegive is an approaching to the Condition of Kings, but to giuegive health, an approching to the King, of Kings, to thee. But this his assisting to my bodily health, thou knowest O God, and so doe some others of thine Honorable seruants know, is bu… the twy-light, of that day, wherein thou… thorow him, hast shind vponupon mee before; but the Eccho of that voyce, whereby thou, through him, hast spoke to mee before; Then, when he, first of any man conceiu'd a hope, that I might be of some vse in thy Church, and descended to an intimation, to a perswasiō, almost to a solicitatiō, that I would embrace that calling. And thou who hadst put that desire into his heart, didst also put into mine, an obedience to it; and I who was sicke before, of a vertiginous giddines, and irresolution, and almost spent all my time in consulting how I should spend it, was by this man of God, and God of men, put into the poole, and recouerd: when I asked, perchāce, a stone, he gaue me bread, when I asked, perchāce, a Scorpion, he gaue me a fish; whē I asked a temporall office, hee denied not, refused not that, but let mee see, that hee had rather I took this. These things, thou O God, who forgettest nothing, hast not forgot, though perchance, he, because they were benefits, hath; but I am not only a witnesse, but an instance, 2 Chro. 14.8.that ou… Iehosophat hath a care to ordaine Priests, as well as Iudges: and not only to send Phisicians fo… temporall, but to bee the Phisician for spirituall health.
8. PRAYER.
O Eternall and most gracious God, who though thou hauehave reserued thy tresure of perfit ioy, and perfit glory, to be giuen by thine own hands then, whē by seeing thee, as thou art in thy selfe, and knowing thee, as we are known, wee shall possesse in an instant, and possesse for euer, all that can any way cōduce to our happinesses, yet here also in this world, giuest vsus such earnests of that full payment, as by the value of the earnest, we may giuegive some estimat of the tresure, humbly, and thākfully I acknowledge, that thy blessed spirit instructs mee, to make a differēce of thy blessings in this world, by that difference of the Instruments, by which it hath pleased thee to deriue them vntounto me. As we see thee heere in a glasse, so we receiue frō thee here by reflexion, & by instruments. Euen casual things come from thee; and that which we call Fortune here, hath another name aboue. Nature reaches out her hand, and giues vsus corne, and wine, and oyle, and milk, but thou fillest her hand before, and thou openest her hand, that she may rain down her showres vponupon vsus. Industry reaches out her hand to vsus, and giues vsus fruits of our labor, for our selues, & our posteritie; but thy hand guides that hand, when it sowes, and when it waters, and the increase is from thee. Friends reach out their hands, & prefer vsus, but thy hand supports that hād, that supports vsus. Of all these thy instruments hauehave I receiued thy blessing, O God, but bless thy name most for the greatest; that as a member of the publike, and as a partaker of priuate fauours too, by thy right hand, thy powerfull hand set, ouer vsus, I hauehave had my portion, not only in the hearing, but in the preaching of thy Gospel. Humbly beseeching thee, that as thou continuest thy wonted goodnes vponupon the whol world, by the wonted meanes, & instruments, the same Sun, and Moon, the same Nature, and Industry, so to continue the same blessings vponupon this State, and this Church by the same hand, so long, as that thy Son when he comes in the clouds, may find him, or his Son, or his sonnes sonnes ready to giuegive an account, & able to stand in that iudgmēt, for their faithfull Stewardship, and dispensation of thy talēts so abūdantly cōmitted to them; & be to him, O God, in all distēpers of his body, in all anxieties of spirit, in all holy sadnesses of soule, such a Phisician in thy proportion, who art the greatest in heauen, as hee hath bin in soule, & body to me, in his proportiō, who is the greatst vponupon earth.