Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, Devotion 6
9. Medicamina scribūt. VponUpon their Consultation, they prescribe.
9. MEDITATION.
THey hauehave seene me, and heard mee, arraign'd mee in these fetters, and receiu'd the euidence; I hauehave cut vp mine own Anatomy, diffected my selfe, and they are gon to read vponupon me. O how manifold, and perplexed a thing, nay, how wanton and various a thing is ruine and destruction? God presented to Dauid three kinds, War, Famine, and Pestilence; Satan left out these, and brought in, fires frō heauen, and windes from the wildernes. If there were no ruine but sicknes, wee see, the Masters of that Art, can scarce nūber, not name all sicknesses; eueryevery thing that disorders a faculty, & the function of that is a sicknesse: The names wil not serue thē which are giuen frō the place affected, the Pluris… is so; nor from the effect which it works, the falling sicknes is so; they cā not hauehave names ynow, from what it does, nor where it is, but they must extort names frō what it is like, what it resembles, & b…t in some one thing, or els they would lack names; for the Wolf, and the Canker, and the Polypus are so; and that question, whether there be more names or things, is as perplexd in sicknesses, as in any thing else; except it be easily resolud vponupon that side, that there are more sicknesses thē names. If ruine were reduc'd to that one way, that Man could perish noway but by sicknes, yet his danger were infinit; and if sicknes were reduc'd to that one way, that there were no sicknes but a feuer, yet the way were infinite still; for it would ouerlode, & oppress any naturall, disorder and discompose any artificiall Mem…ry, to deliuer the names of seuerall Feuers; how intricate a worke then hauehave they, who ar… gone to consult, which of these sicknesses mine is, and then which of these feuers, and then what it would do, and thē how it may be countermind. But euen in ill, it is a degree of good, whē the euil wil admit consultation. In many diseases, that which is but an accident, but a symptom of the main disease, is so violēt, that the phisician must attend the cure of that, though hee pretermi… (so far as to intermi…) the cure of the disease it self. Is it not so in States too? somtimes the insolēcy of those that are great, put the people into commotions; the great disease, & the greatest danger to the Head, is the insolency of the great ones; & yet, they execute Martial law, they come to present executions vpō the people, whose commotion was indeed but a simptom, but an accident of the maine disease; but this symptom, grown so violent, wold allow no time for a consultatiō. Is it not so in the accidents of the diseases of our mind too? Is it not euidently so in our affections, in our passions? If a cholerick man be ready to strike, must I goe about to purge his choler, or to breake the blow? But where there is room for consultatiō, things are not desperate. They consult; so there is nothing rashly, incōsideratly done; and then they prescribe, the… write, so there is nothing couertly, disguisedly, vnavowedly done. In bodily diseases it is not alwaies so; sometimes, assoon as the Phisicians foote is in the chamber, his knife is in the patients arme; the disease would not allow a minutes forbearing of blood, nor prescribing of other remedies. In States & matter of gouernmēt it is so too; they are somtimes surprizd with such accidēts, as that the Magistrat asks not what may be done by law, but does that, which must necessarily be don in that case But it is a degree of good, in euill, a degree that ca…ies hope & cōfort in it, when we may hauehave r…course to that which is written, and that the proceedings may bee apert, and ingenuous, and candid, and auowable, for that giues satisfaction, and acquiescence. They who hauehave receiued my Anatomy of my selfe, consult, and end their consultatiō in prescribing, and in prescribing Phisick; proper and conuenient remedy: for if they shold come in again, and chide mee, for some disorder, that had occasion'd, and inducd, or that had hastned and exalted this sicknes, or if they should begin to write now rules for my dyet, and exercise when I were well, this were to antidate, or to postdate their Consultation, not to giuegive phisick. It were rather a vexation, then a reliefe, to tell a condemnd prisoner, you might hauehave liu'd if you had done this; & if you can get your pardon, you shal do wel, to take this, or this course hereafter. I am glad they know (I hauehave hid nothing from them) glad they consult, (they hide nothing frō one another) glad they write (they hide nothing frō the world) glad that they write and prescribe Phisick, that there are remedies for the present case.
9. EXPOSTVLATION.
My God, my God, allow me a iust indignation, a holy detestation of the insolēcy of that Man, who because he was of that high rāke, of whō thou hast said, They are gods, thought himselfe more then equall to thee; That king of Aragon Alfonsus, so perfit in the motions of the heauenly bodies, as that hee aduentured to say, That if he had bin of councell with thee, in the making of the heauens, the the heauens should hauehave bin disposed in a better order, then they are. 2. Chro. 25.16.The king Amasiah would not indure thy prophet to reprehend him, but asked him in anger, Art thou made of the kings councell… When thy Prophet Esaias askes that questiō who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, 42.13.or being his councellor hath tought him. It is after hee had setled and determined that office, vponupon thy sonne, and him onelyonly, whē he ioyns with those great Titles, The mighty God, 9.6.and the prince of peace, this also, the Councellor; and after he had setled vponupon him, the spirit of might, and of councell. 11.2.So that thē, thou O God, thogh thou hauehave no councell from Man, yet doest nothing vponupon man, without councell; In the making of Man there was a consultation; let vsus make man. Gen. 1.26.In the preseruing of Man, O thou great preseruer … men, Iob.thou proceededst by councell; for all thy externall workes, are the workes of the whole Trinity, and their hand is to eueryevery action. How much more must I apprehend, that al you bles…sed, & glorious persons of the Trinitie are in Consultation now, what you wil do with this in firm body, with this leprous Soule, that attends, guiltily, but yet comfortably, your determination vpō it. I offer not to counsell them, who meet in consultatiō for my body now, but I open my in…rmities, I anatomise my body to them. So I do my soule to thee, O my God, in an hūble confession, That there is no veine in mee, that is not full of the bloud of thy Son, whō I hauehave crucified, & Crucified againe, by multiplying many, and often repeating the same sinnes that there is no Artery in me,1. Tim. 4.1. that hath not the spirit of error, Ose. 4.12the spirit of lust, the spirit of giddines in it… Esa. 19.14.no bone in me that is not hardned with the custo…e of sin, and nourished, and soupled with the marrow of sinn; no sinews, no ligamēts, that do not tie, & chain sin and sin together. Yet, O blessed and glorious Trinity, O holy, & whole Colledge, and yet but one Phisician, if you take this confession into a consult…on, my case is not desp…rate my destructiō is not decreed; If your consultation determin in writing, if you refer mee to that which is written, you intend my recouery: for al the way, O my God, (euer constant to thine owne wayes) thou hast proceeded opē ly, intellig…bly, manifestly, by the book. From thy first book, the book of life, neue… shut to thee, but neuer throughly open to vsus; frō thy second book, the booke of Nature, wher though subobscurely, and in shadows, thou hast expressed thine own Image; frō thy third booke; the Scriptures, where thou hadst writtē all in the Old, and then lightedst vsus a cādle to read it by, in the New Testament; To these thou hadst added the booke of iust, and vsefull Lawes, established by them, to whom thou hast committed thy people; To those, the Manualls, the pocket, the bosome books of our own Consciences, To …hose thy partcular books of all our particular sins; and to those, the Booke with seuen seales, which only the Lamb which was slaine, was found worthy to opē ;Apoc. 7.1. which, I hope, it shall not disagree with the meaning of thy blessed Spirit, to interpre…e, the promulgation of their pardon, and righteousnes, who are washed in the blood of that Lambe; And if thou refer me to these Bookes, to a new reading, a new triall by these bookes … this feuer may be but a burning in the hand, and I may be saued, thogh not by my book, mine own conscience, nor by thy other books, yet by thy first, the book of life, thy decree for my election, and by thy last, the book of the Lamb, and the shedding of his blood vponupon me; If I be stil vnderunder cōsultation, I am not cōdemned yet; if I be sent to these books I shall not be condem'd at all: for, though there be somthing written in some of those books (particularly in the Scriptur… ) which some men turne to poyson, yet vponupon these consultations (these confessions, these takings of our particular cases, into thy consideration) thou intendest all for phisick, & euen from those Sentences, from which a too…late Repenter will sucke desperation, he that seeks thee early, shall receiue thy morning dew, thy seasonable mercy, thy forward consolation.
9. PRAYER.
O Eternall and most gracious God, who art of so pure eyes, as that thou canst not look vponupon sinn, and we of so vnpure constitutions, as that wee can present no obiect but sin, and therfore might iustly …eare, that thou wouldst turn thine eyes for euer from vsus, as, though we cannot indure afflictions in our selues, yet in thee we can… so thogh thou canst not indure sinne in vsus, yet in …hy Sonn thou canst, and he hath taken vponupon him se…fe, and presented to thee, al those sins, which might displease thee in vsus. There is an Eye in Nature, that kills, assoon as it sees, the eye of a Serpent; no eye in Nature, that nourishes vsus by looking vponupon vsus; But thine Eye, O Lord, does so. Looke therefore vponupon me, O Lord, in this distresse, and that will recall mee from the borders of this bodily death; Look vponupon me, and that wil raise me again from that spirituall death, in which my parents buried me, when they begot mee in sinne, and in which I hauehave pierced euen to the lawes of hell, by multiplying such heaps of actuall sins, vponupon that foundation, that root of originall sinn. Yet take me again, into your Consultation, O blessed and glorious Trinitie; & thogh the Father know, that I hauehave defaced his Image receiued in my Creation; though the Son know, I hauehave neglected mine interest in the Redemption, yet, O blessed spirit, as thou art to my Consciēce, so be to them a witnes, that at this minute, I accept that which I hauehave so often, so often, so rebelliously refused, thy blessed inspirations; be thou my witnes to them, that at more poores then this slacke body sweates teares, this sad soule weeps blood; and more for the displeasure of my God, then for the stripes of his displeasure. Take me then, O blessed, & glorious Trinitie, into a Recōsultation, and prescribe me any phisick; If it bee a long, & painful holding of this soule in sicknes, it is phisick, if I may discern thy hand to giuegive it, & it is phisick, if it be a speedy departing of this Soule, if I may discerne thy hand to receiue it.