DEVOTIONS UPON Emergent Occasions, and several steps in my Sickness: Digested into 

1. MEDITATIONS upon our Humane Condition.  
2. EXPOSTULATIONS, and Debatements with God.  
3. PRAYERS, upon the several Occasions, to him.    
By JOHN DONNE, Deane of S. Paul's, London.  
LONDON, Printed for THOMAS JONES. 1624.   

TO THE MOST EXCELlent Prince, Prince CHARLES'.  
Most Excellent Prince,  
I Have had three Births; One, Natural, when I came into the World; One Supernatural, when I entered into the Ministry; and now, a preternatural Birth, in returning to Life, from this Sickness. In my second Birth, your Highness' Royal Father vouchsafed me his Hand, no● only to sustain me● in it, but to lead me to it. In this last Birth, I myself am borne a Father: This Child of mine, this Book, comes into the world, from me, and with me. And therefore, I presume (as I did the Father to the Father) to present the Son to the Son; This Image of my Humiliation, to the lively Image of his Majesty, your Highness. It might be enough, that God hath seen my Devotions: But Examples of Good Kings are Commandments; And Ezechiah writ the Meditations of his Sickness, after his Sickness. Besides, as I have lived to see, (not as a Witness only, but as a Partaker) the happinesses of a part of your Royal Father's time, so shall I live, (in my way) to see the happpinesses of the times of you● Highness too, if this Child of mine, inanimated by your gracious Acceptation, may so long preserve alive the Memory of  
Your Highness' Humblest and Deuo●edst JOHN DONNE.   

Stationes, sive Periodi in Morbo, ad quas referuntur Meditationes sequentes.  
1 INsultus Morbi primus;  
2 Post, Actio loesa;  
3 Decubitus sequitur tandem;  
4 Medicusque vocatur;  
5 Solus adest; 6 Metuit;  
7 Socios sibi iungier instat;  
8 Et Rex ipse suum mittit;  
9 Medicamina scribunt;  
10 Lentè & Serpenti sata●unt occurrere Morbo.  
11 Nobilibusque trahunt, a cincto corde, venenum,  
Succis, & Gemmis; & quae Generosa, ministrant  
Ars, & Natura, instillant;  
12 Spirante Columbâ,  
Suppositâ pedibus, revocantur ad ima vapores;  
13 Atque Malum Genium, numeroso stigmate, fassus●  
Pellitur ad pectus, Morbique Suburbia, Morbus:  
14 Idque notant Criticis, Medici, evenisse diebus.  
15 Inter●a insomnes Nocte● ego duco, Diesque:  
16 Et properare meum, clamant, e turre propinqua  
Obstreperae Campanae, aliorum in funere, funus.  
17 Nunc lento sonitu dicunt● Morieris; 18 At inde●  
Mortuus es, sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato.  
19 Oceano tandem emenso, aspicienda resurgit  
Terra; vident, iustis, Medici, iam cocta mederi  
Se posse, indicijs; 20 Id agunt;  
21 Atque an●uit Ille,  
Qui per eos clamat, linquas iam Lazare lectum;  
22 Sit Morbi Fomes tibi Cura; 23 Metusque Relabi.   

Erra●a.  
Pag. 40. pro 2.3. Meditat.  
Pag. 43. ult. pasture, posture.  
Pag. 96. lin. penult. flesh. God,  
Pag. 158. in Marg. Buxdor.  
Pag. 173. li. 13. add, haste.  
Pag. 184. in marg. Augustin.  
Pag. 185. lin. 17. blow. flow.   

DEVOTIONS.  

1. Insultus Morbi primus; The first alteration, The first grudging of the sickness.  

1. MEDITATION.  
VAriable, and therefore miserable condition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surprised with a sudden change, & alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and Air, and exercises, and we hew, and we polish every stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long & a regular work; But in a minute a Canon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all; a Sickness unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity; nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroys us in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by God; who as he is immortal himself, had put a coal, a beam of Immortality into us, which we might have blown into a flame, but blew it ou●, by our first sin; we beggared ourselves by harkening after false riches, and infatuated our selves by harkening after false knowledge. So that now, we do not only die, but die upon the Rack, die by the torment of sickness; nor that only, but are pre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these jealousies and suspicions, and apprehensions of Sickness, before we can call it a sickness; we are not sure we are ill; one hand asks the other by the pulse, and our eye asks our own urine, how we do. O multiplied misery we die, and cannot enjoy death, because we die in this torment of sickness; we are tormented with sickness, & cannot stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehensions and presages, prophesy those torments, which induce that death before either come● and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes, quickened in the sickness itself, and borne in death, which bears date from these first changes. Is this the honour which Man hath by being a little world, That he hath these earthquakes in himself, sudden shake; these lightnings, sudden flashes; these thunders, sudden noises; these E●clypses, sudden offuscations, & darken of his senses; these blazing stars sudden fiery exhalations; these rivers of blood, sudden red waters? Is he a world to himself only therefore, that he ha●h enough in himself, not only to destroy, and execute himself, but to presage that execution upon himself; to assist the sickness, to antedate the sickness, to make the sickness the more irremediable, by sad apprehensions, and as if he would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water upon the coals, so to wrap a hot fever in cold Melancholy, lest the fever alone should not destroy fast enough, without this contribution, nor perfect the work (which is destruction) except we joined an artificial sickness, of our own melancholy, to our natural, our unnatural fever. O perplexed discomposition, O riddling distemper, O miserable condition of Man.   

1. EXPOSTULATION.  
IF I were but mere dust & ashes, I might speak unto the Lord, for the Lord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lords hand shall recollect these ashes; the Lord's hand was the wheel, upon which this vessel of ●lay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the Urn, in which these ashes shall be preserved. I am the dust, & the ashes of the Temple of the H. Ghost; and what Marble is so precious? But I am more than dust & ashes; I am my best part, I am my soul. And being so, the breath of God, I may breathe back these pious expostulations to my God. My God, my God, why is not my soul, as fensible as my body? Why hath not my soul these apprehensions, these presages, these changes, those antidates, those jealousies, those suspicions of a sinne ● as well as my body of a sickness? why is there not always a pulse in my Soul, to beat at the approach of a tentation to sin? why are there not always waters in mine eyes, to testify my spiritual sickness? I stand in the way of tentations, (naturally, necessarily, all men do so: for there is a Snake in every path, tentations in every vocation) but I go, I run, I fly into the ways of tentation, which I might shun; nay, I break into houses, where the plague is; I press into places of tentation, and tempt the devil himself, and solicit & importune them, who had rather be left unsolicited by me. I fall sick of Sin, and am bedded and bedrid, buried and putrified in the practice of Sin, and all this while ha●e no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sickness; O height, O depth of misery, where the first Symptom of the sickness is Hell, & where I never fee the fever of lust, of envy, of ambition, by any other light, than the darkness and horror of Hell itself ● & where the first Messenger that speaks to me doth not say● Thou mayst die, no, nor Thou must die, but Thou art dead: and where the first notice, that my Soul hath of her sickness, is irrecoverablenes, irremediablenes: but, O my God, job did not charge thee foolishly, in his temporal afflictions, nor may I in my spiritual. Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our Soul, but we do not examine it; a voice in our conscience, but we do not hearken unto it. We talk it out, we jest it out, we drink it out, we sleep it out; and when we wake, we do not say with jacob, 
Gen. 28.16.  Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not: but though we might know it, we do not, we will not. But will God pretend to make a Watch, and leave out the springe? to make so many various wheels in the faculties of the Soul, and in the organs of the body, and leave out Grace, that should move them? or will God make a springe, and not wind it up? Infuse his first grace, & not second it with more, without which, we can no more use his first grace, when we have it, than we could dispose ourselves by Nature, to have it? But alas, that is not our case; we are all prodigal sons, and not disinherited; we have received our portion, and misspent it, not been denied it. We are Gods tenants here, and yet here, he, our Landlord pays us Rents; not yearly, nor quarterly, but hourly, and quarterly; Every minute he renews his mercy, but we will not understand, 
Mat. 13● 16.  lest that we should be converted, and he should heal us.   

1. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, who considered in thyself, art a Circle, first and last, and altogether; but considered in thy working upon us, art a direct line, and leadest us from our beginning, through all our ways, to our end, enable me by thy grace, to look forward to mine end, and to look backward to, to the considerations of thy mercies afforded me from the beginning; that so by that practice of considering thy mercy, in my beginning in this world, when thou plantedst me in the Christian Church, and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world, when thou writest me in the Book of life, in my Election, I may come to a holy consideration of thy mercy, in the beginning of all my actions here● That in all the begin●nings, in all the accesses and approaches of spiri●tuall sicknesses of Sinn, may hear and harken to that voice, 
2 Reg. 4.40.  O thou Ma● of God, there is death in th● pot, and so refrain from that, which I was so hungerly, so greedily flying to. 
Prou. 13.17.  A faithful Am●bassador is health, says thy wise servant Solomon ● Thy voice received, in the beginning of a sickness, of a sin, is true health. If I can see that light betimes, and hear that voice early, Then shall my light break forth as the morning, 
Esa. 58.8  and my health shall spriug forth speedily. Deliver me therefore, O my God, from these vain imaginations; that it is an overcurious thing, a dangerous thing, to come to that tenderness, that rawness, that scrupulousness, to fear every concupiscence, every offer of Sin, that this suspicious, & jealous diligence will turn to an inordinate dejection of spirit, and a diffidence in thy care & providence; bu● keep me still established, both in a constant assurance, that thou wil● speak to me at the beginning of every such sickness, at the approach of every such Sin; and that, if I take knowledge of that voice then, an● fly to thee, thou wil● preserve me from falling, or raise me again when by natural infirmity I am fallen: do● this, O Lord, for his sake who knows our natural infirmities, for he had them; and knows the weight of our sins, for he paid a dear price for them, thy Son, our Saviour, Chr: jesus, Amen.    

2. Actio Laesa. The strength, and the function of the Senses, & other faculties change and fail.  

2. MEDITATION.  
THe Heavens are not the less constant, because they move continually, because they move continually one and the same way. The Earth is not the more constant, because it lies still continually, because continually it changes, and melts in all the parts thereof. Man, who is the noblest part of the Earth, melts so away, as if he were a statue, not of Earth, but of snow. We see his own Envy melts him, he grows lean with that; he will say, another's beauty melts him; but he feels that a Fever doth not melt him like snow, but power him out like lead, like iron, like brass melted in a furnace: It doth not only melt him, but Calcine him, reduce him to Atoms, and to ashes; not to water, but to lime. And how quickly? Sooner than thou canst receive an answer, sooner than thou canst conceive the question; Earth is the centre of my body, Heaven is the centre of my Soul; these two are the natural place of these two; but tho● go not to these two, i● an equal place: My b●●dy falls down without pushing, my Soul do●● not go up without pu●ling: Ascension is m● Souls pace & measure but precipitation my bodies: And, even Angell● whose home is Heaue● and who are winge● too, yet had a Ladder 〈◊〉 go to Heaven, by step● The Sun who goes 〈◊〉 many miles in a minu●● The Stars of the Fi●●mament, which go so very many more, go not so fast, as my body to the earth. In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease, I feel the victory; In the twinkling of an eye, I can scarce see; instantly the taste is insipid, and fatuous; instantly the appetite is dull and desirelesse● instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless; and in an instant, sleep, which is the picture, the copy of death, is taken away, that the Original, Death itself may succeed, and that so I might have death to the life. It was part of Adam's punishment, In the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread ● it is multiplied to me, I have earned bread in the sweat of my brows, in the labour of my calling, and I have it● and I sweat again, & again, from the brow● to the sole of the foot● but I eat no bread, I taste no sustenance: Miserable distribution of Mankind, where one half lacks meat, and the other stomach.   

2. EXPOSTULATION.  
DAuid professes himself a dead dog, 
1 Sam. 24 15.  to his king Saul, & so doth Mephibosheth to his king David: 
2 Sam. 9.8.  & yet David speaks to Saul, and Mephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatest man, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have not so much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure for infinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave, he that hath his grave but lent him, till a better man, or another man, must be buried in the same grave, he that hath no grave, but a dunghill, he that hath no more earth, but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hath not that earth, which he is, but even in that, is another's slave, hath as much proportion to God, as if all David's Worthies, and all the world's Monarches, and all imaginations Giants were kneaded and incorporated into one, and as though that one were the suruivor of all the sons of men, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever I be, as God calls things that are not, as though they were, I, who am as though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, why comes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost thou melt me, scatter me, pour me like water upon the ground so instantly? Thou staidst for the first world, in Noah's time, 120 years; thou staidst for a rebellious generation in the wilderness 40 years, wilt thou stay no minute for me? Wilt thou make thy Process, and thy Decree, thy Citation, and thy judgement but one act? Thy Summons, thy Battle, thy Victory, thy Triumph, all but one act; & lead me captive, nay deliver me captive to death, assoon as thou declarest me to be enemy, and so cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, and for that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but that the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, my God, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentle air. Thy first breath breathed a Soul into me, and shall thy breath blow it out? Thy breath in the Congregation, thy Word in the Church, breathes communion, and consolation here, and consummation hereafter; shall thy breath in this Chamber breathe dissolution, and destruction, divorce, and separation? Surely it is not thou; it is not thy hand. The devouring sword, the consuming fire, the winds from the wilderness, the diseases of the body, all that afflicted job, were from the hand of Satan; it is not thou. It is thou; Thou my God, who hast led me so continually with thy hand, from the hand of my Nurse, as that I know, thou wilt not correct me, but with thine own hand. My parents would not give me over to a Servant's correction, nor my God, to Satan's. 
2 Sam. 24.14.  I am fallen into the hands of God with David, and with David I see that his Mercies are great. For by that mercy, I consider in my present state, not the haste, & the dispatch of the disease, in dissolving this body● so much, as the much more haste, & dispatch, which my God shall use, in recollecting● and reuniting this dust again at the Resurrection. Then I shall hear his Angels proclaim the Surgite M●rtui● Rise ye dead. Though I be dead I shall hear the voice the spunding of the voice, and the working of the voice shall be all one; and all shall rise there in a less Minute, than any one dies here.   

2. Prayer.  
O Most gracious God, who pursuest and perfitest thine own purposes, and dost not only remember me by the first accesses of this sickness, that I must die, but inform me by this further proceeding therein, that I may die now, who hast not only waked me with the first, but called me up, by casting me further down, and clothed me with thyself, by stripping me of myself, and by dulling my bodily senses, to the meats, and eases of this world, hast whet, and sharpened my spiritual senses, to the apprehension of thee, by what steps & degrees soever it shall please thee to go, in the dissolution of this body, hasten O Lord that pace, and multiply O my God those degrees, in the exaltation of my Soul, toward thee now, & to thee then. My taste is not gone away, but gone up to sit at David's table, To taste, 
Psa. 34.8  & see, that the Lord is good: My stomach is not gone, but gone up, so far upwards toward the Supper of the Lamb, with thy Saints in heaven, as to the Table, to the Communion of thy Saints here in earth: my knees are weak but weak therefore that I should easily fall to, and fix myself long upon my devotions to thee. 
Prou. 14.30.  A sound heart is the life of the flesh; & a heart visited by thee, and directed to thee, by that visitation is a sound hart. There is no soundness in my flesh, 
Psa. 38.3  because of thin● anger. Interpret thin● own work, and call this sickness, correction and not anger, & there is soundness in my fleshy There is no rest in my bones, 
Ibid.  because of my sin; transferee my sins, with which thou ar● so displeased, upon him, with whom thou art so well pleased, Christ jesus, and there will be rest in my bones: And, O my God, who madest thyself a Light in a Bush, in the midst of these brambles, & thorns of a sharp sickness, appear unto me so, that I may see thee, and know thee to be my God, applying thyself to me, even in these sharp, and thorny passages. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who was not the less, the King o● Heaven, for thy suffering him to be crowned with thorns, in this world.    

3. Decubitus sequitur tandem. The Patient takes his bed.  

2. MEDITATION.  
We attribute bu● one privilege, and advantage to Man's body, above other moving creatures, that he is not as others, groueling● but of an erect, of an upright form, naturally built, & disposed to the contemplation of Heaven. Indeed it is a thankful form, and recompenses that soul, which gives it, with carrying that soul so many foot higher, towards heaven. Other creatures look to the earth; and even that is no unfit object, no unfit contemplation for Man; for thither he must come; but because, Man is not to stay there, as other creatures are, Man in his natural form, is carried to th● contemplation of tha● place, which is his hom● Heaven. This is Man prerogative; but wha● state hath he in this di●●nitie? A fever ca● filli● him down, a fever ca● depose him; a fever ca● bring that head, whic● yesterday carried a crou● of gold, five foot to●wards a crown of glory as low as his own foo● to day. When God cam● to breath into Man th● breath of life, he foun● him flat upon the groū● when he comes to withdraw that breath from him again, he prepares him to it, by laying him flat upon his bed. Scarce any prison so close, that affords not the prisoner two, or ●hree steps. The Anchorites that barqued themselves up in hollow trees, & immured themselves in hollow walls; That perverse man, that barrelled himself in a Tub, all could stand, or sit, and enjoy some change of pasture. A sick bed, is a grave, an● all that the patient saie● there, is but a varying o● his own Epitaph. Every night's bed is a Typ● of the grave: At night we tell our servant's a● what hour we wil● rise; here we cannot tel● ourselves, at what day what week, what moaneth. Here the head lie● as low as the foot; th● Head of the people, allow as they, whom those feet trod upon And that hand tha● signed Pardons, is to● weak to beg his own, if he might have it for lifting up that hand: Strange fetters to the feet, strange Manacles to the hands, when the feet, and hands are bound so much the faster, by how much the coards are slacker; So much the less able to do their Offices, by how much more the Sinews and Ligaments are the loser. In the Grave I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends, an● in the accents of thos● words, which thei● love may afford my me●mory; Here I am min● own Ghost, and rathe● affright my beholders then instruct them; the● conceive the worst o● me now, and yet fea●● worse; they give me fo● dead now, & yet won●der how I do, whe● they wake a● midnight and ask how I do, ●●●morrow. Miserable and, (though common to all) in human postu● where I must practise ●y lying in the grave, by ●ying still, and not practise my Resurrection, by rising any more.   

3. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, and my jesus, my Lord, and my Christ, my Strength, and my Salvation, I hear thee, and I hearken to thee, when thou rebukest thy Disciples, for rebuking ●hem, who brought children to thee; 
Mat. 19.13.  Suffer little children to come t● me, sayest thou. Is ther● a verier child than I a● now? I cannot say wit● thy servant jeremy, Lor● I am a child, and cann● speak; but, O Lord, I a● a sucking child, an● cannot eat, a creeping child, and cannot go●● how shall I come t● thee? Whither shall 〈◊〉 come to thee? To thi● bed? I have this weak and childish froward●nes too, I cannot sit vp● and yet am loath to go t● bed; shall I find thee 〈◊〉 bed? Oh, have I always done so? The bed is not ordinarily thy Scene, thy Climate: Lord, dost tho● not accuse me, dost thou not reproach to me, my former sins, when thou layest me upon this bed? Is not this to hang a man at his own door, to lay him sick in his own bed of wantonness? When thou chidest us by thy Prophet for lying in beds of ivory, 
Amos 6 4.  is not thine anger vented; not till thou changest our beds of ivory, into bebs of Ebony David swears unto thee, 
Psal. 132 3.  that he will not go● up into his bed, till he ha● built thee a House. To go● up into the bed, denoted strength, and promi●e● ease; But when tho● sayest, 
Apoc. 2.22.  That thou wilt ca● jesubel into a bed, tho● mak'st thine own com●ment upon that, Tho● callest the bed Tribul●●tion, great Tribulation ● How shall they come t● thee, whom thou ha●● nailed to their bed● Thou art in the Congr●●gation, 
Mat. 8.6  & I in a solitude: when the Centurion's servant lay sick at home, his Master was fain to come to Christ; ●he sick man could not. Their friend lay sick of the Palsy, 
8.4.  and the four charitable men were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come. 
8.14.  Peter's wives mother lay sick of a fever, & Christ came to her; she could not come to him. My friends may carry me home to thee, in their prayers in the Congregation; Thou must com● home to me in the visi●tation of thy Spirit, an● in the seal of thy Sacra●ment: But when I a● cast into this bed, m● slack sinews are yro● fetters, and those thi● sheets, iron doors vpo● me; 
Psa. 26.8.  And, Lord, I have loved the habitation of th● house, and the place whe● thine honour dwelleth: lie here, 
84.4.  and say, Bless are they; that dwell in th● house; but I cannot say I will come into thy hous● I may say, 
5.8.  In thy fea● will I worship towards thy ●oly Temple, but I cannot ●ay in thy holy Temple●: 
69.10.  And, Lord, the zeal of thy House, eats me up, as fast as my fever; It is not a recusancy, for I would come, but it is an Excommunication, I must not. But Lord, thou art Lord of Hosts, & lovest Action; Why callest thou me from my calling? In the● grave no man shall praise thee; In the door of the grave, this sick bed, no Man shall hear me praise thee: Thou hast not opened my lips that my mouth might show thee thy praise, bu● that my mouth might show forth thy praise But thine Apostles fear● takes hold of me, th●● when I have preached to ●●thers, 
1 Cor. 9.27.  I myself should be cast-way; and therefore am I cast down, that might not be cast awa● ● Thou couldst take m● by the head, 
2. Reg. 2.11.  as tho● didst Abacuc, and carr●● me so; By a Chariot, 〈◊〉 thou didst Eliah, & ca●●rie me so; but thou ca●●riest me thine own private way, the way by which thou carryedst thy Son, who first lay upon the earth, & prayed, and then had his Exaltation, as himself calls his Crucifying, and first descended into hell, and then had his Ascension. There is another Station (indeed neither are stations but prostrations) lower than this bed; To morrow I may be laid one Story lower, upon the Floor, the face of the earth, and next day another Story, in the grave, the womb of the Earth: As yet God suspends me between Heaven and Earth, as a Meteor; and I am not in Heaven, because an earthly body clogs me, and I am not in the Earth, because a heavenly Soul sustains mee● And it is thine own Law, 
Exod. 21 18.  O God, that if a man be smitten so by ano●ther, as that he keep hi● bed, though he die not, he that hurt him, must take care of his healing, and recompense him. Th● hand strikes me into this bed; and therefore if I rise again, thou wilt be my recompense, all the days of my life, in making the memory of this sickness beneficial to me, and if my body fall yet lower, thou wilt take my soul out of this bath, & present it to thy Father, washed again, and again, and again, in thine own tears, in thine own sweat, in thine own blood.   

3. PRAYER.  
O Most mighty an● most merciful God who though thou hau● taken me off of my feet hast not taken me off o● my foundation, whic● is thyself, who though thou have removed m● from that upright form, in which I could stand and see thy throne, th● Heavens, yet hast not removed from me tha● light, by which I can li●● and see thyself, who though thou have weakened my bodily knees, that they cannot bow to thee, hast yet left me the knees of my heart, which are bowed unto thee evermore; As thou hast made this bed, thine Altar, make me thy Sacrifice; and as thou makest thy Son Christ jesus the Priest, so make me his Deacon, to minister to him in a cheerful surrender of my body, & soul to thy pleasure, by his hands. I come unto thee, O God, my God, I come unto thee, so as I can come, I come to thee, by embracing thy coming to me) I come in the confidence, & in the application of thy servant David's promise, 
Psa. 41.3  That thou wilt make all my bed in my sickness; All my bed; That which way soever I turn, I may turn to thee; And as I feel thy hand upon all my body, so I may find it upon all my bed, and see all my corrections, and all my refresh to flow from one, and ●he same, and all from thy hand. As 〈◊〉 hast made these feather●●●hornes, in the sharpness of this sickness, so, Lord, make these thorns, feathers, again, feathers of thy Do●e, in the peace of Conscience, and in a holy recourse to thine Ark, to the Instruments of true comfort, in thy Institutions, and in the Ordinances of thy Church. Forget my bed, O Lord, as it hath been a bed of sloth, and worse than sloth, Take me not, O Lord, at this advantage, to te●●rifie my soul, with sailing, now I have me thee there, where tho● hast so often depart from me; but having burnt up that bed, b● these vehement heat and washed that bed i● these abundant sweat● make my bed again, Lord, and enable me according to thy command, 
Psal. 4.4.  to commune wi●● mine own heart upon 〈◊〉 bed, and be still. To provide a bed for all m● former sins, whilst I lie upon this bed, and a grave for my sins, before I come to my grave; and when I have deposed them in the wounds of thy Sonn, to rest in that assurance, that my Conscience is discharged from further anxiety, and my soul from farther danger, and my Memory from further calumny. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who did, and suffered so much, that thou mightest, as well in thy justice, as in thy Mercy, do it for me, thy Son our Saviour, Christ Iesus ●    

4. Medicusque vocatur. The Physician is sent fo●●  

4. MEDITATION.  
IT is too little to cal● Man a little World ● Except God, Man is diminutive to nothing Man consists of mor● pieces, more parts, thenche world; then the world doth, nay then the world is. And if those pieces were extended, and stretched out in Man, as they are in the world, Man would be the Giant, and the world the Dwarf, the world but the Map, and the man the World. If all the Veins in our bodies, were extented to Rivers, and all the Sinews, to veins of Mines, and all the Muscles, that lie upon one another, to Hills, and all the Bones to Quarries of stones, and all the ●●ther pieces, to the pr●●portion of those whic● correspond to them i● the world, the air wou●● be too little for this Or●● of Man to move in, t●● firmament would b● but enough for this sta●● for, as the whole wor●● hath nothing, to whic● something in man do●● not answer, so ha●● man many pieces, 〈◊〉 which the whole wor●● ha●h no representation Enlarge this Meditation upon this great worl● Man, so far, as to consider the immensity of ●he creatures this world produces; our creatures are our thoughts; creatures that are borne Giants: that reach from East to West, from earth to Heaven, that do not only bestride all the Sea, and Land, but span the Sun and Firmament at once; My thoughts reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their Creator am in a close prison, in a sick bed, any where, and any one of my Creatures, m● thoughts, is with t●● Sun, and beyond t●● Sun, overtakes t●● Sun, and overgoes t●● Sun in one pace, o● step, every wher●● And then as the oth●● world produces Serpen● and Vipers, malignant & venomous creature● and Worms, and Cate●●pillars, that endeavour to devour that worl● which produces the● and Monsters compile● and complicated of d●●uers parents, & kinds, 〈◊〉 this world, ourselves, produces all these in us, 〈◊〉 producing diseases, & sicknesses, of all those ●orts; venomous, and infectious diseases, feeding & consuming diseases, and manifold, and entangled diseases, made up of many several ones. And can the other world name so many venomous, so many consuming, so many monstrous crea●ures, as we can diseases, of all these kinds? O miserable abundance, O beggarly richest how much do we lack 〈◊〉 having remedies for eu●●rie disease, when as y●● we have not names f●● them? But we hau● Hercules against the● Giants, these Monster● that is, the Physician; 〈◊〉 musters up all the for●● of the other world, ● succour this; all Nature to relieve Man. We ha●● the Physician, but we 〈◊〉 not the Physician. He we shrink in our p●●●portion, sink in our d●●●●nitie, in respect of ve●● mean creatures, w●●● ●re Physicians to themselves. The Hart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knows an Herb, which being ea●en, throws off the arrow: A strange kind of vomit. The dog that pursues it, though he be subject to sickness, even proverbially, knows his grass that recovers him. And it may be true, that the Drugger is as near to Man, as to other creatures, it may be that obvious and present Simples, easy to be had, would cure him; b●● the Apothecary is not 〈◊〉 near him, nor the P●●●sician so near him, 〈◊〉 they two are to oth●● creatures; Man hath n●● that innate instinct, to a●●ply those natural me●●●cines to his present dawnger, as those inferio●● creatures have; he is n●● his own Apothecary, h●● own Physician, as th●● are. Call back therefore thy Meditations against and bring it down●● what's become of ma●● gre●t extent & propo●●●tion, when himself shrinks himself, and consumes himself to ● handful of dust; what's become of his soaring thoughts, his compassing thoughts, when himself brings himself to the ignoranc●, ●o the thoughtlesness● of the Grave? His diseases are his own, but the Physician is not; he hath them at home, but ●ee must send for the Physician.   

4. EXPOSTVLATION●  
I Have not the righteousness of job, 
job 13.3.  but have the desire of 〈◊〉 I would speak to the ● mighty and I would reas●● with God. My God, 〈◊〉 God, how soon wou●●dest thou have me go●● to the Physician, & ho●● far wouldst thou ha●● me go with the Phisi●●●an? I know thou h●● made the Matter, a●● the Man, and the 〈◊〉 and I go not from th●● when I go to the Physician. Thou didst not make clothes before there was a shame of the nakedness of the body; but thou didst make Physic before there was any grudging of any sickness; for thou didst imprint a medicinal virtue in many Simples, even from the beginning; didst thou mean that we should be sick, when thou didst so? when thou madest them? No more than thou didst mean, that we should sin, when thou madest us: tho● foresawest both, bu● causedst neither. Tho● Lord, 
Ez●c. 47.12.  promisest hee● trees, whose fruit shall b●● for meat, and their lea●● for Medicine. It is th● voice of thy Sonn, W●● thou be made whole That draws from th●● patient a confession tha● he was ill, 
joh. 5.6  and coul● not make himself w●● And it is thine own● voice, Is there no Phisi●cian? 
jer. 8.22  That inclines us disposes us to accept thine Ordinance. An● ●t is the voice of the Wise man, both for the matter, physic itself, The Lord hath created Medicines out of the Earth, 
Ecclus. 38.4  and he that is wise, shall not abhor them, And for the Art, and the Person, The Physician cutteth off a long disease. In all these voices, thou sendest us to those helps, which thou hast afforded us in that. But wilt not thou avow that voice too, 
Ecclus. 38.15.  He that hath sinned against his Maker, let him fall into th● hands of the Physician; an● will't not thou afford me an understanding o● those words? Tho● who sendest us for ● blessing to the Phisic●●an, dost not make it ● curse to us, to go, whe● thou sendest. Is not th● curse rather in this, th●● only he falls into th● hands of the Physician that casts himself wholly, entirely upon the Phi●sician, confides in him relies upon him, attend all from him, and neg●lects that spiritual physic; which thou also hast instituted in thy Churchy ● so to fall into the ●ands of the Physician; is a sin, and a punishment of ●ormer sins; so, as Asa●fell, who in his disease, sought not to the Lord, 
1. Chro. 16.12.  but●●o the Physician. Reveal therefore to me thy method, O Lord, & see, whether I have followed it; ●hat thou mayest have glory, if I have, and I pardon, if I have not, & help that I may. Thy Method is, 
Ecclus ●8. 9  In time of thy sickness, be not negligent ● Wherein wilt thou have my diligence expressed? Pray unto th● Lord, and he will mak● thee whole. O Lord, ● do; I pray, and pray thy Servant Dauid● prayer, 
Ps. 6.2:  Have mercy vp●on me, O Lord, for I a● weak; Heale me, O Lord, for my bones ar● vexed: I know, that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, to induce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, to commiserate, as in misery? But is Prayer for health in season, as soon as I am sick? Thy Method goes further; Leave off from sin, 
v. 10.  and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness; Have I, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holy detestation of my former sin; Is there any more? In thy Method there is more; Give a sweet savoury and a memorial of fin● flower, and make a fat of●fering, as not being. And Lord, by thy grace, I have done that, sacrificed ● little, of that little whic● thou lentest me, to them for whom thou lentest it and now in thy metho● and by thy steps, I am come to that, Then gi●● place to the Physician, 
v, 12.  fo● the Lord hath created him let him not go from the● for thou hast need of him I send for the Physician but I will hear him en●ter with those words of Peter, 
Act. 9 ●4.  jesus Christ maketh thee whole; I long for his presence, but I look● that the power of the Lord, 
Luc. 5.17.  should be present to heal me.   

4. PRAYER.  
O Most mighty, and most merciful God, who art so the God of health, & strength, as that without thee, all health is but the fuel, and all strength, but the bellows of sin; Behold me● under the vehemenc● of two diseases, and vn●der the necessity of tw● Physicians, authorized b● thee, the bodily, and th● spiritual Physician. I com● to both, as to thine Ordi●nance, & bless, and glo●rifie thy Name, that i● both cases, thou hast af●forded help to Man by the Ministry of man● Even in the new Ierusa●lem, 
Apo. 22. 2●.  in Heaven itself, i● hath pleased thee to discover a Tree, which i● a Tree of life there, bu● the leaves thereof are for the healing of the Nations; Life itself is with thee there, for thou art life; and all kinds of Health, wrought upon us here, by thine Instruments, descend from thence. 
jer. 51.9.  Thou wouldst have healed Babylon, but she is not healed; Take from me, O Lord, her perverseness, her wilfulness, her refractariness, and hear thy Spirit saying in my Soul, Heale me, O Lord, for I would be healed. Ephraim saw his sickness, 
Ose: 5.13.  and judah his wound; then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King jareb, yet could no● he heal you, nor cure you of your wound. Keep me back O Lord, from them who mis-professe arts of healing the Soul, or of the Body, by means not imprinted by thee in the Church, for the soul, or not in nature for the body; There is no spiritual health to be had by superstition, nor bodily by witchcrafts ● thou Lord, and only thou art Lord of both. Thou in thyself art Lord of both, and thou in thy Son art the Physician, the applyer of both. 
Esa.  With his stripes we are healed, says the Prophet there; there, before he was scourged, we were healed with his stripes; how much more shall I be healed now, now, when that which he hath already suffered actually, is actually, and effectually applied to me? Is there any thing incurable, upon which that Balm drops? Any vain 〈◊〉 empty, as that that blo●● cannot fill it? 
2 Ch●o: 7.14.  Thou pro●misest to heal the ear●● but it is when the i●●habitants of the earth pray that thou wouldst heal it. 
Ezech: 47.11.  Thou promi●sest to heal their W●●ters, but their miry places, and standing waters' ● thou sayest there, Tho● wilt not heal: My retu●●n●ng to any sin, if should return to the a●bilitie of sinning over all my sins again, thou wouldst not pardon● ●eale this earth, O my ●od, by repentant tears, ●nd heal these waters, ●hese tears from all bitterness, from all diffidence, from all dejection, by establishing my irremovable assurance in thee. ●hy Sonn went about hea●●ng all manner of sicknesses. 
Mat. 4.23.  (No disease incurable, none difficult; 
Luc. 6.19.  he ●ealed them in passing) virtue went out of him, 
Io: 7.23.  ●nd he healed all, all the multitude (no person in●urable) he healed them ●uery whit, (as himself speaks) he left no relic of the disease; and wi●● this universal Phisici●● pass by this Hospital and not visit me? no● heal me? not heal m● wholly? Lord, I look● not that thou shoulder say by thy Messenger t● me, 
2. Reg. 20. ●.  as to Ezechias, B●●hold, I will heal thee, an● on the third day thou sha●● go up to the house of th● Lord. I look not th●● thou shouldst say to m●● as to Moses in Miriam● behalf, 
Num: 12.14.  when Mos●● would have had he●● healed presently, If her ●ather had but spit in her ●ace, should she not been ashamed seven days? Let her be shut up seven days, ●nd then return; but if ●hou be pleased to multiply seven days, (and seven is infinite) by the number of my sins, (and that is more infinite) if this day must remove me, till days shall ●ee no more, seal to me, my spiritual health in affording me the Seals of thy Church, & for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, i● their hands who sha●● assist in this sickness, i● that manner, and in th● measure, as may mo●● glorify thee, and mo●● edify those, who ob●serue the issues of th● servants, to their own● spiritual benefit.    

5. Solus adest. The Physician comes.  

5. MEDITATION.  
AS Sickness is th● greatest misery. s● the greatest misery o● sickness is solitude; when ●he infectiousnes of the disease deterrs them who ●hould assist, from con●ing; Even the Phisici●n dares scarce come. Solitude is a torment, which is not threatened in hell itself. Mere vacuity, the first Agent, God, the first instrument of God, Nature, will not admit; Nothing can be utterly ●nptie, but so near a ●egree towards Vacutie, as Solitude, to be ●ut one, they love not. When I am dead, & my body might infect, the● have a remedy, th●● may bury me; but w●● I am but sick, and mig●● infect, they have no ●●●medy, but their absence's and my solitude. It is ●● excuse to them that a ●● great, and pre●end, & y●● are loath to come; it is ●● inhibition to those w●● would truly come, b●cause they may be ma●● instruments, and pe●●ducts, to the infectiō●● others, by their coming And it is an Outlawry, 〈◊〉 Excommunication vpo● ●he patient, and seperats ●im from all offices not only of Civility, but of ●orking Charity. A long likeness will w●ary friend's a● last, but a pestilential sickness averts them from the beginning. God himself would admit a fig●●e of Society, ●s there is a plurality of ●ersons in God, though ●here be but one God; & all his external actions testify a love of Society and communion. In Heaven ther● are Ordens of Angels, and Armies of Martyrs, & in that hou●● many mansions; in Ear●● Families, Cities, Church● Colleges, all plural things and jest either of th● should not be compa●● enough alone, there 〈◊〉 an association of bo●● a Communion of Sain●● which makes the M●●●tant, and Triumpha●● Church, one Parish; 〈◊〉 that Christ, was not o● of his Diocese, when h● was upon the Earth, n●● out of his Temple, wh●● he was in our flesh G●● who saw that all th●● ●ee made, was good, ●ame not so near seeing 〈◊〉 defect in any of his works, as when he saw ●hat it was not good, ●or man to be alone, ●herefore h●e made him 〈◊〉 helper; and one that ●hould help him so, as ●o increase the number, ●nd give him her own, ●●d more society. Angels, ●ho do not propagate, ●or multiply, were ●ade at first in an abundant number; and so ●ere stars: But for ●he things of this world, their blessing was, Increase; for I think, I nee● not ask leave to think that there is no Phoenix nothing singular, northing alone: Men tha● in here upon Nature only, are so far from think●ing, that there is an●●thing singular in th●● world, as that they wi●● scarce think, that th●● world itself is singular but that every Plane● and every Star, is an●other World like this They find reason t● conceive, not only plurality in every Species in the world, but a plurality of worlds; so that the abho●rers of Solitude, are not solitary; for God, and Nature, and Reason concur against it. Now, a man may counterfeit the Plague in a vow, and mistake a Disease for Religion; by such a retiring, and recluding of himself from all men, 〈◊〉 to do good to no ●an, to converse with ●o man. God hath two testaments, two Wills; but this is a Schedule, and no● of his, a Codicill, and no● of his, not in the body o● his Testaments, but interlind, and postscribed by o●thers, that the way t● the Communion of Saint● should be by such a solitude, as excludes all do●ing of good here. Th●● is a disease of the mind ● the height of an inf●●ctious disease of the bo●dy, is solitude, to be left ●●lone: for this makes 〈◊〉 infectious bed, equa●● nay worse than a gra●● that though in both 〈◊〉 equally alone, in my bed I know it, and feel it, and shall not in my grave: and this too, that in my bed, my soul is still in an infectious body, and shall not in my grave be so.   

5. EXPOSTULATION.  
O God, my God, thy Son took it not ill at Marthaes' hands, that when he said unto her, Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again, 
Io: 13.23.  she expostulated it so far with him, as to reply, I know that h● shall rise again in the Resurrection, at the last day ● for she was miserable by wanting him then● Take it not ill, O my God, from me, that though thou have ordained i● for a blessing, and for ● dignity to thy people, That they should dwell alone, 
Num; 23.9  and not be reckoned among the Nations, (because they should be above them) & that they should dwell in safety alone, 
Deu: 33.28.  (free from the infestation of enemies) yet I ●ake thy leave to remember thee, that thou hast sa●d to, 
Eccles. 4.10.  Two are better than one; And Woe be unto him that is alone when he falleth ● and so, when he is fallen, and laid in the bed of sickness too. 
Sap. 1.9.  Righteousness is immortal; I know thy wisdom hath said so; but no Man, though covered with the righteousness of thy Son, is immor●all so, as not to die; for he who was righteousness itself, did die. I know that the Son of righteous●nes, 
Mat. 14.23.  thy Son, refused no● nay affected solitariness loneness, many, man● times; but at all time● he was able to command more than twelve legions 〈◊〉 Angels to his service; 
Mat. 26.13.  an● when he did not so, 〈◊〉 was far from being ●●lone; for, I am not alon● says he, 
Io. 8.16.  but I, and the F●●ther that sent me. I canno● fear, but that I shall always be with thee, an● him; but whether thi● disease may not alien, 〈◊〉 remove my friends, 〈◊〉 ●hat they stand aloof frō●ny sore, 
Psa. 38.11.  and my kinsmen stand afar off, I cannot tell. ● cannot fear, but that thou wilt reckon with me from this minute, in which, by thy grace, I see thee● whether this understanding, & this will, and this memory, may not decay, to the discouragement, and the ill interpretation of them, that see that heavy change in me, I cannot tell. It was for thy blessed, thy powerful Son alone, 
Esa. 63.3.  to tread the winepress alone, and none of the people with him; am not able to pass thi● agony alone; not alon● without thee; Thou a●● thy spirit; not alone wi●●●out thine; spiritual an● temporal Physicians, a●● thine; not alone without mine; Those whom th● bands of blood, or friendships ● hath made mine ● a●● mine; And if thou, o● thine, or mine, abando●● me, I am alone, and w● unto me if I be alone● Elias himself fainte● under that apprehensions Lo, 
1. reg● ●4. 14.  I am left alone; an● Martha murmured at that, 
Luc. 10.40.  and said to Christ, Lord, dost not thou care, that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Neither could jeremiah enter into his Lamentations, from a higher ground, then to say, 
jer. 1.1.  How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people. O my God, it is the Leper, that thou hast condemned to live alone; 
Leu: 13.46.  Have ● such a Leprosy in my Soul, that I must die alone; alone without thee? Shall this come to such a Leprosy in my body, that I must die ●●lone? Alone without them that should assi●● that should comfort m●● But comes not this E●●postulation too near murmuring? Must I b●● concluded with that, 
Exo: 14.2.  th●● Moses was commanded 〈◊〉 come near the Lord alon●● That solitariness, & d●●reliction, and abandoning of others, dispose● us best for God, who ac●cōpanies us most alon●● May I not remember & apply to; 
Gen. 32.24.  that thought God come not to jacob till he found him alone, ●et when he found him alone, he wrestled with him, and lamed him? That when in the dereliction and forsaking of friends and Physicians, a man is left alone to God, God may so wrestle with this jacob, with this Conscience, as to put it out of joint, & so appear to him, as that he dares not look upon him face to face, when as by way of reflection, in the consolation of his temporal or spiritual servants, and ordinances he durst, 〈◊〉 they were there? 
Ecclus. 6.16.  But ● faithful friend is the physic of life, and they th● fear the Lord, shall find him. Therefore hath th● Lord afforded me bo●● in one person, that Ph●●sician, who is my faith●full friend.   

5. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and mo●● gracious God, wh●● called'st down fire from Heaven upon the sinful Cities, but once, and op●●nedst the Earth to swallow the Murmurers, but once ● and threw'st down the Tower of Siloe upon sinners, but once, but for thy works of mercy repeatest them often, & still workest by thine own patterns, as thou broghtest Man into this world, by giving him a helper fit for him here, ●o whether it be thy will to continue me ●ong thus, or to dismiss me by death, be pleased to afford me the helps fit for both conditions, either for my weak sta● here, or my final tran●●migration from hencel And if thou mayest resceive glory by that wa●● (and, by all ways tho●● mayst receive glory) gl●●rifie thyself in preser●uing this body from suc● infections, as might withhold those, wh● would come, or in dawnger than who do come● and preserve this soul 〈◊〉 the faculties thereof, fr●● all such distempers, 〈◊〉 might shake the assu●rance which myself & others have had, that because thou hast loved me, thou wouldst love me to my end, and at my end. Open none of my doors, not of my hart, not of mine ears, not of my house, to any supplanter that would enter to undermine me in my Religion to thee, in the time of my weakness, or to defame me, & magnify himself, with false rumours of such a victory, & surprisal of me, after I am dead; Be my salvation, and plead my salvation; work it, and decla●● it; and as thy triumpha●● shall be, so let the Montant Church be assure● that thou wast my 〈◊〉 and I thy servant, to, an● in my consummation Bless thou the learning and the labours of th●● Man, whom thou sende●● to assist me; and sinc● thou takest me by th● hand, & puttest me into his hands (for I come t● him in thy name, who in thy name comes t● me) since I clog not m● hopes in him, no nor my ●●ayers to thee, with any ●●mited conditions, but ●wrap all in those two petitions, Thy kingdom ●●me, thy will be done, pro●er him, and relieve ●●e, in thy way, in thy ●●me, and in thy mea●●re. Amen.    

6. Metuit. The Physician is afraid.  

6. MEDITATION.  
● Observe the Physician, with the same diligence, as he the dis●ase; I see he fears, ●nd I fear with him: I overtake him, I ovem him in his fear, an● go the faster, because● makes his pace slow● fear the more, beca●●● he disguises his fear, 〈◊〉 I see it with the mo●● sharpness, because 〈◊〉 would not have me 〈◊〉 it. He knows that 〈◊〉 fear shall not disord●●● the practice, and exerci●●● of his Art, but he kno●● that my fear may diso●●der the e●fect, and working of his practice. 〈◊〉 the ill affections of 〈◊〉 spleen, complicate, an● ●ingle themselves with ●●ery infirmity of the ●●dy, so doth fear insi●●at it ●elf in every acti●● or passion of the mind; ●nd as wind in the body ●ill counterfeit any dis●ase, and seem the Stone, & ●eem the Gout, so fear will counterfeit any dis●ase of the Mind; It shall ●eeme love, a love of having, and it is but a fear, a jealous, and suspicious ●eare of losing; It shall ●eem valour in despising, and undervaluing danger, and it is but fear, in an overvaluing of ●●●●nion, and estimation, and fear of losing that man that is not afraid a Lion, is afraid of a 〈◊〉 not afraid of starui●● & yet is afraid of so●● joint of meat at the tab●● presented to feed hi● not afraid of the so●●● of Drums, and Tru●●pets, and Shot, and tho●● which they seek 〈◊〉 drown, the last cries o● men, and is afraid 〈◊〉 some particular harm●●nious instruments ● so muc● afraid, as that with an● of these the enemy might ●riue this man, otherwise ●aliant enough, out of ●●e field. I know not, what fear is, nor I know ●ot what it is that I fear ●ow; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the increase ●f the disease; I should ●elie Nature, if I should deny that I feared this, & ●f I should say that I fea●ed death, I should belie God; My weakness is from Nature, who hath ●ut her Measure, my strength is from God, who possesses, & distri●butes infinitely. As the every cold air, is no● damp, every shivering not a stupefaction, so eue●ry fear, is not a fearfulness, every declination● not a running away, ●●uery debating is not resolving, every wis● that it were not thus, ● not a murmuring, no● dejection though it b●● thus; but as my Phisici●● fear puts not him fro● his practice, neither do●● mine put me, from r●●ceiuing from God, an● Man, and myself, spiritual, and civil, and morall ●ssistances, and consolations.   

6. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, I find in thy Book, that ●eare is a stifling spirit, a spirit of suffocation; That ●●shbosheth could not speak, 
2 Sam: 3.11  not reply in his own defence ●o Abner, because he was ●fraid. It was thy servant ●obs case too, 
9.34.  who before he could say any ●hing to thee, says of thee, Let him take his rod awa● from me, 
job 9.34.  and let not his fear● terrify me, than would speak with him, and 〈◊〉 fear him; but it is not ●● with me. Shall a fear 〈◊〉 thee, take away my d●●uotiō to thee? Dost tho● command me to spea●● to thee, and command me to fear thee, and d●● these destroy one ano●ther? There is no per●●plexity in thee, my God; 〈◊〉 inextricablenes in the● my light, & my clearness my Sun, and my Moon● that directest me as 〈◊〉 in the night of adversity and fear, as in my day of prosperity & confidence. I must then speak to thee, at all times, but when must I fear thee? At all times to. When didst thou rebuke any petitioner, with the name of Importunate? 
Luc: 18.1.  Thou hast proposed to us a parable of a judge that did justice at last, because the client was Importunate, and troubled him; But thou hast told us plainly, that thy use in that parable, was not, that thou wast troubled with our importunities, but (as thou saye●● there) That we should always pray. 
Luc. 11.5.  And to th●● same purpose thou pro●posest another, that Is●● press my friend, when he●● is in bed, at midnight, 〈◊〉 lend me bread, though h●● will not rise because I a● his friend, yet because● mine importunity, he wil●● God will do this, when●soeuer thou askest, an● never call it importunity Pray in thy bed at midnight, and God will n●● say, I will hear thee t● mo●row upon thy knees, at thy bed side; pray upon thy knees there, then, & God will not say, I will hear thee on Sunday, at Church; God is no dilatory God, no froward God; Prayer is never unseasonable, God is never asleep nor absent. But, O my God, can I do this, and fear thee; come to thee, and speak to thee, in all places, at all hours, and fear thee? Dare I ask this question? There is more boldness in the question, then in the coming: I may do it● though I fear thee; ● cannot do it, except fear thee. So well has● thou provided, that w● should always fea●● thee, as that thou ha●● provided, that we shol● fear no person but the● nothing but thee; n● men? No. Whom? 
Psa. 27.1.  Th● Lord is my help, and m● salvation, whom shall fear? Great enemies: no● great enemies; for no enemies are great to them that fear thee● 
Num: 14.9.  Fear not the people of th● l●●d, for they are Bread to you; They shall not on●y not eat us, not eat our bread, but they shall be our Bread; Why should, we fear them? But for all this Metaphorical Bread, victory over enemies, that thought to devour us, may we not fear, that we may lack bread literally? And fear famine, though we fear not enemies? Young Lions do lack, 
Ps: 35.70.  and suffer Hunger, but they that seek the Lord, shall not want any good thing. Never? Though it be● well with them at on● time, may they not fea● that it may be worse● Wherefore should I fear 〈◊〉 the days of evil, 
46.5  says th● servant David? Though his own sins had mad● them evil, he feared th●● not● No? not if this evils determine in death? No● though in a death's no● though in a death infli●ct●d by violence by malice, by our own des●●● fear not the sentence 〈◊〉 death, 
Ecclus 41 3.  if thou fear God Thou art, O my God, so far from admitting us, that fear thee, to fear others, as that thou makest others to fear us; As Herod feared john, 
Mar. 6.20.  because he was a holy, and a just man, & observed him How fully then O my abundant God, how gently, O my sweet, my easy God dost thou unentangle m●e, in any scruple arising out of the consideration of this thy fear? Is not this that which thou intendest, when thou sayst, 
Psa: 25.14.  The secret of the Lord is with them, that fear him; The secret, th● mystery of the right v●● of fear. Dost thou no● mean this, when tho● sayest, 
Pro: 2.5.  We shall vnde●●stand the fear of the Lord● Have it, and have benef●● by it; have it, and stan● under it; be directed b● it, and not be dejected with it. And dost tho● not propose that Chur●● for our example, whe● thou sayest, 
Act. 9.31.  The Church of judea, walked in t●● fear of God; they ha● it, but did not sit dow● lazily, nor fall down weakly, nor sink under it. There is a fear which weakens men in the service of God: Adam was afraid, 
Gen. 3.10.  because he was naked. They who have put off thee, are a prey to all. They may fear, for thou wilt laugh, 
Pro: 1.26:  when their fear comes upon them, as thou hast told them, 
10.24.  more than once; And thou wilt make them fear, 
Ps: 14.5.  where no cause of fear is, as thou hast told them more than once too. 
53 6.  There is a fear that is a punishment o● former wickednesses, & induces more: Though some said of thy Son, Christ jesus, 
Io: 7.13.  that he wa● a good Man, yet no M●● spoke openly, for fear 〈◊〉 the jews: 
19.38.  joseph was h●● Disciple; but secretly, fo● for fear of the jews: Th● Disciples kept som● meetings, 
29.19.  but with doors shut, for fear of the jews. O my God, thou givest us fear for ballast to carry us steadyly in all weathers. But thou wouldst ballast us, wit● such sand, as should have gold in it, with that fear which is thy fear; for tke fear of the Lord is his treasure. 
Esai: 33.6.  He that hath that, lacks nothing that Man can have, nothing that God does give. Timorous men thou rebukest; 
Mat. 8.26.  Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Such thou dismissest from thy Service, with scorn, though of them there went from gideon's Army, 
Iud: 7.3.  22000. and remained but 10. Such thou sendest farther than so; thither from whence they never return, The fearful and the unbelieving, 
Apo: 21.8.  i●●● that burning lake, which 〈◊〉 the second death. There 〈◊〉 a fear, & there is a hope which are equal abo●minations to thee; fo● they were confounded, 
job. 6.20.  b●●cause they hoped, says th● servant job: because they had misplaced, mis-ce●tred their hopes; they hoped, and not in thee, an● such shall fear, and no● fear thee. Bu● in th● fear, my God, and my fear, my God, and my hope, is hope, and love, & confidence, and peace, and every limb, and ingredient of Happiness enwrapped; for joy includes all; and fear, and joy consist together; nay, constitute one another; The women d●parted from the sepulchre, 
Mat. 28.8.  the women who were made supernumerary Apostles, Apostles to the Apostles; Mothers of the Church, and of the Fathers, Grandfathers of the Church, the Apostles themselves, t●e women, Angels of the Resurrec●●●on, went from the sep●●●chre, with fear and i● they ran, says the 〈◊〉 and they ran upon tho●● two legs, fear, & joy; 〈◊〉 both was the right leg● they joy in thee O Lor● that fear thee, and fear● thee only, who feel th●● joy in thee. Nay, thy fear●● and thy love, are inseparable; still we are called upon, in infinite places, to fear God; yet th● Commandment, which 〈◊〉 the root of all, is, Tho● shalt love the Lord thy God ● He doth neither, that doth not both; he omits neither, 
Ps: 111.10.  that does one. Therefore when thy servant David had said, 
Pro. 1.7.  that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, And his Son had repeated it again, He that collects both, calls this fear, 
Ecclus. 1.20.27.  the root of wisdom; And that it may embrace all, he ca●ls it wisdom itself. A wise man therefore is never without it, never without the exercise of it: Therefore thou sent●st Moses to thy people That they might learne● fear thee all the days ● their lives: 
Deu: 4.10,  not in he●●uy, and calamitous, bu● in good, and cheerful days too: for, No●● who had assurance 〈◊〉 his deliverance, yet m●●ued with fear, 
Heb: 11.7.  prepare an Ark, for the sauing● his house. 
Ecclus: 18.27.  A wise man 〈◊〉 fear in every thing. An● therefore though I pr●●tend, to no other degre● of wisdom, I am a●bundantly rich in thi● that I lie here posse●● with that fear, which ●s thy fear, both that ●his sickness is thy immediate correction, and ●ot merely a natural ●ccident, and therefore ●earefull, because it is a ●earefull thing to fall into ●hy hands, and th●t this ●eare preserves me from all inordinate fear, arising out of the infirmity of Nature, because ●hy hand being upon me, thou wilt never let me fall out of thy hand.   

6. PRAYER.  
O Most mighty God 〈◊〉 merciful God, 〈◊〉 God of all true sorrow, 〈◊〉 true joy to, of all fear, ● of all hope to, as thou ha●● given me a Repentance not to be repent of, 〈◊〉 give me, O Lord, a fea●● of which I may not b● afraid. Give me tende● and supple, and confo●●mable affections, that 〈◊〉 I joy with them that i●● and mourn with them that mourn, so I ma● fear with them that fear. And since thou hast vouchsafed to discover to me, in his fear whom thou hast admitted to be my assistance, ●n this sickness, that ●here is danger therein, ●et me not, O Lord, go a●out to overcome the sense of that fear, so far, as to pretermit the fitting, and preparing of myself, for the worst ●hat may be feared, the passage out of this life. Many of thy blessed Martyrs, have passed out of this life, without a●● show of fear; But th● most blessed Son him●selfe did not so. T●● Martyrs were known● be but men, and therefore it pleased thee, to fill t●● with thy Spirit, and th● power, in that they d●● more than Men; Thy S●● was declared by thee, 〈◊〉 by himself to be G●● and it was requisite, th●● he should declare him●selfe to be Man also, i● the weaknesses of ma●● Let me not therefore O my God, be ashamed of these fears, but let me feel them to determine, where his fear ●id, in a present submitting of all to thy will. And when thou shalt ●aue inflamed, & thawd my former coldnesses, ●nd indevotions, with ●hese heats, and quenched my former heats, with these sweats, and inundations, and rectified my former presumptions, and negligences with these fears, ●ee pleased, O Lord, as one, made so by thee, to think me fit for th●● And whether it be th● pleasure, to dispose 〈◊〉 this body, this garment so, a● to put it to a fa●●ther wearing in th● world, or to lay it up i● the common wardrobe, th● grave, for the next, glo●rifie thyself in th● choice now, & glorify it then, with that glory which thy Son, our Saviour Christ jesus hat● purchased for them whom thou make● partakers of his Resu●●rection. Amen.    

7. Socios sibi iungier instat. The Physician desires to have others joined with him.  

7. MEDITATION.  
THere is more fear, therefore more cause. If the Physician desire help, the burden grows great: There is a growth of the Disease then; But ●here must be an Autumn to; But whether an Autumn of the disease or me, it is not my pa●● to choose: but if it be of me, it is of both; My disease cannot survive me, I may over live i● Howsoever, his desiring of others, argues his ca●●dor, and his ingenuity; 〈◊〉 the danger be great, he● justifies his proceedings & he disguises nothing that calls in witnesses ● And if the danger be not great, he is not a●●bitious, that is so read● to divide the thanks and the honour of th● work, which he beg●● alone, with others. It diminishes not the dignity of a Monarch, that he derive part of his care upon others; God hath not made many Suns, but he hath made many bodies, that receive, and give light. The Romans began with one King; they came to two Consuls; they returned in extremities, to one Dictatory ● whether in one, or many, the sovereignty is the same, in all States, and the danger is not the more, and the providence is the more, whe● there are more Physicians; as the State is the happier, where businesses are carried by more counsels, then can be in one breast, how large soever, Disease's themselves hold Consultations, and conspire how they may multiply, and join with one another, & exalt one another's force so; and shall we not cal● Physicians, to consultations? Death is in an old man's door, he appeare● and tells him so, & dea●● is at a young man's back, and says nothings Age is a sickness, and Youth is an ambush, and we need so many Physicians, as may make up a Watch, and spy every inconvenience. There is scarce any thing, that hath not killed some body; a hair, a feather hath done it● Nay, that which is our best Antidote against it, hath done it; the best Cordial hath been deadly poison; Men have died of joy, and almost forbidden their friends to weep for them, when they have seen them dye laughing. Even that Tiran Dy●●nisius (I think the same● that suffered so much a●●ter) who could not d●● of that sorrow, of tha● high fall, from a King t● a wretched private ma● ● died of so poor a joy, as to be declared by the people at a Theatre, that he● was a good Poet. We sa● often th●t a Man may li●● of a little; but, alas, o● how much less may a Man dye? And therefore the more assistants, th● better; who comes to a day of hearing, in a cause of any importance, with one Advocate? In our Funerals, we ourselves have no interest; there we cannot advise, we cannot direct: And though some Nations, (the Egyptians in particular) built themselues better Tombs, than houses, because they were to dwell longer in them; yet, amongst ourselves, the greatest Man of Style, whom we have had, The Conqueror, was lest, as soon as his soul left him, not only without persons to assist at his grave, but without a grave. Who will keep us then, we know not● As long as we can, l●t us admit as much help as we can; Another, and another Physician, is not another, and another Indication, and Symptom of death, but an other● and another Assistant, and Proctor of life: No● do they so much feed the imagination with apprehension of danger, as the understanding with comfort; Let not one bring Learning, another Diligence, another Religion, but every one bring all, and, as many Ingredients enter into a Receipt, so may many men make the Receipt. But why do I exercise my Meditation so long upon this, of having plentiful help in time of need? Is not my Meditation rather to be inclined another way, to condole, and commiserate their distress, who have none? How many are sicker (perchance) than I, and laid in their woeful straw at home (if that co●ner be a home) and have no more hope of help, though they die, then of preferment, though they live? Nor do no more expect to see a Physician then, then to be an Officer after; of whom, the first that takes knowledge, is th● Sexton that buries them● who buries them in oblivion too? For the● do but fill up the number of the dead in the Bill, but we shall never hear their Names, till we read them in the Book of life, with our own. How many are sicker (perchance) than I, and thrown into Hospitals, where, (as a fish left upon the Sand, must stay the tide) they must stay the Physician's hour of visiting, and then can be but visited? How many are sicker (perchance) then all we, and have not this Hospital to cover them, not this straw, to lie in, to die in, but have thei● Grave-stone under them and breathe out thei● souls in the ears, and in the eyes of passengers, harder than their bed, the flint of the stre●t● That taste of no part of our Physic, but a sparing diet; to whom ordinary porridge would be Iulip enough, the refuse of our servants, Bezoar enough, and the off scou●ing of our Kitchen tables, Cordial enough. O my soul, when thou art not enough awake, to bless thy God enough for his plentiful mercy, in affording thee many Helpers, rememb●r how many lack them, and help them to them, or to those other things, which they lack as much as them.   

7. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, thy blessed Servant Augustine begged of thee, that Moses might come and tell him what he● meant by some place of Genesis: May I ha●● leave to ask of th● Spirit, that writ th● Book, why when D●●uid expected news fi●● joabs' army, 
2 Sam. 18 25.  and that th● Watchman told him that he saw a man ru●●ning alone, David conclu●ded out of that circumstance, 
So all, but our Translation takes it. Even Burcdorf. & Schindler.  That if he ca●● alone, he brought 〈◊〉 news? I see the Gra●●mar, the word signify so, and is so ever accep●ted, Good news; but I see not the Logic, nor the Rhetoric, how David would prove, or persuade that his news was good, because he was alone, except a greater company might have made great impressions of danger, by imploring, and importuning present supplies. Howsoever that be, I am sure, that that which thy Apostle says to Timothy, 
2.4.11.  Only Luke is with me, Luke, and no body but Luke ● hath a taste of complaint, & sorrow in it● Though Luke want no testimony of ability, o● forwardness, of constancy, & perseverance, in assisting that great building which S. Paul laboured in, yet S. Paul is affected with that, that there was none but Luke, to assists We take S. Luke to have been a Physician, & it admits the application the better, that in the presence of one good Physician, we may be glad of more. It was not only a civil spirit of policy, or order that moved Moses father in law, to persuade him to divide ●he burden of Government, 
Exod. 18 13.  & judicature, with others, & take others to his assistance, but it was also thy immediate spirit O my God, that moved Moses to present unto ●hee 70 of the Elders of Israel, 
Num. 11 16.  to receive of that spirit, which was upon Moses only before, such ● portion as might ease ●im in the government of that people; though Moses alone had endowments above all thou gavest him other assistants. I consider th● plentiful goodness, 〈◊〉 my God, in employing Angels, more than on● in so many of thy remarkable works. O● thy Son, thou sayest, 
Heb. 1.6  I● all the Angels of God w●●●ship him; If that be i● Heaven, upon Earth, h●● says that he could co●●maund twelve legions 〈◊〉 Angels; 
Mat. 26.53.  And when Heaven, and Earth shall b● all one, at the last day● Thy Son, O God, the S●● of Man, 
Mat. 25.31.  shall come in his glory, and all the holy Angels with him. The Angels that celebrated his birth to the Shepherds, 
Luc. 21.15.  the Angels that celebrated his second birth, his Resurrection to the Maries, were in the plural, 
Io. 20.12.  Angels associated with Angels. 
Gen. 28.12.  In Jacob's ladder, they which ascended and descended, & maintained the trade between Heaven and Earth, between thee and us, they who have the Commission, 
Psa. 91.13.  and charge to guide us in all our ways, they wh●● hastened Lot, 
Gen. 19.15.  and in him● us, from places of danger, and tentation, the● who are apppointed to instruct & govern us in th● Church here, 
Apo. 1.20.  they who are sent to punish the disobedient and refractory, 
Apo. 8.2.  they that are to be the Mowers, 
Mat. 13.39.  and harvest me●, after we are grown ●p in one field, the church, 〈◊〉 the day of judgement, they that are to carry o●● souls whither they ca●●●ed Lazarus, 
Luc. 16.22.  they who attend at the several gate● of the new jerusalem, 
Apoc. 21.12.  to admit us there; all these, who administer to thy servants, from the first, to their last, are Angels, Angels in the plural, in every service, Angels associated with Angels. The power of a single Angel we see in that one, who in one night destroyed almost 200. thousand in Sennacheribs army, 
1. Reg. 19.35.  yet thou often imployest many; as we know the power of salvation is abundantly in any one Evangelist, and yet thou hast afforded us four. 
Luc. 4.18.  Thy Son pro●claimes of himself, th● thy Spirit, hath anointed him to preach the Gospel● ● yet he hath given othe●s for the perfiting of the S. in the work of the Mi●●●stery. 
Eph. 4.11.  Thou hast made him Bishop of our souls, 
1. Pet 2.25.  but there are others Bishops too. He gave the holy Ghost, 
Io. 20.22.  & others gave it also. Thy way, O m● God, (and, O my God, tho● lovest to walk in thine own ways, for they are large) thy way from th● beginning, is multiplication of thy helps; and therefore it were a degree of ingratitude, not to accept this mercy of affording me many helps for my bodily health, as a type and earnest of thy gracious purpose now, and ever, to afford me the same assistances. That for thy great Help, thy Word, I may seek that, not from corners, nor Conventicles, nor schismatical singularities, but from the assotiation, & communion of thy Catholic Church, and those persons, whom thou has● always furnished th● Church withal: And that I may associate th● Word, with thy Sacr●●ment, thy Seal with thy Patent; and in that S●●cramēt associate the sig●● with the thing signified, the Bread with the Bod● of thy Son, so, as I ma● be sure to have receiu●● both, and to be ma●● thereby, (as thy blesse● servant Augustine says) the Ark, and the Mon●●ment, & the Tomb of th● most blessed Son, that he, and all the merits of his death, may, by that receiving, be buried in me, to my quickening in thi● world, and my immortal establishing in the next.   

7. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, who gavest to thy servants in the wilderness, thy Man●a, bread so conditioned, qualified so, as that, to every man, Manna tasted like that, which that man liked best, I humbly beseech thee, to make this correction, which I acknowledge to be part of my daily bread, to taste so to me, not as I would, but as thou wouldst have it taste, and to conform my taste, and make it agreeable to thy will● Thou wouldst have th● corrections taste of hum●●liation, but thou wouldst have them taste ● consolation too; taste o● danger, but taste of ass●●rance too. As therefore thou hast imprinted in all thine Elements, of which our bodies consist, two manifest qualities, so that, as thy fire dries, so it heats too; and as thy water moysts, so it cools too, so, O Lord, in these corrections, which are the elements of our regeneration, by which our souls are made thine, imprint thy two qualities, those two operations, that as they scourge us, they may scourge us into the way to thee: that when they have showed us, that we are nothing in ourselves, they may also show us, that thou art all things unto us. When therefore in this particular circumstance, O Lord (but none of thy judgements are circumstances; they are all of the substance of thy good purpose upon vs● when in this particular, that he, whom thou has● sent to assist me, desires assistants to him, thou hast let me see, in how few hours thou canst throw me beyond the help of man, let me by the same light see, that no vehimence of sickness, no tentation of Satan, no guiltiness of sin, no prison of death, not this first, this sick bed, not the other prison, the close and dark grave, can remove me from the determined, and good purpose, which tho● sealed concerning me. Let me think no degree of this thy correction, casual, or without signification; but yet when I have read it in that language, as it is a correction, let me translate it into another, and read it as a mercy; and which of these is the Original, and which is the Translation, whether thy Mercy, or thy Correction, wer● thy primary, and original intention in this sickness, I cannot conclude, though death conclude me; for as it must necessarily appear to be ● correction, so I can hau● no greater argument o● thy mercy, then to die i● thee, and by that death, to be united to him, who died for me.    

8. Et Rex ipse suum mittit. The King sends his own Physician.  

8. MEDITATION.  
Still when we return to that Meditation, that Man, is a World, we find new discoveries. Let him be a world, and himself will be the land, and misery the sea. His misery, (for misery is his, his own; of the happinesses even of this world, h●e is but tenant, but of misery the freeholder; of happiness he is but the farmer, but the usufructuary but of misery, the Lord, the proprietary) his misery, as the sea, swells above all the hills, and reaches to the remotest parts of this earth, Man; who of himself is bu● dust, and coagulated and kneaded into earth; by tears, his ma●te● is ●arth, his form, misery. In this world, that is Mankind, the highest ground, the eminentest hills, are kings; and have they line, and lead enough to fathom this sea, and say, My misery is but this deep? Scarce any misery equal to sickness; and they are subject to that equally, with their lowest subject. A glass is not the less brittle, because a King's face is represented in it, nor a King the less brittle, because God is represented in him. They have Physicians continually about them, & therefore sicknesses, or the worst of sicknesses, continual fear of it. Are they gods? He that called them so, cannot flatter. They are Gods, but sick● gods; and God is presented to us under many human affections, as fa● as infirmities; God is called angry, and sorry, and weary, and heavy; bu● never a sick God: for than he might die like men, as our gods do. The worst that they could say in reproach, & scorn● of the gods of the Heathen, was, that perchance they were asleep; but Gods that are so sick, as that they cannot sleep; are in an infirmer condition. A God, and need a Physician? A jupiter & need an Aesulapius? that must have Rh●ubarbe to purge his Choler, lest he be too angry, and Agarick to purge his stigme, lest he be too drowsy; that as Tertullian says of the Egyptian gods, plants and herbs, That God was beholden to Man, for growing in his garden, so we must say of these gods● Their eternity, (an eternity of threescore & ten years) is in the Apothecaryes' shop, and not in the Metaphorical Deity. But their Deity is betten expressed in their humility, then in their height; when abounding and overflowing, as God, in means of doing good, they descend, as God, to a communication of their abundances with men, according to their necessities, than they are Gods. No man is well, that understands not, that values not his being well; that hath not a cheerfulness, and a joy in it; and whosoever hath this joy, hath a desire to communicate, to propagate that, which occasions his happiness, and his joy, to others; for every man loves witnesses of his happiness; and the best witnesses, are experimental witnesses; they who have tasted of that in themselves, which makes us happy: It consummated therefore, it perfits the happiness of Kings, to confer, to transfer, honour, and riches, and (as they can) health, upon those that need them.   

.8 EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, may God, I have a warning from the Wise man, 
Ecclus. 13.23.  tha● when a rich man speaketh, every man holdeth his tong● and look what he saith, they extol it to the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, what fellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrow him. Therefore may my words be underualued, and my errors aggravated, 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 irreverently of thee, that give themselves that liberty, in speaking of thy Vice-gerents, Kings: 
Augustus,  for thou who givest Augustus the Empire, gavest it to Nero to, and as Vespasian had it from thee, so had julian; Though Kings deface in themselves thy first image, in their own soul, thou givest no man leave to deface thy second Image, imprinted indelibly in their power. But thou knowest, O God, that if I should be slack in celebrating thy mercies to me exhibited by that royal Instruments my Sou●raigne, to many other faults, that touch upon Allegiance, I should add the worst of all, Ingratitude; which consti●utes an il man, & faults which are defects in any particular function, are not so great, as those that destroy our humanity's ● It is not so ill, to be an ill subject, as to be an ill man ● for he hath an universal illness, ready to blow● and power out itself into any mould, any form, and to spend itself in any function. As therefore thy Son did upon the Coin, I look upon the King, and I ask● whose image, & whose inscription he hath; and he hath thine; And I give unto thee, that which i● thine, I recommend his happiness to thee, in al● my sacrifices of thanks, for that which he enjoys, and in all my prayers, for the continuance and enlargement of them But let me stop, my G●d, and consider; will no● this look like a piece of art, & cunning, to convey into the world an opinion, that I were more particularly in his care, than other men? And that herein, in a a show of humility, and thankfulness, I magnify myself more than there is cause? But let not that jealousy stop me, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thy mercy exhibited by him. This which he doth now, in assisting so my bodily health, I know is common to me with many? Many, many● have tasted of that expression of his gracio●snes. Where he ●an give health by his own hands, he doth and to more than any of his predecessors have done: Therefore hath God reserved one diseas● for him, that he only might cure it, though perchance not only by one Title, and Interest, nor only as one king. To those that need it not, in that kind, and so cannot have it by his own hand, he sends a donative of health, in sending his Physician: The holy King S. Lewis in France, & our Maud is celebrated for that, that personally they visited Hospitals, & assisted in the Cure, even 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 do enough in sending ●eliefe, she said, She would send in that capacity, as Empress, but she would go to, in that capacity, as a Christian, as a fellow member of the body o● thy Son, with them. 
2 Sam. 19.12.  So thy servant David applies himself to his people, so he incorporates himself in his people, by calling them his brethren, his bones, his flesh; and when they fell under thy hand, even to the pretermitting of himself, he presses upon thee, by praye● for them; 
2 Sam. 24. ●●.  I have sickened, but these sheep what have they done? let thine hand I pray thee be against me and against my father's house. It is kingly to give; 
v. 17.  when Araumah gave that great, & free present to David, that place, those instruments for sacrifice, and the sacrifices themselves, it is said there, by thy Spirit, All these things did Araumah give, as a King, to the King. To give is an approaching to the Condition of Kings, but to give health, an approaching to the King, of Kings, to thee. But this his assisting to my bodily health, thou knowest O God, and so do some others of thine Honourable servants know, is bu● the twilight, of that day, wherein thou● thorough him, hast shined upon me before; but the Echo of that voice, whereby thou, through him, hast spoke to me before; Then, when he, first of any man conceived a hope, that I might be of some use in thy Church, and descended to an intimation, to a persuasion, almost to a solicitation, 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 sick before, of a vertiginous giddiness, 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 pool, and recovered: when I asked, perchance, a stone, he gave me bread, when I asked, perchance, a Scorpion, he gave me a fish; when I asked a temporal office, he denied not, refused not that, but let me see, that he 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 witness, but an instance, 
2 Chro. 14.8.  that ou● jehosophat hath a care to ordain Priests, as well as judges: and not only to send Physician's fo● temporal, but to be the Physician for spiritual health.   

8. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who though thou have reserved thy treasure of perfect joy, and perfect glory, to be given by thine own hands then, when by seeing thee, as thou art in thyself, and knowing thee, as we are known, we shall possess in an instant, and possess for ever, all that can any way conduce to our happinesses, yet here also in this world, givest us such earnests of that full payment, as by the value of the earnest, we may give some estimat of the treasure, humbly, and thankfully I acknowledge, that thy blessed spirit instructs me, to make a difference of thy blessings in this world, by that difference of the Instruments, by which it hath pleased thee to derive them unto me. As we see thee here in a glass, so we receive from thee here by reflection, & by instruments. Even casual things come from thee; and that which we call Fortune here, hath another name above. Nature reaches out her hand, and gives us corn, and wine, and oil, and milk, but thou fillest her hand before, and thou openest her hand, that she may rain down her showers upon us. Industry reaches out her hand to us, and gives us fruits of our labour, for ourselves, & our posterity; but thy hand guides that hand, when it sows, and when it waters, and the increase is from thee. Friends reach out their hands, & prefer us, but thy hand supports that hand, that supports us. Of all these thy instruments have I received thy blessing, O God, but bless thy name most for the greatest; that as a member of the public, and as a partaker of private favours too, by thy right hand, thy powerful hand set, over us, I have had my portion, not only in the hearing, but in the preaching of thy Gospel. Humbly beseeching thee, that as thou continuest thy wont goodness upon the whole world, by the wont means, & instruments, the same Sun, and Moon, the same Nature, and Industry, so to continue the same blessings upon 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 son's sons ready to give an account, & able to stand in that judgement, for their faithful Stewardship, and dispensation of thy talents so abundantly committed to them; & be to him, O God, in all distempers of his body, in all anxieties of spirit, in all holy sadnesses of soul, such a Physician in thy proportion, who art the greatest in heaven, as he hath been in soul, & body to me, in his proportion, who is the greatest upon earth.    

9 Medicamina scribunt. Upon their Consultation, they prescribe.  

9 MEDITATION.  
THey have seen me, and heard me, arraigned me in these fetters, and received the evidence; I have cut up mine own Anatomy, diffected myself, and they are gone to read upon me. O how manifold, and perplexed a thing, nay, how wanton and various a thing is ruin and destruction? God presented to David three kinds, War, Famine, and Pestilence; Satan left out these, and brought in, fires from heaven, and winds from the wilderness. If there were no ruin but sickness, we see, the Masters of that Art, can scarce number, not name all sicknesses; every thing that disorders a faculty, & the function of that is a sickness: The names will not serve them which are given from the place affected, the Pleurisy is so; nor from the effect which it works, the falling sickness is so; they cannot have names enough, from what it does, nor where it is, but they must extort names from what it is like, what it resembles, & b●t in some one thing, or else 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 perplexed in sicknesses, as in any thing else; except it be easily resolved upon that side, that there are more sicknesses than names. If ruin were reduced to that one way, that Man could perish noway but by sickness, yet his danger were infinite; and if sickness were reduced to that one way, that there were no sickness but a fever, yet the way were infinite still; for it would overload, & oppress any natural, disorder and discompose any artificial Memory, to deliver the names of several Fevers; how intricate a work then have they, who ar● gone to consult, which of these sicknesses mine is, and then which of these fevers, and then what it would do, and then how it may be countermind. But even in ill, it is a degree of good, when the evil will admit consultation. In many diseases, that which is but an accident, but a symptom of the main disease, is so violent, that the physician must attend the cure of that, though he pretermit (so far as to intermi●) the cure of the disease itself. Is it not so in States too? sometimes the insolency 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 upon the people, whose commotion was indeed but a simptom, but an accident of the main disease; but this symptom, grown so violent, would allow no time for a consultation. Is it not so in the accidents of the diseases of our mind too? Is it not evidently so in our affections, in our passions? If a choleric man be ready to strike, must I go about to purge his choler, or to break the blow? But where there is room for consultation, things are not desperate. They consult; so there is nothing rashly, inconsideratly done; and then they prescribe, the● write, so there is nothing covertly, disguisedly, unavowedly done. In bodily diseases it is not always so; sometimes, assoon as the Physician's foot is in the chamber, his knife is in the patient's arm; the disease would not allow a minutes forbearing of blood, nor prescribing of other remedies. In States & matter of government it is so too; they are sometimes surprised with such accidents, as that the Magistrate asks not what may be done by law, but does that, which must necessarily be done in that case But it is a degree of good, in evil, a degree that ca●ies hope & comfort in it, when we may have r●●course to that which is written, and that the proceedings may be apert, and ingenuous, and candid, and avowable, for that gives satisfaction, and acquiescence. They who have received my Anatomy of myself, consult, and end their consultation in prescribing, and in prescribing Physic; proper and convenient remedy: for if they should come in again, and chide me, for some disorder, that had occasioned, and induced, or that had hastened and exalted this sickness, or if they should begin to write now rules for my diet, and exercise when I were well, this were to antedate, or to postdate their Consultation, not to give physic. It were rather a vexation, than a relief, to tell a condemned prisoner, you might have lived if you had done this; & if you can get your pardon, you shall do well, to take this, or this course hereafter. I am glad they know (I have hid nothing from them) glad they consult, (they hide nothing from one another) glad they write (they hide nothing from the world) glad that they write and prescribe Physic, that there are remedies for the present case.   

9 EXPOSTULATION.  
My God, my God, allow me a just indignation, a holy detestation of the insolency of that Man, who because he was of that high rank, of whom thou hast said, They are gods, thought himself more then equal to thee; That king of Arragon Alfonsus, so perfect in the motions of the heavenly bodies, as that he adventured to say, That if he had been of council with thee, in the making of the heavens, the the heavens should have been disposed in a better order, than they are. 
2. Chro. 25.16.  The king Amasiah would not endure thy prophet to reprehend him, but asked him in anger, Art thou made of the king's councell● When thy Prophet Esaias asks that question who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, 
42.13.  or being his councillor hath taught him. It is after he had settled and determined that office, upon thy son, and him only, when he joins with those great Titles, The mighty God, 
9.6.  and the prince of peace, this also, the Councillor; and after he had settled upon him, the spirit of might, and of council. 
11.2.  So that then, thou O God, though thou have no council from Man, yet dost nothing upon man, without council; In the making of Man there was a consultation; let us make man. 
Gen. 1.26.  In the preserving of Man, O thou great preserver 〈◊〉 men, 
job.  thou proceededst by council; for all thy external works, are the works of the whole Trinity, and their hand is to every action. How much more must I apprehend, that all you bles●sed, & glorious persons of the Trinity are in Consultation now, what you will do with this in firm body, with this leprous Soul, that attends, guiltily, but yet comfortably, your determination upon it. I offer not to counsel them, who meet in consultation for my body now, but I open my infirmity, I anatomise my body to them. So I do my soul to thee, O my God, in an humble confession, That there is no vein in me, that is not full of the blood of thy Son, whom I have crucified, & Crucified again, by multiplying many, and often repeating the same sins that there is no Artery in me, 
1. Tim. 4.1.  that hath not the spirit of error, 
Ose. 4.12  the spirit of lust, the spirit of giddiness in it● 
Esa. 19.14.  no bone in me that is not hardened with the custo●e of sin, and nourished, and souple with the marrow of sin; no sinews, no ligaments, that do not tie, & chain sin and sin together. Yet, O blessed and glorious Trinity, O holy, & whole College, and yet but one Physician, if you take this confession into a consultation, my case is not desperate my destruction is not decreed; If your consultation determine in writing, if you refer me to that which is written, you intent my recovery: for all the way, O my God, (ever constant to thine own ways) thou hast proceeded openly, intelligibly, manifestly, by the book. From thy first book, the book of life, neue● shut to thee, but never throughly open to us; from thy second book, the book of Nature, where though subobscurely, and in shadows, thou hast expressed thine own Image; from thy third book; the Scriptures, where thou hadst written all in the Old, and then lightedst us a candle to read it by, in the New Testament; To these thou hadst added the book of just, and useful Laws, established by them, to whom thou hast committed thy people; To those, the manuals, the pocket, the bosom books of our own Consciences, To ●hose thy particular books of all our particular sins; and to those, the Book with seven seals, which only the Lamb which was slain, was found worthy to open; 
Apoc. 7.1.  which, I hope, it shall not disagree with the meaning of thy blessed Spirit, to interpret, the promulgation of their pardon, and righteousness, who are washed in the blood of that Lamb; And if thou refer me to these Books, to a new reading, a new trial by these bookes ● this fever may be but a burning in the hand, and I may be saved, though 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 upon me; If I be still under consultation, I am not condemned yet; if I be sent to these books I shall not be condemned at all: for, though there be something written in some of those books (particularly in the Scripture) which some men turn to poison, yet upon these consultations (these confessions, these take of our particular cases, into thy consideration) thou intendest all for physic, & even from those Sentences, from which a too●late Repenter will suck desperation, he that seeks thee early, shall receive thy morning dew, thy seasonable mercy, thy forward consolation.   

9 PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who art of so pure eyes, as that thou canst not look upon sin, and we of so unpure constitutions, as that we can present no object but sin, and therefore might justly ●eare, that thou wouldst turn thine eyes for ever from us, as, though we cannot endure afflictions in ourselves, yet in thee we can● so though thou canst not endure sin in us, yet in ●hy Sonn thou canst, and he hath taken upon him self, and presented to thee, all those sins, which might displease thee in us. There is an Eye in Nature, that kills, assoon as it sees, the eye of a Serpent; no eye in Nature, that nourishes us by looking upon us; But thine Eye, O Lord, does so. Look therefore upon me, O Lord, in this distress, and that will recall me from the borders of this bodily death; Look upon me, and that will raise me again from that spiritual death, in which my parents buried me, when they begot me in sin, and in which I have pierced even to the laws of hell, by multiplying such heaps of actual sins, upon that foundation, that root of original sin. Yet take me again, into your Consultation, O blessed and glorious Trinity; & though the Father know, that I have defaced his Image received in my Creation; though the Son know, I have neglected mine interest in the Redemption, yet, O blessed spirit, as thou art to my Conscience, so be to them a witness, that at this minute, I accept that which I have so often, so often, so rebelliously refused, thy blessed inspirations; be thou my witness to them, that at more poors than this slack body sweats tears, this sad soul weeps blood; and more for the displeasure of my God, then for the stripes of his displeasure. Take me then, O blessed, & glorious Trinity, into a Reconsultation, and prescribe me any physic; If it be a long, & painful holding of this soul in sickness, it is physic, if I may discern thy hand to give it, & it is physic, if it be a speedy departing of this Soul, if I may discern thy hand to receive it.    

10. Lentè & Serpenti satagunt occurrere Morbo. They find the Disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavour to meet with it so.  

10. MEDITATION.  
THis is Nature's nest of Boxes; The Heavens contain the Earth, the Earth, Cities, Cities, Men. And all these are Concentrique; the common centre to them all, is decay, ruin; only that is Ecoentrique, which was never made, only that place, or garment rather, which we can imagine, but not demonstrate, That light, which is the very emanation of the light of God, in which the Saints shall dwell, with which the Saints shall be apparelled, only that bends not to this Centre, to Ruin; that which was not made of Nothing, is not threatened with this annihilation. All other things are; even Angels, even our souls; they move upon the same poles, they bend to the same Centre; and if they were not made immortal by preservation, their Nature could not keep them from sinking to this centre, Annihilation. In all these (the frame of the heavens, the States upon earth, & Men in them, comprehend all) Those are the greatest mischifs, which are least discerned; the most insensible in their ways come to be the most sensible in their ends. The Heavens have had their Dropsy, they drowned the world, and they shall have their Fever, and burn the world. Of the dropsy, the flood, the world had a foreknowledge 120 years before it came; and so some made provision against it, and were sau●d● the fever shall break out in an instant, & consume all; The dropsy did no harm to the heavens, from whence it fell, it did not put out those lights, it did not quench those heats; but the fever, the fire shall burn the furnace itself, annihilate those heavens, that breathe it out; Though the Dogstar have a pestilent breath, an infectious exhalation, yet because we know when it will rise, we clo●he ourselves, & we die● ourselves, and we shadow ourselves to a sufficient prevention; but Comets and blazing stars, whose effects, or significations no man can interrupt or frustrate, no man foresaw: no Almanac tells us, when a blazing star will bre●k out, the matter is carried up in secret; no ginger tells us when the effects will be accomplished, for that's a secret of a higher sphere, than the other; and that which is most secret, is most dangerous. It is so also here in the societies of men, in States, & Commonwealths. Twenty rebellious drums make not so dangerous a noise, as a few whisperers, and secret plotters in corners. The Canon doth not so much hurt against a wall, as a Mine under the wall; nor a thousand enemies that threaten, so much as a few that take an oath to say nothing. God knew many heavy sins of the people, in the wilderness and after, but still he charges them with that one, with Murmuring, murmuring in their hearts, secret disobediences, secret repugn●nces against his declared will; and th●se are the most deadly, the most pernicious. And it is so to, with the diseases of the body; and that is my case. The pulse, the urine, the sweat, all have sworn to say nothing, to give no Indication of any dangerous sickness. My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; my provisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; my counsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehensions, to work upon mine understandings and yet they see, that invisibly, & I feel, that insensibly the disease prevails. The disease hath established a Kingdom, an Empire in me, and will have certain Arcana Imperij, secrets of State, by which it will proceed, & not be bound to declare ●hem. But yet against those secret conspiracies in the State, the Magistrate hath the ra●k ● and against these insensible diseases, Physicians have their examiners; and those these employ now.   

10. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, I have been told, and told by relation, by her own brother, that did it, by thy servant Nazianzen, that his Sister in the vehemency of her prayer, did use to threaten thee, with a holy importunity, with a pious impudency. I dare not do so, O● God; but as thy servant Augustin, wished that Adam had not sinned, therefore that Christ might not have died, may I not to this one purpose wish, 
josephus.  That if the Serpent before the tentation of Eve, did go upright, and speak, that he did so still, because I should the sooner hear him, if he spoke, the sooner see him, if he went upright? In his curse, I am cursed too; his creeping undoes me: for howsoever he begin at the heel, and do but bruise that; 
jere. 9.21  yet he, and Death in him is come into our windows; into our Eyes, and Ears, the entrances, & inlets of our soul. He works upon us in secret, & we do not discern him; And one great work of his upon us, is to make us so like himself, as to sin in secret, that others may not see us; But his Masterpiece is, to make us sin in secret so, as that we may not see our selves sin. For the first, the hiding of our sins from other men, he hath induoed that, which was his offspring from the beginning, 
Io. 8.44.  A lie: for man, is in Nature, yet, in possession of some such sparks of ingenuity, & nobleness, as that, but to disguise Evil, he would not lie. The body, the sin, is the Serpents, and the garment that covers it, the lie, is his too. These are his; but the hiding of sin from ourselves, is He himself: when we have the sting of the Serpent in us, and do not sting ourselves, the venom of sin, and no remorse for sin, then, as thy blessed Son said of judas, He is a devil, 
joh. 6.70  not that he had one, but was one, so we are become devils to ourselves, and we have not only a Serpent in our bosom, but we ourselves, are to ourselves that Serpent. How far did thy servant David press upon thy pardon, in that petition, 
Ps. 19.12  Cleanse thou me from secret sins? can any sin be secret? for, a great part of our sins, though, says thy Prophet, we conceive them in the dark, upon ou● bed, yet says he, We do them in the light; there are many sins, which we glory in doing, and would not do, if no body should know them. Thy blessed servant August confesses, that he was ashamed of his shamefastness, and tenderness of Conscience, and that he often be lied himself with sins, which he never did, lest he should be unacceptable to his sinful companions. But if we would conceal them, (thy Prophet found such a desire, and such a practice in some, when he said, 
Esay 47.10.  Thou hast trusted in thy wickedkednes, and thou hast said, None shall see me) yet can we conceal them? Thou O God, canst hear of them by others; The voice of Abel's blood, 
Gen. 4.10.  will tell thee of cain's murder; the Heavens themselves will tell thee Heaven shall reveal his iniquity; 
jer. 20.27.  a small creature alone, shall do it, 
Eccle. 10.20.  A bird of the air shall carry the voice, and tell the matter: Thou wilt trouble no Informer, thou thy self revealedst Adam's sin, 
Gen. 3.8.  to thyself; And the manifestation of sin is so full to thee, 
Eccles. 12.14.  as that thou shalt reveal all to all, Thou shalt bring every work to judgement, with every secret thing, and there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed: 
Mat. 10.26.  But, O my God, there is another way of knowing my sins, which thou lovest better than any of these; To know them by my Confession. As Physic works so, it draws the peccant humour to itself, that when it is gathered together, the weight of itself may carry that humour away, so thy Spirit returns to my Memory my former sins, that being so recollected, they may pour out themselves by Confession. When I kept silence, says thy servant David, day, and night, thy hand was heavy upon me, 
Psal. 32.34.  But when I said, 
8.5.  I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, thou forgivest the iniquity of my sin. Thou interpretest the very purpose of Confession so well, as that thou scarce leavest any new Mercy for the action itself. This Mercy thou leavest, that thou armest us thereupon, against relapses into the sins which we have confessed. And that mercy, which thy servant Augustine apprehends, when he says to thee, Thou hast forgiven me those sins which I have done, and those sins which only by thy grace I have not done: they were done in our inclination to them, and even that inclination needs thy mercy, and that Mercy he calls a Pardon. And these are most truly secret sins, because they were never done, and because no other man, nor I myself, but only thou knowest, how many and how great sins I have scaped by thy grace, which without that, I should have multiplied against thee.   

10. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, who as thy Son Christ jesus, though he knew all things, yet said he knew not the day of judgement, because he knew it not so, as that he might tell it us; so though thou knowest all my sins, yet thou knowest them not to my comfort, except thou know them by my telling them to th●e, how shall I bring to thy knowledge by that way, those sins, which I myself know not? If I accuse myself of Original sin, wilt thou ask me if I know what original sin is? I know not enough of it to satisfy others, but I know enough to condemn myself, & to solicit thee. If I confess to thee the sins of my youth, wilt thou ask me, if I know what those sins were? I know them not so well, as to name them all, nor am sure to live hours enough to name them all, (for I did them then, faster than I can speak them now, when every thing that I did, conduced to some sin) but I know them so well, as to know, that nothing but thy mercy is so infinite as they. If the naming of Sins, of Thought, Word, and Deed, of sins of Omission, and of Action, of sins against thee, against my neighbour, and against myself, of sins unrepented, and sins relapsed into after Repentance, of sins of Ignorance, and sins against the testimony of my Conscience, of sins against thy Commandments, sins against thy Son's Prayer, and sins against our own Creed, of sins against the laws of that Church, & sins against the laws of that State, in which thou hast given me my station, If the naming o● these sins reach not home to all mine, I know what will; O Lord pardon me, me, all those sins, which thy Son Christ jesus suffered for, who suffered for all the sins of all the world; for there is no sin amongst all those which had not been my sin, if thou hadst not been my God, and antedated me a pardon in thy preventing grace. And since sin in the nature of it, retains still so much of the author of it, that it is a Serpent, insensibly insinuating itself, into my Soul, let thy brazen Serpent, (the contemplation of thy Son crucified for me) be evermore present to me, for my recovery against the sting of the first Serpent; That so, as I have a Lion against a Lion, The Lion of the Tribe of judah, against that Lion, that seeks whom he may devour, so I may have a Serpent against a Serpent, the Wisdom of the Serpent, against the Malice of the Serpent, And, both against that Lion, and Serpent, forcible, and subtle tentations, Thy Dove with thy Olive, in thy Ark, Humility, and Peace, and Reconciliation to thee, by the ordinances of thy Church● Amen.    

11. Nobilibusque trahunt, a cincto Cord, venenum, Succis & Gemmis, & quae generosa, Ministrant Ars, et Natura, instillant. They use Cordials, to keep the venom and Malignity of the disease from the Heart.  

11. MEDITATION.  
WHence can we take a better argument, a clearer demonstration, that all the Greatness of this world, is built upon opinion of others, and hath in itself no real being, nor power of subsistence, then from the heart of man? It is always in Action, and motion, still busy, still pretending to do all, to furnish all the powers, and faculties with all that they have; But if an enemy dare rise up against it, it is the soon endangered, the soon defeated of any part. The Brain will hold out longer than it, and the Liver longer than that; They will endure a Siege; but an unnatural heat, a rebellious heat, will blow up the heart, like a Mine, in a minute. But howsoever, since the Heart hath the birthright, and Primogeniture, and that it is Nature's eldest Son in us, the part which is first borne to life in man, and that the other parts, as younger brethren, and servants in this family, have a dependence upon it, it is reason that the principal care be had of it, though it be not the strongest part; as the eldest is oftentimes not the strongest of the family. And since the Brain, and Liver, and Heart, hold not a triumvirate in Man, a Sovereignty equally shed upon them all, for his well-being, as the four Elements do, for his very being, but the Heart alone is in the Principality, and in the Throne, as King, the rest as Subjects, though in eminent Place, and Office, must contribute to that, as Children to their Parents, as all persons to all kinds of Superiors, though oftentimes, those Parents, or those Superiors, be not of stronger parts, than themselves, that serve and obey them that are weaker; Neither doth this Obligation fall upon us, by second Dictates of Nature, by Consequences, and Conclusions arising out of Nature, or derived from Nature, by Discourse, (as many things bind us, even by the Law of Nature, and yet not by the primary Law of Nature; as all Laws of Propriety in that which we possess, are of the Law of Nature, which law is, To give every one his own, and yet in the primary law of Nature, there was no Propriety, no Meum & Tuum, but an universal Community over all; So the obedience of Superiors, is of the law of Nature, and yet in the primary law of Nature, there was no Superiority, no Magistracy;) but this contribution of assistance of all to the Sovereign, of all parts to the Heart, is from the very first dictates of Nature; which is in the first place, to have care of our own Preservation, to look first to ourselves; for therefore doth the Physician intermit the present care of Brain, or Liver, because there is a possibility, that they may subsist, though there be not a present and a particular care had of them, but there is no possibility that they can subsist, if the Heart perish: and so, when we seem to begin with others, in such assistances, indeed we do begin with ourselves, and we ourselves are principally in our contemplation; and so all these officious, and mutual assistances, are but compliments towards others, and our true end is ourselves. And this is the reward of the pains of Kings; sometimes they need the power of law, to be obeyed; and when they seem to be obeyed voluntarily, they who do it, do it for their own sakes. O how little a thing is all the greatness of man, and through how false glasses doth he make shift to multiply it, and magnify it to himself? And yet this is also another misery of this King of man, the Heart, which is also appliable to the Kings of this world, great men, that the venom & poison of every pestilential disease directs itself to the heart, affects that, (pernicious affection,) and the malignity of ill men, is also directed upon the greatest, and the best; and not only greatness, but goodness loses the vigour of being an Antidote, or Cordial against it. And as the noblest, and most generous Cordials that Nature or Art afford, or can prepare, if they be often taken, and made familiar, become no Cordials, nor have any extraordinary operation, so the greatest Cordial of the Heart, patience, if it be much exercised, exalts the venom and the malignity of the Enemy, and the more we suffer, the more we are insulted upon. When God had made this Earth of nothing, it was but a little help, that he had, to make other things of this Earth: nothing can be nearer nothing, than this Earth; and yet how little of this Earth, is the greatest Man? He thinks he treads upon the Earth, that all is under his fe●te, and the Brain that thinks so, is but Earth; his highest Region, the flesh that covers that, is but earth; and even the top of that, that, wherein so many Absalon's take so much pride, is but a bush growing upon that Turf of Earth. How little of the world is the Earth? And yet that is all, that Man hath, or is. How little of a Man is the Heart; and yet it is all, by which he is: and this continually subject, not only to foreign poisons, conveyed b● others, but to intestine poisons bred in ourselves by pestilential sicknesses. O who, if before he had a being, he could have sense of this misery, would buy a being here upon these conditions?   

11. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, all that thou askest of me, 
Prou. 23.26.  is my Heart, My Son, give me thy heart; Am I thy son, as long as I have but my heart? Will't thou give me an Inheritance, a Filiation, any thing for my heart? O thou, who saidst to Satan, Hast thou considered my servant job, 
job. 1.8  that there is none like him upon the earth, shall my fear, shall my zeal, shall my jealousy have leave to say to thee, Hast thou considered my Heart, that there is not so perverse a Heart upon earth; and wouldst thou have that; and shall I be thy Son, thy eternal Son's Coheir, for giving that? 
jer. 17 9  The Heart is deceitful, above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? He that asks that question, makes the answer, I the Lord search the Heart. When didst thou search mine? Dost thou think to find it, as thou madest it in Adam? Thou hast searched since, and found all these gradations in the ill of our Hearts, 
Gen. 6.5  That every imagination, of the thoughts of our hearts, is only evil continually. Dost thou remember this, and wouldst thou have my Heart? O God of all light, I know thou knowest all; and it is Thou, 
Amos 4.14.  that declarest unto man, what is his Heart. Without thee, O Sovereign goodness, I could not know, how ill my heart were. Thou hast declared unto me, in thy Word, That for all this deluge of evil, that hath surrunded all Hearts, yet thou soughtest and foundest a man after thine own heart, 
1 Sam. 13 14.  That thou couldst and wouldst give thy people Pastors according to thine own heart; 
jer. 3.15.  And I can gather out of thy Word, so good testimony of the hearts of men, as to find single hearts, docile, and apprehensive hearts; Hearts that can, Hearts that have learned; wise hearts, in one place, and in another, in a great degree, wise, perfect hearts; strait hearts, no perverseness without, and clean hearts, no foulness within; such hearts I can find in thy Word; and if my heart were such a heart, I would give thee my Heart. But I find stony hearts too, and I have made mine such: I have found Hearts, 
Ezech. 11 19  that are snares; and I have conversed with such; hearts that burn like Ovens; 
Eccles. 7.26.  and the fuel of Lust, and Envy, and Ambition, hath inflamed mine; Hearts in which their Master's trust, And he that trusteth in his own heart, 
Prou. 28.26.  is a fool; His confidence in his own moral Constancy, and civil fortitude, will betray him, when thou shalt cast a spiritual damp, a heaviness, and dejection of spirit upon him. I have found these Hearts, and a worse than these, a Heart into the which the Devil himself is entered, judas heart. 
Io. 13.2.  The first kind of heart, alas, my God, I have not; The last are not Hearts to be given to thee; What shall I do? Without that present I cannot be thy Son, and I have it not. To those of the first kind, thou givest joyfulness of heart, 
Ecclus. 50.23.  and I have not that; To those of the other kind, thou givest faintness of heart: 
Levit. 26 36.  And blessed be thou, O God, for that forbearance, I have not that yet. There is then a middle kind of Hearts, not so perfect, as to be given, but that the very giving, mends them: Not so desperate, as not to be accepted, but that the very accepting dignifies them. 
jos. 2.11.  This is a melting heart, and a troubled heart; and a wounded heart, and a broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the powerful working of thy piercing spirit, such a Heart I have; Thy Samuel spoke unto all the house of thy Israel, 
1 Sam. 7.3.  and said, If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, prepare your hearts unto the Lord. If my heart be prepared, it is a returning heart; And if thou see it upon the way, thou wilt carry it ●ome; Nay, the preparation is thine too; this melting, this wounding, this breaking, this contrition, which I have now, is thy Way, to thy End; And those discomforts, are for all that, The earnest of thy Spirit in my heart; 
2. Cor. 1.22.  and where thou givest earnest, thou wilt perform the bargain. Naball was confident upon his wine, but in the morning his heart died within him; 
1. Sam. 25.37.  Thou, O Lord, hast given me Wormwood, and I have had some diffidence upon that; and thou hast cleared a Morning to me again, and my heart is alive. Danids' heart smote him, 
24.5.  when he cut off the skirt from Saul; 
1. Sam. 24.10.  and his heart smote him, when he had numbered his people: My heart hath struck me, when I come to number my sins; but that blow is not to death, because those sins are not to death, but my heart lives in thee. But yet as long as I remain in this great Hospital, this sick, this diseaseful world, as long as I remain in this leprous house, this flesh of mine, this Heart, though thus prepared for thee, prepared by thee, will still be subject to the invasion of malign and pestilent vapours. But I have my Cordials in thy promise; 
1. Reg. 8.38.  when I shall know the plague of my heart, and pray unto thee, in thy house, thou wilt preserve that heart, from all mortal force, of that infection: And the Peace of God, 
Phil. 4.7  which passeth all understanding, shall keep my Heart and Mind through Christ jesus.   

11. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, who in thy upper house, the Heavens, though there be many Mansions, yet art alike, and equally in every Mansion, but here in thy lower house, though thou fillest all, yet art otherwise in some rooms thereof, then in others, otherwise in thy Church, then in my Chamber, and otherwise in thy Sacraments, then in my Prayers, so though thou be always present, and always working in every room of this thy House, my body, yet I humbly beseech thee to manifest always a more effectual presence in my heart, then in the other Offices. Into the house of thine Anointed, disloyal persons, Traitors will come; Into thy House, the Church, Hypocrites, and Idolaters will come; Into some Rooms of this thy House, my Body, Tentations will come, Infections will come, but be my Heart, thy Bedchamber, O my God, and thither let them not enter. job made a Covenant with his Eyes, but not his making of that Covenant, but thy dwelling in his heart, enabled him to keep that Couenaunt. Thy Son himself had a sadness in his Soul to death, and he had a reluctation, a deprecation of death, in the approaches thereof; but he had his Cordial too, Yet not my will, but thine be done. And as thou hast not delivered us, thine adopted sons, from these infectious tentations, so neither hast thou delivered us over to them, nor withheld thy Cordials from us. I was baptised in thy Cordial water, against Original sin, and I have drunk of thy Cordial Blood, for my recovery, from actual, and habitual sin in the other Sacrament. Thou, O Lord, who hast imprinted all medicinal virtues, which are in all creatures, and hast made even the flesh of Vipers, to assist in Cordials, art able to make this present sickness, everlasting health, this weakness, everlasting strength, and this very dejection, and faintness of heart, a powerful Cordial. When thy blessed Son cried out to thee, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, thou didst reach out thy hand to him; but not to deliver his sad soul, but to receive his holy soul; Neither did he longer desire to hold it of thee, but to recommend it to thee. I see thine hand upon me now, O Lord, and I ask not why it comes, what it intends: whether thou wilt bid it stay still in this Body, for some time, or bid it meet thee this day in Paradise, I ask not, not in a wish, not in a thought: Infirmity of Nature, Curiosity of Mind, are tentations that offer; but a silent, and absolute obedience, to thy will, even before I know it, is my Cordial. Preserve that to me, O my God, and that will preserve me to thee; that when thou hast Catechised me with affliction here, I may take a greater degree, and serve thee in a higher place, in thy kingdom of joy, and glory. Amen.    

12.— Spirante Columbâ Suppositâ pedibus, Revocantur ad ima vapores. They apply Pigeons, to draw the vapours from the Head.  

12. MEDITATION.  
What will not kill a man, if a vapour will? how great an Elephant, how small a Mouse destroys? to dye by a bullet is the Soldiers daily bread; but few men die by haile-shot: A man is more worth, then to be sold for single money; a life to be valued above a trifle. If this were a violent shaking of the Air by Thunder, or by Canon, in that case the Air is condensed above the thickness of water, of water baked into Ice, almost petrified, almost made stone, and no wonder that that kills; but that that which is but a vapour, and a vapour not forced, but breathed, should kill, that our Nurse should overly us, and Air, that nourishes us, should destroy us, but that it is a half Atheism to murmur against Nature, who is God's immediate Commissioner, who would not think himself miserable to be put into the hands of Nature, who does not only set him up for a mark for others to shoot at, but delights herself to blow him up like a glass, till she see him break, even with her own breath? nay if this infectious vapour were sought for, or travailed to, as Pliny hunted after the vapour of Aetna and dared, and challenged Death in the form of a vapour to do his worst, and felt the worst, he died; or if this vapour were met withal in an ambush, and we surprised with it, out of a long shut● Well, or out of a new opened Mine, who would lament, who would accuse, when we had nothing to accuse, none to lament against, but Fortune, who is less than a vapour: But when ourselves are the Well, that breathes out this exhalation, the Oven that spits out this fiery smoke, the Mine that spews out this suffocating, and strangling damp, who can ever after this, aggravate his sorrow, by this Circumstance, That it was his Neighbour, his familiar friend, his brother that destroyed him, and destroyed him with a whispering, & a calumniating breath, when we ourselves do it to ourselves by the same means, kill ourselves with our own vapours? Or if these occasions of this selfe-destruction, had any contribution from our own wills, any assistance from our own intentions, nay from our own errors, we might divide the rebuke, & chide ourselves as much as them. Fevers upon wilful distempers of drink, and surfeits, Consumptions upon intemperances', & licentiousness, Madness upon misplacing, or over-bending our natural faculties, proceed from ourselves, and so, as that ourselves are in the plot, and we are not only passive, but active too, to our own destruction; But what have I done, either to breed, or to breathe these vapours? They tell me it is my Melancholy; Did I infuse, did I drink in Melancholy into myself? It is my thoughtfulness; was I not made to think? It is my study; doth not my Calling call for thate I have done nothing, wilfully, perversely toward it, yet must suffer in it, die by it; There are too many Examples of men, that have been their own executioners, and that have made hard shift to be so; some have always had poison about them, in a hollow ring upon their finger, and some in their Pen that they used to write with: some have beat out their brains at the wall of their prison, and some have eat the fire out of their chimneys: 
Coma, latro. in Val. Max.  and one is said to have come nearer our case then so, to have strangled himself, though his hands were bound, by crushing his throat between his knees; But I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own Executioner. And we have heard of death, upon small occasions, and by scornful instruments; a pin, a comb, a hair, pulled, hath gangred, & killed; But when I have said, a vapour, if I were asked again, what is a vapour, I could not tell, it is so insensible a thing; so near nothing is that that red●ces us to nothing. But extend this vapour, rarify it; from so narrow a room, as our Natural bodies, to any Politic body, to a State. That which is fume in us, is in a State, Rumour, and these vapours in us, which we consider here pestilent, and infectious fumes, are in a State infectious rumours, detracting and dishonourable Calumnies, Libels. The Heart in that body is the King; and the Brain, his Council; and the whole Magistracy, that ties all together, is the Sinews, which proceed from thence; and the life of all is Honour, and just respect, and due reverence; and therefore, when these vapours, these venomous rumours, are directed against these Noble parts, the whole body suffers. But yet for all their privileges, they are not privileged from our misery; that as the vapours most pernicious to us, arise in our own bodies, so do the most dishonourable rumours, and those that wound a State most, arise at home. What ill air, that I could have met in the street, what channel, what shambles, what dunghill, what vault, could have hurt me so much, as these home-bredd vapours? What fugitive, what Almsman of any foreign State, can do so much harm, as a Detractor, a Libeler, a scornful jester at home? For, as they that write of Poisons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of Man, do as well mention the Flea, as the Viper, because the Flea, 
Ardionus.  though he kill none, he does all the harm he can, so even these libellous and licentious jesters, utter the venom they have, though sometimes virtue, and always power, be a good Pigeon to draw this vapour from the Head, and from doing any deadly harm there.   

12. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, as thy servant james, when he asks that question, what is your life, provides me my answer, 
4.14.  It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, & then vanisheth away, so if he did ask me what is your death, I am provided of my answer, It is a vapour too; And why should it not be all one to me, whether I live, or die, if life, and death be all one, both a vapour. Thou ha●t made vapour so indifferent a thing, as that thy Blessings, and thy judgements are equally expressed by it, and is made by thee the Hierogliphique of both. Why should not that be always good, by which thou hast declared thy plentiful goodness to us? 
Gen. 2.6.  A vapour went up from the Earth, and watered the whole face of the ground, And that by which thou hast imputed a goodness to us, and wherein thou hast accepted our service to thee, sacrifices; for Sacrifices, were vapours, 
Levit. 16 23.  And in th●m it is said, that a thick cloud of incense went up to thee. 
Ezech. 8.11.  So it is of that, wherein thou com'st to us, the dew of Heaven, And of that wherein we come to thee● both are vapours; And he, in whom we have, and are all that we are or have, temporally, or spiritually, thy blessed Son, in the person of wisdom, is called so to; she is (that is he is) the vapour of the power of God, 
Sap. 7.24.  and the pure influence from the glory of the Almighty. Hast thou, Thou, O my God, perfumed vapour, with thine own breath, with so many sweet acceptations, in thine own word, and shall this vapour receive an ill, and infectious sense? It must; for, since we have displeased thee, with that which is but vapour, (for what is sin, but a vapour, but a smoke, though such a smoke, as takes away our sight, and disables us from seeing our danger) it is just, that thou punish us with vapours to For so thou dost, as the Wiseman tells us, Thou canst punish us by those things, wherein we offend thee; as he hath expressed it there, B● beasts newly created, breathing vapours. 
Sap. 11.18.  Therefore that Commination of ●hine, by thy Prophet, 
joel. 2.30.  I will show wonders in the heaven, and in the Earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke ● 
Act. 2.19.  thine Apostle, who knew thy meaning best, calls vapours of smoke. 
Psa. 78.8.  One Prophet presents thee in thy terribleness, so, There went out a smoke at his Nostrils, and another, the effect of thine anger so, 
Esa. 6.4.  The house was filled with smoke; And he that continues his Prophecy, as long as the world can continue, describes the miseries of the latter times so, Out of the bottomless pit arose a smoke, 
Apo. 9.2.  that darkened the Sun, and out of that smoke came Locusts, who had the power of Scorpions. Now all smokes begin in fire, & all these will end so too: The smoke of sin, and of thy wrath, will end in the fire of hell. But hast thou afforded us no means to evaporate these smokes, to withdraw these vapours? When thine Angels fell from heaven, thou tookst into thy care, the reparation of that place, & didst it, by assuming, by drawing us thither● when we fell from thee here, in this world, thou tookst into thy care the reparation of this place too, and didst it by assuming us another way, by descending down to assume our nature, in thy Son. So that though our last act be an ascending to glory, (we shall ascend to the place of Angels) yet our first act is to go the way of thy Sonn, descending, and the way of thy blessed spirit too, who descended in the Dove. Therefore hast thou been pleased to afford us this remedy in Nature, by this application of a Dove, to our lower parts, to make these vapours in our bodies, to descend, and to make that a type to us, that by the visitation of thy Spirit, the vapours o● sin shall descend, & we tread them under our feet. At the baptism of thy Son, the Dove descended, & at the exalting of thine Apostles to preach, the same spirit descended. Let us draw down the vapours of our own pride, our own wits, our own wills, our own inventions, to the simplicity of thy Sacraments, & the obedience of thy word, and these Doves, thus applied, shall make us live.   

12. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who though thou have suffered us to destroy ourselves, & hast not given us the power of reparation in our s●lues, hast yet afforded us such means of reparation, as may easily, and familiarly be compassed by us, prosper I humbly beseech thee this means of bodily assistance in this thy ordinary creature, and prosper thy means of spiritual assistance in thy holy ordinances. And as thou hast carried this thy creature the Dove, through all thy ways, through Nature, and made it naturally proper to conduce medicinally to our bodily health, Through the law, and made it a sacrifice for sin there, and through the Gospel, and made it, & thy spirit in it, a witness of thy son's baptism there, so carry it, and the qualities of it home to my soul, and imprint there that simplicity, that mildness, that harmlessness, which thou hast imprinted by Nature in this Creature. That so all vapours of all disobedience to thee, being subdued under my feet, I may in the power, and triumph of thy son, tread victoriously upon my grave, and trample upon the Lion, and Dragon, 
Psa. 91.13.  that lie under it, to devour me. Thou O Lord by the Prophet callest the Dove, 
Eze. 7.16  the Dove of the Valleys, but promisest that the Dove of the Valleys shall be upon the Mountain: As thou hast laid me low, in this Valley of sickness, so low, as that I am made fit for that question, asked in the field of bones, 
37.3.  Son of Man, can these bones live, so, in thy good time, carry me up to these Mountains, of which, even in this Valley, thou afford me a prospect, the Mountain where thou dwellest, the holy Hill, unto which none can ascend but he that hath clean hands, which none can have, but by that one and that strong way, of making them clean, in the blood of thy Son Christ jesus. Amen.    

13. Ingeniumque malum, numeroso stigmate, fassus Pellitur ad pectus, Morbique Suburbia, Morbus. The Sickness declares the infection●●nd malignity thereof 〈…〉.  

13. MEDITATION.  
We say, that the world is made of sea, & land, as though they were equal; but we know that there is more sea in the Western, than in the Eastern Hemispheres ● We say that the Firmament is full of stars; as though it were equally full; but we know, that there are more stars under the Northern, then under the Southern Pole. We say, the Elements of man are misery, and happiness, as though he had an equal proportion of both, and the days of man vicissitudinary, as though he had as many good days, as ill, and that he lived under a perpetual Equinoctial, night, and day equal, good and ill fortune in the same measure. But it is far from that; he drinks misery, & he tastes happiness; he mows misery, and he gleans happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walk in happiness; and which is worst, his misery is positive, and dogmatic, his happiness is but disputable, and problematical; All men call Misery, Misery, but Happiness changes the name, by the taste of man. In this accident that befalls m●e now, that this sickness declares itself by Spots, to be a malignant, and pestilential disease, if there be a comfort in the declaration, that thereby the Physicians see more clearly what to do, there m●y be as much discomfort in this, That the malignity may be so great, as that all that they can do, shall do nothing; That an enemy declares himself, then, when he is able to subsist, and to pursue, and to achieve his ends, is no great comfort. In intestine Conspiracies, voluntary Confessions do more good, than confessions upon the Rack; In these Infections, when Nature herself confesses, and cries out by these outward declarations, which she is able to put forth of herself, they minister comfort; but when all is by the strength of Cordials, it is but a Confession upon the Rack, by which though we come to know the malice of that man, yet we do not know, whether there be not as much malice in his heart then, as before his confession; we are sure of his Treason, but not of of his Repentance; sure of him, but not of his Complices. It is a faint comfort to know the worst, when the worst is remediless; and a weaker than that, to know much ill, & not to know, that that is the worst. A woman is comforted with the birth of her Son, her body is eased of a burden; but if she could prophetically read his History, how ill a man, perchance how ill a son, he would prove, she should receive a greater burden into her Mind. Scarce any purchase that is not cloggd with secret encumbrances; scarce any happiness, that hath not in it so much of the nature of false and base money, as that the Alloy is more than the Mettle. Nay is it not so, (at least much towards it) even in the exercise of Virtues? I must be poor, and want, before I can exercise the virtue of Gratitude; miserable, and in torment, before I can exercise the virtue of patience; How deep do we dig, and for how course gold? And what other Touchstone have we of our gold, but comparison? Whether we be as happy, as others, or as our selves at other times; O poor step toward being well, when these spots do only tell us, that we are worse, than we were sure of before.   

13. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, thou hast made this sick bed thine Altar, and I have no other Sacrifice to offer, but my ●elf; and wilt thou accept no spotted sacrifice? Doth ●hy Son dwell bodily in this flesh, that thou shouldst look for an unspottedness here? Or is the Holy Ghost, the soul of this body, as he is of thy Spouse, 
Can. 4.7.  who is therefore all fair, and no spot in her? or hath thy Son himself no spots, who hath all our stains, & deformities in him? Or hath thy Spouse, thy Church, no spots, when every particular limb of that fair, & spotless body, every particular soul in that Church is full of stains, and spots? Thou bidst us hate the garment, 
jud. 23.  that is spotted with the flesh. The flesh itself is the garment, and it spotteth itself, with itself. And if I wash myself with snow water; 
job 9.30.  mine own clothes shall make me abominable; and yet no man yet ever hated his own flesh: 
Ephes. 5.29.  Lord, if thou look for a spotlesnesse, whom wilt thou look upon? Thy mercy may go a great way in my soul, & yet not leave me without spots; Thy corrections may go far, & burn deep, and yet not leave me spotless: thy children apprehended that, when they said, 
josua 22.17.  From our former iniquity we are not cleansed, until this day, though there was a plague in the Congregation of the Lord; Thou train'st upon us, and yet dost not always mollify all our hardness; Thou kindlest thy fires in us, and yet dost not always burn up all our dross; Thou healst our wounds, and yet leavest scars; Thou purgest the blood, and yet leavest spots. But the spots that thou hatest, are the spots that we hide. 
Sap. 13.14.  The Carvers of Images cover spots, says the Wise man; When we hide our spots, we become Idolaters of our own stains, of our own foulenesses. But if my spots come forth, by what means soever, whether by the strength of Nature, by voluntary confession, (for Grace is the Nature of a Regenerate man, and the power of Grace is the strength of Nature) or by the virtue of Cordials, (for even thy Corrections are Cordials) if they come forth either way, thou receivest that Confession with a gracious Interpretation. 
Gen. 30.33.  When thy servant jacob practised an Invention to procure spots in his sheep, thou didst prosper his Rodds; and thou dost prosper thine own Rodds, when corrections procure the discovery of our spots, the humble manifestation of our sins to thee; Till than thou mayst justly say, The whole need not the Physician; 
Mat. 9.12.  Till we tell thee in our sickness, we think ourselves whole, till we show our spots, thou appliest no medicine. But since I do that, shall I not, 
job 11.15.  Lord, lift up my face without spot, and be steadfast, and not fear. Even my spots belong to thy Son's body, and are part of that, which he came down to this earth, to fetch, and challenge, and assume to himself. When I open my spots, I do but present him with that which is His, and till I do so, I detain, & withhold his right. When therefore thou seest them upon me, as His, and seest them by this way of Confession, they shall not appear to me, as the pinches of death, to decline my fear to Hell; (for thou hast not left th● holy one in Hell, thy Son is not there) but these spots upon my Breast, and upon my Soul, shall appear to me as the Constellations of the Firmament, to direct my Contemplation to that place, where thy Son is, thy right hand.   

13. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, who as thou givest all for nothing, if we consider any precedent Merit in us, so giv'st Nothing, for Nothing, if we consider the acknowledgement, & thankfulness, which thou lookest for, after, accept my humble thanks, both for thy Mercy, and for this particular Mercy, that in thy judgement I can discern thy Mercy, and find comfort in thy corrections. I know, O Lord, the ordinary discomfort that accompanies that phrase, That the house is visited, And that, that thy marks, and thy tokens are upon the patient; But what a wretched, and disconsolate Hermitage is that House, which is not visited by thee, and what a Wayve, and Stray is that Man, that hath not thy Marks upon him? These heaves, O Lord, which thou hast brought upon this body, are but thy chafing of the wax, that thou mightest seal me to thee; These spots are but the letters; in which thou hast written thine own Name, and conveyed thyself to me; whether for a present possession, by taking me now, or for a future renersion, by glorifying thyself in my stay here, I limit not, ● condi●ion not, I choose not, I wish not, no more than the house, or land that passeth by any Civil conveyance. Only be thou ever present to me, O my God, and this bedchamber, & thy bedchamber shall be all one room, and the closing of these bodily Eyes here, and the opening of the Eyes of my Soul, there, all one Act.    

14. Idque notant Criticis, Medici evenisse Diebus. The Physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the critical days.  

14. MEDITATION.  
I Would not make Man worse than he is, Nor his Condition more miserable than it is. But could I though I would? As a Man cannot flatter God, nor oue● praise him, so a Man cannot injure Man, no● undervalue him. Thus much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those false Happinesses, which he hath in this World, have their times, & their seasons, and their Critical d●yes, & they are judged, and Denominated according to the times, when they befall us. What poor Elements are our happinesses made off, if Time, Time which we can scarce consider to be any thing, be an essential part of our happiness? All things are done in some place; but if we consider place to be no more, but the next hollow Superficies of the Air, Alas, how thin, & fluid a thing is Air, and how thin a film is a Superficies, and a Superficies of Air? All things are done in time too; but if we consider Time to be but the Measure of Motion, and howsoever it may seem to have 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, Time be of the Essence of our Happinesses, how can they be thought durable? Time is not so; How can they be thought to be? Time is not so; not so, considered in any of the parts thereof. If we consider Eternity, into that, Time never Entered; Eternity is not an everlasting flux of Time; but Time is as a short parenthesis in a long period; and Eternity had been the same, as it is, though time had never been; If we consider, not Eternity, bu● Perpetuity, not that which had no time to begin in, but whic● shall outlive Time an● be, when Time shall be● no more, wh●t A Minu●● is the life of the Durablest Creature, compare● to that? And what ● Minute is Man's life i● respect of the Suns, o● of a tree? and yet how little of our life is Occasions opportunity to receyu● good in; and how little of that occasion, do we apprehend, and lay hold of? How busy, and perplexed a Cobweb, is the Happiness of Man here, that must be made up with a Watchfulness, to lay hold upon Occasion, which is but a little piece of that, which is Nothing, Time? And yet the best things are Nothing without that. Honours, Pleasures, Possessions, presented to us, out of time, in our decrepit, and distasted, & unapprehensive Age, lose their office, & lose their Name; They are not Honours to us, that shall never appear, nor come abroad into the Eyes of the people, to receive Honour, from them who give it: Nor pleasures to us, who have lost our sense to taste them● nor possessions to us, who are departing from the possession of them. Youth is their Critical Day; that judges them, that Denominates them, that inanimates, and informs them, and makes them Honours, and pleasures, and possessions, & when they come in an unapprehensive Age, they come as a Cordial when the bell rings out, as a Pardon, when the Head is off. We rejoice in the Comfort of fire, but does any Man cleave to it at Midsummer; We are glad of the freshness, & coolness of a Vault, but does any Man keep his Christmas there; or are the pleasures of the Spring acceptable in Autumn? If happiness be in the season, or in the Climate, how much happier than are Birds than Men, who can change the Climate, and accompany, and enjoy the same season ever.   

14. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God wouldst thou call thyself the Ancient of days, 
Dan. 7, 9  if we were not to call ourselves to an account for our days? wouldst thou chide us 
Mat. 20.6.  for standing idle here all the day, if we were sure to have more days, to make up our haru●st? When thou biddest us take no thought for tomorrow; 
6●34.  for sufficient unto the day (to every day) is the evil thereof, is this truly, absolutely, to put of all that concerns the present life? When thou reprehendest the Galatians 
4.10.  by thy Message to them, That they observed days, and Months, and Time's, and Years, when thou sendest by the same Messenger, to forbid the Colossians all Critical days, 
2. 16●  Indicatory days, Let no Man judge you, in respect of a holiday, or of a new Moon, or of a Saboth, dost thou take away all Consideration, all distinction of days? Though thou remove them from being of the Essence of our Salvation, thou leavest them for assistances, and for the Exaltation of our Devotion, to fix ourselves, at certain periodical, & stationary times, upon the consideration of those things, which thou hast done for us, and the Crisis, the trial, the judgement, how those things have wrought upon us, and disposed us to a spiritual recovery, and convalescence. For there is to every man a day of salvation, 
2. Cor. 6.2.  Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation, And there is a great day of thy wrath, 
Apoc. 6.17.  which no man shall be able to stand in; And there are evil days before, and therefore thou warnest us, and armest us, 
Eph. 6.1.  Take unto you the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day. So far them our days must be critical to us, as that by consideration of them, we may make a judgement of our spiritual health; for that is the crisis of our bodily health; Thy beloved servant S. joh. wishes to Gaius, 
3. joh. v. 2.  that he may prosper in his health so as his soul prospers; ●or if the Soul be lean, the marrow of the Body is but water; if the Soul wither, the verdure and the good estate of the body, is but an illusion, & the goodliest man, a fearful ghost. Shall we, O my God, determine our thoughts, & shall we never determine our disputations upon our Climaclericall years, for particular men, and periodical years, for the life of states and kingdoms, and never consider these in our long life, & our interest in the everlasting kingdom? We have exercisd our curiosity in observing that Adam ● the eldest of the eldest world, died in his climacterical year, & Sem the eldest son of the next world, in his; Abraham the father of the faithful, in his, & the blessed Virgin Mary, the garden, where the root of faith grew, in hers. But they whose Climacteriques we observe, employed their observation upon their critical days, the working of thy promise of a Messias upon them. And shall we, O my God, make less use of those days, who have more of them? We● who have not only the day of the Prophets, 
Heb. 1.2.  the first days, but the last days, in which thou hast spoken unto us, by thy Son? We are the children of the day, 
2. Thes. 5.8.  for thou hast shined in as full a Noon, upon us, as upon the Thessalonians; They who were of the night, (a Night, which they had superinduced upon themselues) the pharisees; pretended, That if they had been in their Father's days, 
Mat. 23. 30●  (those indicatory, and iudicatory, those Critical days) they would not have been partakers of the blood of the Prophets; And shall we who are in the day, these Days, not of the Prophets, but of the Son, stone those Prophets again, and crucify that Son again, for all those evident Indications, and critical judicatures which are afforded us? Those opposed adversaries of thy Son, the pharisees with the Herodians, watched a Critical day; Then when the State was incensed against him, 
Mat. 22.15:  they came to tempt him in the dangerous question of Tribute. They left him, & that day was the Critical day to the Saducees, The same day, says thy Spirit, in thy word, the Saducees came to him to question him about the Resurrection; 
V. 23.  and them he silenced; They left him; & this was the Critical day for the Scribe, expert in the Law, who thought himself learneder than the Herodian, 
V. 34.  the Pharise or Saduce; and he tempted him about the great Commandment; & him● Christ left without power of replying. When all was done, & that they went about to begin their circle of vexation, and tentation again, Christ silemces them so, that, as they had taken their Critical days, to come, in That, and in that day, so Christ imposes a Critical day upon them, From that day forth, 
V. 46.  says thy Spirit, no man durst ask him any more questions. This, O my God, my most blessed God, is a fearful Crisis, a fearful Indication, when we will study, and seek, and find, what days are fittest to forsake thee in; To say, Now, Religion is in a neutrality in the world, and this is my day, the day of liberty; Now I may make new friends by changing my old religion, and this is my day, the day of advancement. But O my God, with thy servant Jacob's holy boldness, who though thou lamedst him, 
Gen. 32.26.  would not let thee go, till thou hadst given him a blessing, Though thou have laid me upon my hearse, yet thou shalt not depart from me, from this bed, till thou have given me a Crisis, a judgement upon myself this day. 
2 Pet. 3.8  Since a day is as a thousand years with thee, Let, O Lord, a day, be as a week to me; and in this one, let me consider seven days, seven critical days, and judge myself, that I be not judged by thee. First, this is the day of thy visitation, thy coming to me; and would I look to be welcome to thee, and not entertain thee ●n thy coming to me? We measure not the visitations of great persons, by their apparel, by their equipage, by the solemnity of their coming, but by their very coming; and therefore, howsoever thou come, it is a Crisis to me, that thou wouldst not lose me, who seek'st me by any means. This leads me from my first day, thy visitation by sickness, to a second, to th● light, and testimony of my Conscience. There I have an evening, & a morning; a sad guiltiness in my soul, but yet a cheerful rising of thy Son to● Thy Evenings and Mornings made days in the Creation, and there is no mention of Nights; My sadnesses for sins are evenings, but they determine not in night, but deliver me over to the day, the day of a Conscience dejected, but then rectified, accused, but then acquitted, by thee, by him, who speaks thy word, & who is thy word, thy Son. From this day, the Crisis and examination of my Conscience, breaks out my third day, my day of preparing, & fitting myself for a more especial receiving of thy Son, in his institution of the Sacrament: In which day though th●re be many dark passages, & slippery steps, to them who will entangle, and endanger themselves, in unnecessary disputations, yet there are light hours enough, for any man, ●o go his whole journey intended by thee; to know, that that Bread and Wine, is not more really assimilated to my body, & to my blood, than the Body and blood of thy Son, is communicated to me in that action, and participation of that bread, and that wine. And having, O my God, walked with thee these three days, The day of thy visitation, the day of my Conscience, The day of preparing for this seal of Reconciliation, I am the less afraid of the clouds or storms of my fourth day, the day of my dissolution & transmigration from hence. Nothing deserves the name of happiness, that makes the remembrance of death bitter; 
Ecclus. 41.1.  And O death 〈◊〉 bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a man that lives at rest, in his possessions, the Man that hath Nothing to vex him, yea unto him, that is able to receive meat? Therefore hast thou, O my God, made this sickness, in which I am not able to receive meat, my fasting day, my Eve, to this great festival, my dissolution. And this day of death shall deliver me over to my fifth day, the day of my Resurrection; for how long a day soever thou make that day in the grave, yet there is no day between that, and the Resurrection. Then we shall all be invested, reapparelled in our own bodies; but they who have made just use of their former days, be super-inuested with glory, whereas the others, condemned to their old clothes, their sinful bodies, shall have Nothing added, but immortality to torment. And this day of awaking me, and reinuesting my Soul, in my body, and my body in the body of Christ, shall present me, Body, and Soul, to my sixth day, The day of judgement; which is truly, and most literally, the Critical, the Decretory day; both because all judgement shall be manifested to me then, and I shall assist in judging the world then● and because then, that judgement shall declare to me, and possess me of my Seventh day, my Everlasting Saboth in thy rest, th● glory, thy joy, thy sight, thy s●lfe; and where I shall live as long, without reckoning any more Days after, as thy Son, and thy Holy Spirit lived with thee, before you three made any Days in the Creation.   

14. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who though thou didst permit darkness to be before light in the Creation, yet in the making of light, didst so multiply that light, as that it enlightened not the day only, but the night too, though thou have suffered some dimness, some clouds of sadness & disconsolateness to shed themselves upon my soul, I humbly bless and thankfully glorify thy holy name, that thou hast afforded me the light of thy spirit, against which the prince of darkness cannot prevail, nor hinder his illumination of our darkest nights, of our saddest thoughts. Even the visitation of thy most blessed Spirit, upon the blessed Virgin, is called an overshadowing: There wa● the presence of the Holy Ghost, the fountain of all light, and yet an overshadowing; Nay except there were some light, there could be no shadow. Let thy merciful providence so govern all in this sickness, that I never fall into utter darkness, ignorance of thee, or inconsideration of myself; and let those shadows which do fall upon me, faintnesses of Spirit, and condemnations of myself, be overcome by the power of thine irresistible light, the God of consolation; that when those shadows have done their office upon me, to let me see, that of myself I should fall into irrecoverable darkness, thy spirit may do his office upon those shadows, and disperse them, and establish me in so bright a day here, as may be a Critical day to me, a day wherein, and whereby I may give thy judgement upon myself, and that the words of thy son, spoken to his Apostles, may reflect upon me, 
Mat. 28.20.  Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the world.    

Intereà insomnes noctes Ego duco, Diesque. I sleep not day nor night.  

15. MEDITATION.  
Natural Men have conceived a two fold use of sleep; That it is a refreshing of the body in this life; That it is a preparing of the soul for the next; That it is a feast, and it is the Grace at that feast; That it is our recreation, and cheers us, and it is our Catechism, and instructs us; we lie down in a hope, that we shall rise the stronger; and we lie down in a knowledge, that we may rise no more. Sleep is an Opiate which gives us rest, but such an Opiate, as perchance, being under it, we shall wake no more. But though natural men, who have induced secondary and figurative considerations, have found out this second, this emblematical use of sleep, that it should be a representation of death, God, who wrought and perfected his work, before Nature began, (for Nature was but his apprentice, to learn in the first seven days, and now is his foreman, and works next under him) God, I say, intended sleep only for the refreshing of man by bodily rest, and not for a figure of death, for he intended not death itself then. But Man having induced death upon himself, God hath taken Man's Creature, death, into his hand, and mended it; and whereas it hath in itself a fearful form and aspect, so that Man is afraid of his own Creature, God presents it to him, in a familiar, in an assiduous, in an agreeable, and acceptable form, in sleep, that so when he awakes from sleep, and says to himself, shall I be no otherwise when I am dead, than I was even now, when I was asleep, he may be ashamed of his waking dreams, and of his Melancholic fancying out a horrid and an affrightful figure of that death which is so like sleep. As than we need sleep to live out our threescore and ten years, so we need death, to live that life which we cannot outlive. And as death being our enemy, God allows us to defend ourselves against it (for we victual ou● selves against death, twice every day, as often as we eat) so God having so sweetened death unto us, as he hath in sleep, we put ourselves into our Enemy's hands once every day; so far, as sleep is death; and sleep is as much death, as meat is life. This then is the misery of my sickness, That death as it is produced from me, and is mine own Creature, is now before mine Eyes, but in that form, in which God hath mollified it to us, and made it acceptable, in sleep, I cannot see it: how many prisoners, who have even hollowed themselves their graves upon that Earth, on which they have lion long under heavy fetters, yet at this hour are asleep, though they be yet working upon their own graves, by their own weight? he that hath seen his friend die to day, or knows he shall see it to morrow, yet will sink into a sleep between. I cannot; and oh, if I be entering now into Eternity, where there shall be no more distinction of hours, why is it all my business now to tell Clocks? why is none of the heaviness of my heart, dispensed into mine Eyelids, ●hat they might fall as my heart doth? And why, since I have lo●t my delight in all objects, cannot I discontinue t●e faculty of seeing them, by closing mine Eyes in sleep? But why rather being entering into that presence, where I shall wake continually and never sleep more, do I not interpret my continual waking here, to be a p●rasceue, and a preparation to that?   

15. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, I know, (for thou hast said it) That he that keepeth Israel, 
Psa. 121.1.  shall neither slumber, nor sleep: But shall not that Israel, over whom thou watchest, sleep? I know, (for thou hast said it) that there are Men, 
2 Pet. 2.3.  whose damnation sleepeth not; but shall not they to whom thou art Salvation, sleep? or wilt thou take from them that evidence, and that testimony, that they are thy Israel, or thou their salvation? Thou givest thy beloved sleep. 
Psa. 127 1.  Shall I lack that seal of thy love? You shall lie down, 
Leu. 26.6.  and none shall make you afraid; shall I be outlawd from that protection? 
jon. 1.5.  jonas slept in one dangerous storm, and thy blessed Son in another. 
Mat. 8.24.  Shall I have no use, no benefit, no application of those great Examples? Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well, 
Io. 11.12.  say thy Son's Disciples to him, of Lazarus; And shall there be no room, for that Argument in me? or shall I be open to the contrary? If I sleep not, shall I not be well, in their sense? Let me not, O my God, take this too precisely, too literally: There is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes, 
Eccles. 8.16.  says thy wise servant Solomon; and whether he speak that of worldly Men, or of Men that seek wisdom, whether in justification or condemnation of their watchfulness, we can not tell: we can t●ll, 
Pro. 4.16.  That there are men, that cannot sleep, till they have done mischief, and ●hen they can; and we can tell that the rich man cannot sleep, 
Eccles. 5.12.  because his abundance will not let him. 
Mat. 13.25.28.13.  The tares were sown when the husbandmen were asleep; And the elders thought it a probable excuse, a credible lie, that the watchmen which kept the Sepulchre, should say, 
26.40.  that the body of thy son was stolen away, when they were asleep: Since thy blessed Son rebuked his Disciples for sleeping, shall I murmur because I do not sleep? 
jud. 16.3.  If Samson had slept any longer in Gaza, he had been taken; And when he did sleep longer with Delilah, he was taken. 
vers. 19  Sleep is as often taken for natural death in thy Scriptures, as for natural rest. Nay sometimes sleep ha●h so heavy a sense, as to be taken for sin itself, 
Eph. 5.14.  as well as for the punishment of sin, Death. 
1 Thes. 5.6.  Much comfort is not in much sleep, when the most fearful and most irrevocable Malediction is presented by thee, 
jer. 51.59.  in a perpetual sleep. I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunk, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake. I must therefore, O my God, look farther, than into the very act of sleeping, before I misinterpret my waking: for since I find thy whole hand light, shall any finger of that hand seem heavy? since the whole sickness is thy Physic, shall any accident in it, be my poison, by my murmuring? The name of Watchmen belongs to our profession; Thy Prophets are not only seers, endued with a power of seeing, able to see, but Watchmen, evermore in the Act of seeing. And therefore give me leave, O my blessed God, to invert the words of thy Son's Spouse; she said, 
Can. 5.8  I sleep, but my heart waketh; I say, I wake, but my heart sleepeth; My body is in a sick weariness, but my soul in a peaceful rest with thee; and as our eyes, in our health, see not the Air, that is next them, nor the fire, nor the spheres, nor stop upon any thing, till they come to stars, so my eyes, that are open, see nothing of this world, but pass through all that, and fix themselves upon thy peace, and joy, and glory above. Almost as soon as thy Apostle had said, Let us not sleep, 
1 Thes. 5.6.  lest we should be too much discomforted, if we did, he says again, 
vers. 10.  whether we wake or sleep, let us live together with Christ. Though then this absence of sleep, may argue the presence of death (the Original may exclude the Copy, the life, the picture) yet this gentle sleep, and rest of my soul betrothes me to thee, to whom I shall be married indissolubly, though by this way of dissolution.   

15. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who art able to make, and dost make the sick bed of thy servants, Chapels of ease to them, and the dreams of thy servants, Prayers, and Meditations upon thee, let not this continual watchfulness of mine, this inability to sleep, which thou hast laid upon me, be any disquiet, or discomfort to me, but rather an argument, that thou wouldst not have me sleep in thy presence. What it may indicate or signify, concerning the state of my body, let them consider to whom that consideration belongs; do thou, who only art the Physician of my soul, tell her, that thou wilt afford her such defensatives as that she shall wake ever towards thee, and yet ever sleep in thee; & that through all this sickness, thou wilt either preserve mine understanding, from all decays and distractions, which these watchings might occasion, or that thou wilt reckon, and account with me, from before those violences, and not call any piece of my sickness, a sin. It ●s a heavy, and indelible sin, that I brought into the world wi●h me● It is a heavy and innu●merable multitude of sins, which I have heaped up since; I have sinned behind thy back (if that can be done) by wilful abstaining from thy Congregations, and omitting thy service, and I have sinned before thy face, in my hypocrisies in Prayer, in my ostentation, and the mingling a respect of myself, in preaching thy Word; I have sinned in my fasting by repining, when a penurious fortune hath kept me low; And I have sinned even in that fullness, when I have been at thy table, by a negligent examination, by a wilful prevarication, in receiving that heavenly food and Physic. But, as I know, O my gracious God, that for all those sins committed since, yet thou wilt consider me, as I was in thy purpose, when thou wrotest my name in the book of Life, in mine Election: so into what deviations soever I stray, and wander, by occasion of this sickness, O God, return thou to that Minute, wherein thou wast pleased with me, and consider me in that condition.    

16. Et properare meum clamant, è Turre propinqua, Obstreperae Campanae aliorum in funere, funus. From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily remembered of my burial in the funerals of others.  

16. MEDITATION.  

Magius.  WE have a Convenient Author, who writ a Discourse of Bells when he was Prisoner in Turkey. How would he have enlarged himself, if he had been my fellow Prisoner in this sick bed, so near to that steeple, which never ceases, no more than the harmony of the spheres, but is more heard. When the Turks took Constantinople, they melted the Bells into Ordnance; I have heard both Bells and Ordnance, but never been so much affected with those, as with these Bells. I have lain near a steeple, 
Antwerp  in which there are said to be more than thirty Bells; And near another, where there is one so big, 
Rouen.  as that the Clapper is said to weigh more than six hundred pound's yet never so affected as here. Here the Bells can scarce solemnise the funeral of any person, but that I knew him, or knew that he was my Neighbour: we dwelled in houses near to one another before, but now he is gone into that house, into which I must follow him. There is a way of correcting the Children of great persons, that other Children are corrected in their behalf, and in their names, and this works upon them, who indeed had more deserved it. And when these Bells tell me, that now one, and now another is buried, must not I acknowledge, that they have the correction due to me, and paid the debt that I owe? There is a story of a Bell in a Monastery, 
Roccha.  which, when any of the house was sick to death, rung always voluntarily, and they knew the inevitablenesse of the danger by that. It rung once, when no man was sick; but the next day one of the house, fell from the steeple, and died, and the Bell held the reputation of a Prophet still. If these Bells that warn to a Funeral now, were appropriated to none, may not I, by the hour of the funeral, supply? How many men that stand at an execution, if they would ask, for what dies that Man, should hear their own faults condemned, and see themselves executed, by Attorney? We scarce hear of any man preferred, but we think of ourselves, that we might very well have been that Man; Why might not I have been that Man, that is carried to his grave now? Could I ●it myself, to stand, or sit in any Man's place, & not to lie in any man's grave? I may lack much of the good parts of the meanest, but I l●cke nothing of the mortality of the weakest; Th●y may have acquired better abilities than I, but I was borne to as many infirmities as they. To be an incumbent by lying down in a grave, to be a Doctor by teaching Mortification by Example, by dying, though I may have seniors, others may be elder than I, yet I have proceeded apace in a good University, and gone a great way in a little time by the furtherance of a vehement fever; and whomsoever these Bells bring to the ground to day, if he and I had been compared yesterday, perchance I should have been thought likelier to come to this preferment, then, than he. God hath kept the power of death in his own hands, lest any Man should bribe death. If man knew the gain of death, the ease of death, he would solicit, he would provoke death to assist him, by any ●and, which he might use. But as when men see many of their own professions preferred, it ministers a hope that that may light upon them; so when these hourly Bells tell me of so many funerals of men like me, it presents, if not a desire that it may, yet a comfort whensoever mine shall come.   

16. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, I do not expostulate with thee, but with them, who dare do that: Who dare expostulate with thee, when in the voice of thy Church, thou givest allowance, to this Ceremony of Bells at funerals. Is it enough to refuse it, because it was in use amongst the Gentiles? so were funerals too. Is it because some abuses may have crept in, amongst Christians? Is that enough, that their ringing hath been said to drive away evil spirits? Truly, that is so far true, as that the evil spirit is vehemently vexed in their ringing, therefore, because that action brings the Congregation together, and unites God and his people, to the destruction of that Kingdom, which the evil spirit usurps. In the first institution of thy Church, in this world, in the foundation of thy Militant Church, amongst the jews, thou didst appoint the calling of the assembly in, 
Num. 10 1.  to be by Trumpet, and when they were in, than thou gavest them the sound of Bells, in the garment of thy Priest's ● In the Triumphant Church, 
Exo. 18.  thou imploiest both too, but in an inverted Order, we enter into the Triumphant Church by the sound of Bells, (for we enter when we die;) And then we receive our further edification, or consummation, by the sound of Trumpets, at the Resurrection. The sound of thy Trumpets thou didst impart to secular a●d civil uses too, but the sound of Bells only to sacred; Lord let not us break the Communion of Saints, in that which was intended for the advancement of it; let not that pull us asunder from one another, which was intended for the assembling of us, in the Militant, and associating of us to the Triumphant Church. But he for whose funeral these Bells ring now, was at home, at his journey's end, yesterday; why ring they now? A Man, that is a world, is all the things in the world; He is an Army, and when an Army marches, the Vaunt may lodge to night, where the Rear comes not till to morrow. A man extends to his Act and to his example; to that which he does, and that which he teaches; so do those things that concern him, so do these bells; That which rung yesterday, was to convey him out of the world, in his vaunt, in his soule● that which rung to day, was to bring him in his Rear, in his body, to the Church; And this continuing of ringing after his entering, is to bring him to me in the application. Where I lie, I could hear the Psalm, and did join with the Congregation in it; but I could not hear the Sermon, and these latter bells are a repetition Sermon to me. But, O my God, my God, do I, that have this fever, need other remembrances of my Mortality? Is not mine own hollow voice, voice enough to pronounce that to me? Need I look upon a Deaths-head in a Ring, that have one in my face? or go for death to my Neighbour's house, that have him in my bosom? We cannot, we cannot, O my God, take in too many helps for religious duties; I know I cannot have any better Image of thee, than thy Son, nor any better Image of him, than his Gospel: yet must not I, with thanks confess to thee, that some historical pictures of his, have sometimes put me upon better Meditations than otherwise I should have fallen upon? I know thy Church needed not to have taken in from jew or Gentile, any supplies for the exaltation of thy glory, or our devotion; of absolute necessity I know ●hee needed not; But yet we owe thee our thanks, that thou hast given her leave to do so, and that as in making us Christians, thou didst not destroy that which we were before, natural men, so in the exalting of our religious devotions' no● we are Christians, thou hast been pleased to continue to us those assistances which did work upon the affections of natural men before: for thou lovest a good man, as thou lovest a good Christian: and though Grace be merely from thee, yet thou dost not plant Grace but in good natures.   

16. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who having consecrated our living bodies, to thine own Spirit, and made us Temples of the holy Ghost, dost also requir● a respect to be given to these Temples, even when the Priest is gone out of them, To these bodies, when the soul is departed from them; I bless, and glorify thy Name, that as thou takest care in our life, of every hair of our head, so dost thou also of every grain of ashes after our death. Neither dost thou only do good to us all, in life and death, but also wouldst have us do good to one another, as in a holy life, so in those things which accompany our death: In that Contemplation I make account that I hear this dead brother of ours, who is now carried out to his burial, to speak to me, and to preach my funeral Sermon, in the voice of these Bells. In him, O God, thou hast accomplished to me, even the request of Dives to Abraham; Thou hast sent one from the dead to speak unto me. He speaks to me aloud from that steeple; he whispers to me at these Curtains, and he speaks thy words; 
Apoc. 14 13.  Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, from henceforth. Let this prayer therefore, O my God, be as my last gasp, my expiring, my dying in thee; That if this be the hour of my transmigration, I may die the death of a sinner, drowned in my sins, in the blood of thy Son; And if I live longer, yet I may now die the death of the righteous, die to sin; which death is a resurrection to a new life. Thou killest and thou givest life: which soever comes, it comes from thee; which way soever it comes, let me come to thee.    

17. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris. Now, this Bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.  

17. MEDITATION.  
PErchance he for whom this Bell tolls, may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him; And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The Church is Catholic, universal, so are all her Actions, All that she does, belongs to all. When she baptises a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that Head which is my Head too, and engrafted into that body, whereof I am a member. And when she buries a Man, that action concerns me; All mankind is of one Author; and is one volume; when one Man dies, one Chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every Chapter must be so translated; God emploies several translators; some pieces are translated by Age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation; and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that Library where every book shall lie open to one another: As therefore the Bell that rings to a Sermon, calls not upon the Preacher only, but upon the Congregation to come; so this Bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness. There was a contention as far as a suit, (in which both piety and dignity, religion, and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious Orders should ring to prayers first in the Morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this Bell, that rolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours, by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours, as well as his, whose indeed it is. The Bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute, that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his Eye to the Sun when it rises? but who takes off his Eye from a Com●t, when that breaks out? who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No Man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea, Europe is the l●sse, as well as if a Promontory were, as well as if a Manor of thy friends, or of thine own were; Any Man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a begging of Misery or a borrowing of Misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fe●ch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the Misery of our Neighbours. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any Man hath enough of it. No Man hath affliction enough, that is not matured, and ripened by it, and mad●●it for God by that affliction. If a Man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into currant Monies, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is Treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another Man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a Mine, and be of no use to him● but this bell that tells me of his affliction, digs out, and applies that gold to mee ● if by this consideration of another's danger, I take min● own into Contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.   

17. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, Is this one of thy ways, of drawing light out of darkness, To make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness of his sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a Bishop, to as many as hear his voice, in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in this action? Is this one of thy ways to raise strength out of weakness, to make him who cannot rise from his bed, nor stir in his bed, come home to me, and in this sound, give me the strength of healthy and vigorous instructions? O my God, my God, what Thunder is not a well-tuned Cymbal, what hoarseness, what harshness is not a clear Organ, if thou be pleased to set thy voice to it? and what Organ is not well played on, if thy hand be upon it? Thy voice, thy hand is in this sound, and in this one sound, I hear this whole Consort. I hear thy jaacob call unto his sons, and ●ay; 
Gen. 49.1.  Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days: He says, That which I am now, you must be then. I hear thy Moses telling me, and all within the compass of this sound, This is the blessing wherewith I bless you before my death; 
Deut. 33 1.  This, that before your death, you would consider your own in mine. I hear thy Prophet saying to Ezechias, Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live; 
2 Reg. 20.1.  He makes us of his family, and calls this a setting of his house in order, to compose us to the meditation of death. I hear thy Apostle saying, I think it meet to put ●ou in remembrance, 
2 Pet. 2.13.  knowing that shortly I must go out of this Tabernacle. This is the publishing of his will, & this bell is our legacy, the applying of his present condition to our use. I hear that which makes all sounds music, and all music perfect; I hear thy Son himself ●aying, 
joh. 14.1.  Let not your hearts be troubled ● Only I hear this change, that whereas thy Son says there, I go to prepare a place for you, this man in thi● sound says, I send to prepare you for a place, for a grave. But, O my God, my God, since heaven is glory and joy, why do not glorious and joyful things lead us, induce us to heaven? Thy legacies in thy first will, in thy old Testament were plenty and victory; Wine and Oil, Milk and Honey, alliances of friends, ruin of enemies, peaceful hearts, & cheerful countenances, and by these galleries thou broughtest them into thy bedchamber, by these glories and joys, to the joys and glories of heaven. Why hast thou changed thine old way, and carried us, by the ways of discipline and mortification, by the ways of mourning and lamentation, by the ways of miserable ends, and miserable anticipations of those miseries, in appropriating the exemplar miseries of others to ourselves, and usurping upon their miseries, as our own, to our own prejudice? Is the glory of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it needs a foil of depression and ingloriousness in this world, to set it off? Is the joy of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it needs the sourness of this life to give it a taste? Is that joy and that glory but a comparative glory and a comparative joy? not such in itself, but such in comparison of the ioilesnesse and the ingloriousness of this world? I know, my God, it is far, far otherwise. As thou thyself, who art all, art made of no substances, so the joys & glory which are with thee, are made of none of these circumstances; Essential joy, and glory Essential. But why then, my God, wilt thou not begin them here? pardon O God, this unthankful rashness; I that ask why thou dost not, find even now in myself, that thou dost; such joy, such glory, as that I conclude upon myself, upon all, They that find not joy in their sorrows, glory in their deiections in this world, are in a fearful danger of missing both in the next.   

17. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who hast been pleased to speak to us, not only in the voice of Nature, who speaks in our hearts, and of thy word, which speaks to our ears, but in the speech of speechless Creatures, in Balaams' Ass, in the speech of unbelieving men, in the confession of Pilate, in the speech of the Devil himself, in the recognition and attestation of thy Son, I humbly accept thy voice, in the sound of this sad and funeral bell. And first, I blessethy glorious name, that in this sound and voice, I can hear thy instructions, in another man's to consider mine own condition; and to know, that this bell which tolls for another, before it come to ring out, may take in me too. As death is the wages of sin, it is due to me●; As death is the end of sickness, it belongs to me; And though so disobedient a servant as I, may be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a Master as thou, I cannot be afraid to come; And therefore, into thy hands, O my God, I commend my spirit; A surrender, which I know thou wilt accept, whether I live or die; for thy servant David made it, 
Psal. 31.5.  when he put himself into thy protection for his life; and thy blessed Son made it, when he delivered up his soul at his death; declare thou thy will upon me, O Lord, for life or death, in thy time; receive my surrender of myself now, Into thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And being thus, O my God, prepared by thy correction, mellowed by thy chastisement, and conformed to thy will, by thy Spirit, having received thy pardon for my soul, and ask no reprieve for my body, I am bold, O Lord, to bend my prayers to thee, for his assistance, the voice of whose bell hath called me to this devotion. Lay hold upon his soul, O God, till that soul have throughly considered his account, and how few minutes soever it have to remain in that body, let the power of thy Spirit recompense the shortness of time, and perfect his account, before he pass away: present his sins so to him, as that he may know what thou forgivest, & not doubt of thy forgiveness; let him stop upon the infiniteness of those sins, but dwell upon the infiniteness of thy Mercy: let him discern his own demerits, but wrap himself up in the merits of thy Son, Christ jesus: Breath inward comforts to his heart, and afford him the power of giving such outward testimonies thereof, as all that are about him may derive comforts from thence, and have this edification, even in this dissolution, that though the body be going the way o● all flesh, yet that soul is going the way of all Saints. When thy Son cried out upon the Cross, My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? he spoke not so much in his own Person, as in the person of the Church, and of his afflicted members, who in deep distresses might fear thy forsaking. This patient, O most blessed God, is one of them; In his behalf, and in his name, hear thy Son crying to thee, My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me? and forsake him not; but with thy left hand lay his body in the grave, (if that be ●hy determination upon him) and with thy right hand receive his soul into thy Kingdom, and unite him & us in one Communion of Saints. Amen.    

18.— At inde Mortuus es, Sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato. The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead.  

18. MEDITATION.  
THe Bell rings out; the pulse thereof is changed; the tolling was a faint, and intermitting pulse, upon one side; this stronger, and argues more and better life. Hi● soul is gone out; and as a Man who had a lease of 1000 years after the expiration of a short one, or an inheritance after the life of a Man in a Consumption, he is now entered into the possession of his better estate. His soul is gone; whither? Who saw it come in, or who saw it go out? No body; yet every body is sure, he had one, and hath none. If I will ask mere Philosophers, what the soul is, I shall find amongst them, that will tell me, it is nothing, but the temperament and harmony, and just and equal composition of the Elements in the body, which produces all those faculties which we ascribe to the soul; and so, in itself is nothing, no separable substance, that over-lives the body. They see the soul is nothing else in other Creatures, and they affect an impious humility, to think as low of Man. But if my soul were no more than the soul of a beast, I could not think so; that soul that can reflect upon itself, consider itself, is more than so. If I will ask, not mere Philosophers, but mixed Men, Philosophical Divines, how the soul, being a separate substance, enters into Man, I shall find some that will tell me, that it is by generation, & procreation from parents, because they think it hard, to charge th● soul with the guiltiness of Original sin, if the soul were infused into a body, in which it must necessarily grow foul, and contract original sin, whether it will or no; and I shall find some that will tell me, that it is by immediate infusion from God, because they think it hard, to maintain an immortality in such a soul, as should be begotten, and derived with the body from Mortal parents. If I will ask, not a few men, but almost whole bodies, whole Churches, what becomes of the souls of the righteous, at the departing thereof from the body, I shall be told by some, That they attend an expiation, a purification in a place of torment; By some, that they attend the fruition of the sight of God, in a place of rest; but yet, but of expectation; By some, that they pass to an immediate possession of the presence of God. S. Augustine studied the Nature of the soul, as much as any thing, but the salvation of the soul; and he sent an express Messenger to Saint Hierome, to consult of some things concerning the soul: But he satisfies himself with this: Let the departure of my soul to salvation be evident to my faith, and I care the less, how dark the entrance of my soul, into my body, be to my reason. It is the going out, more than the coming in, that concerns us. This soul, this Bell tells me is gone out; Whither? Who shall tell me that? I know not who it is; much less what he was; The condition of the Man, and the course of his life, which should tell me whither he is gone, I know not. I was not there, in his sickness, nor at his death; I saw not his way, nor his end, nor can a●ke them● who did, thereby to conclude, or argue, whither he is gone. But yet I have one nearer me than all these; mine own Charity; I ask that; & that tells me, He is gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory: I owe him a good opinion; it is but thankful charity in me, because I received benefit and instruction from him when his Bell told: and I, being made the fitter to pray, by that disposition, wherein I was assisted by his occasion, did pray for him; and I pray not without faith; so I do charitably, so I do faithfully believe, that that soul is gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. But for the body, How poor a wretched thing is that? we cannot express it so fast, as it grows worse and worse. That body which scarce three minutes since was such a house, as that that soul, which made but one step from thence to Heaven, was scarce thoroughly content, to leave that for Heaven: that body hath lost the name of a dwelling house, because none dwells in it, and is making haste to lose the name of a body, and dissolve to putrefaction. Who would not be affected to see a clear & sweet River in the Morning, grow a kennel of muddy land water by noon, and condemned to the saltness of the Sea by night? And how lame a Picture, how faint a representation, is that, of the precipitation of man's body to dissolution? Now all the parts built up, and knit by a lovely soul, now but a statue of clay, and now, these limbs melted off, as if that clay were but snow ● and now, the whole house is but a handful of sand, so much dust, and but a peck of Rubbish, so much bone. If he, who, as this Bell tells me, is gone now, were some excellent Artificer, who comes to him for a clock, or for a garment now? or for counsel, if he were a Lawyer? If a Magistrate, for justice? Man before he hath his immortal soul, hath a soul of sense, and a soul of vegitation before that: This immortal soul did not forbid other souls, to be in us before, but when this soul departs, it carries all with it; no more vegetation, no more sense: such a Mother in law is the Earth ● in respect of our natural Mother; in her womb we grew; and when she was delivered of us, we were planted in some place, in some calling in the world; In the womb of the Earth, we diminish, and when she is delivered of us, our grave opened for another, we are not transplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with profane dust, with every wind.   

18. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, if Expostulation be too bold a word, do thou mollify it with another; le● it be wonder in myself; let it be but problem to others; but let me ask, why wouldst thou not suffer those, that serve thee in holy services, 
Levit. 21 1.  to do any office about the dead, nor assist at their funeral? Thou hadst no Counsellor, thou needest none; thou hast no Controller, thou admittest none Why do I ask? in Ceremonial things (as that was) any convenient reason is enough; who can be sure to propose that reason, that moved thee in the institution thereof? I satisfy myself with this; that in those times, the Gentiles were overfull, of an over-reverent respect to the memory of the dead: a great part of the Idolatry of the Nations, flowed from that; an over-amorous devotion, an overzealous celebrating, and overstudious preserving of the memories, and the Pictures of some dead persons: 
Sap. 14.14.  And by the vain glory of men, they entered into the world; and their statues, and pictures contracted an opinion of divinity, by age: that which was at first, but a picture of a friend, grew a God in time, as the wise man notes, 
Sap. 13.9.  They called them Gods, which were the work of an ancient hand. And some have assigned a certain time, when a picture should come out of Minority, and be at age, to be a God, in 60. years after it is made. Those Images of Men, that had life, and some Idols of other things, which never had any being, are by one common name, called promiscuously, dead, and for that the wise man reprehends the Idolater; for health he prays to that which is weak, 
Sap. 13.18.  and for life he prays to that which is dead. Should we do so, says thy Prophet; 
Esay 8.14.  should we go from the living to the dead? So much ill then, being occasioned, by so much religious compliment exhibited to the dead; thou o God, (I think) wouldst therefore inhibit thy principal holy servants, from contributing any thing at all to this dangerous intimation of Idolatry; and that the people might say, surely those dead men, are not so much to be magnified, as men mistake, since God will not suffer his holy officers, so much as to touch them, not to see them. But those dangers being removed, thou, O my God, dost certainly allow, that we should do offices of piety to the dead, and that we should draw instructions to piety, from the dead. Is not this, O my God, a holy kind of raising up ●eed to my dead brother, if I, by the meditation of his death, produce a better life in myself? It is the blessing upon Reuben, Let Reuben live, 
Deu. 33.6.  & not die, and let not his men be few; let him propagate many. And it is a Malediction, That that dieth, let it die; 
Zechar. 11.9.  let it do no good in dying: for Trees without fruit, 
jud. 12.  thou by thy Apostle callst, twice dead. It is a second death, if none live the better, by me, after my death, by the manner of my death. Therefore may I justly think, that thou madest that a way to convey to the Egyptians, a fear of thee, and a fear of death, 
Exo. 12.30.  that there was not a house, where there was not one dead; for thereupon the Egyptians said, we are all dea● men; the death of others, should catechise vs● to death. 
Apo. 1.5.  Thy Son Christ jesus is the first begotten of the dead; he rises first, the eldest brother, and he is my Master in this science of death: but yet, for me, I am a younger brother too, to this Man, who died now, and to every man whom I see, or hear to die before me, and all they are ushers to me in this school of death. I take therefore that which thy servant David's wife said to him, to be said to me; 
1 Sam. 19.11.  If thou save not thy life to night, to morrow thou shalt be slain. If the death of this man work not upon me now, I shall die worse, than if thou hadst not afforded me this help: for thou hast sent him in this bell to me, as tho● didst send to the Angel● of Sardis, 
Apoc. 3. 2●  with commission to strengthen the things that remain, and that are ready to die; that in this weakness of body, I might receive spiritual strength, by these occasions. This is my strength, that whether thou say to me, as thine Angel said to Gedeon; 
jud. 6.23  Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die, or whether thou say, as unto Aaron, Thou shalt die there; 
Num. 20.26.  yet thou wil● preserve that which is ready to die, my soul, from the worst death, that of sin. 
1 Reg. 16 18.  Zimrie died for his sins, says thy Spirit, which he sinned in doing evil; and in his sin, which he did to make Israel sin. For his sins, his many sins; and then in his sin, his particular sin: for my sins I shall die, whensoever I die, for death is the wages of sin; but I shall die in my sin, in that particular sin of resisting thy spirit, if I apply not thy assistances. Doth it not call us to a particular consideration, That thy blessed Son varies his form of Commination, and aggravates it in the variation, when he says to the jews, (because they refused the light offered) you shall die in your sin; 
joh. 8.21  And then when they proceeded to farther disputations, and vexations, and tentations, he adds, 
Vers. 24.  you shall die in your sins; he multiplies the former expressing, ●o a plural. In this sinne ● and in all your sins; doth not the resisting of thy particular helps at last, draw upon us the guiltiness of all our former sins? May not the neglecting of this sound ministered to me in this man's death, bring me to that misery, as that I, whom the Lord of life loved so, as to die for me, shall die, and a Creature of mine own shall be immortally ● that I shall die, 
Esay 66.14.  and the worm of mine own conscience shall never die?   

18. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, I have a new occasion of thanks, and a new occasion of prayer to thee, from the ringing of this bell. Thou toldst me in the other voice, that I was mortal, and approaching to death; In this I may hear thee say, that I am dead, in an irremediable, in an irrecoverable state for bodily health. If that be thy language in this voice, how infinitely am I bound to thy heavenly Majesty, for speaking so plainly unto me? for even that voice, that I must die now, is not the voice of a judge, that speaks by way of condemnation, but of a Physician, that presents health in that: Thou presentest me death as the cure of my disease, not as the exaltation of it; if I mistake thy voice herein, if I overrun thy pace, and prevent thy hand, and imagine death more instant upon me than thou hast bid him be, yet the voice belongs to me; I am dead, I was borne dead, and from the first laying of these mud-walls in my conception, they have moldred away, and the whole course of life is but an active death. Whether this voice instruct me, that I am a dead man now, or remember me, that I have been a dead man all this while, I humbly thank thee for speaking in this voice to my soul, and I hum●ly beseech thee also, to accept my prayers in his behalf, by whose occasion this voice, this sound is come to me. ●or though he be by death transplanted to thee, and so in possession of inexpressible happiness there, yet here upon earth thou hast given us such a portion of heaven, as that though men dispute, whether thy Saints in heaven do know what we in earth in particular do stand in need of, yet without all disputation, we upon earth do know what thy Saints in heaven lack yet, for the consummation of their happiness; and therefore thou hast afforded us the dignity, that we may pray for them. That therefore this soul now newly departed to thy Kingdom, may quickly return to a io●full reunion to that body which it hath left, and that we with it, may soon enjoy the full consummation of all, in body and soul, I humbly beg at thy hand, O our most merciful God, for thy Son Christ jesus sake. That that blessed Son of thine, may have the comsummation of his dignity, by entering into his last office, the office of a judge, and may have society of humane bodies in heaven, as well as he hath had ever of soules● And that as thou hatest sin itself, thy hate to sin may be expressed in the abolishing of all instruments of sin, The allurements of this world, and the world itself; and all the temporary revenges of sin, the stings of sickness and of death; and all the castles, and prisons, and monuments of sin, in the grave. That time may be swallowed up in Eternity, and hope swallowed in possession, and ends swallowed in infiniteness, and all men ordained to salvation, in body and soul, b● one entire and everlasting sacrifice to thee, where thou mayest receive delight from them, and they glory from thee, for evermore. Amen.    

19 Oceano tandem emenso, aspicienda resurgit Terra; vident, iustis, medici, iam cocta mederi se posse, indicijs. At last, the Physicians, after a long and stormy voyage, see land; They have so good signs of the concoction of the disease, as that they may safely proceed to purge.  

19 MEDITATION.  
ALl this while the Physicians themselves have been patients, patiently attending when they should see any land in this Sea, any earth, any cloud, any indication of concoction in these waters. Any disorder of mine, any pretermission of theirs, exalts the d●sease, accelerates the rages of it; no diligence accelerates the concoction, the maturity of the disease; they must stay till the season of the sickness come, and till it be ripened of itself, and then they may put to their hand, to gather it, before it fall off, but they cannot hasten the ripening. Why should we look for it in a disease, which is the disorder, the discord, the irregularity, the commotion, and rebellion of the body? It were scarce a disease, if it could be ordered, and made obedient to our times. Why should we look for that in disorder, in a disease, when we cannot have it in Nature, who is so regular, and so pregnant, so forward to bring her work to perfection, and to light? yet we cannot awake the july-flowers in januarie, nor retard the flowers of the spring to Autumn. We cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to stick on in December. A woman that is weak, cannot put off her ninth month to a tenth, for her delivery, and say she will stay till she be stronger; nor a Queen cannot hasten it to a seventh, that she may be ready for some other pleasure. Nature (if w● look for durable and vigorous effects) will not admit preventions, nor anticipations, nor obligations upon her; for they are precontracts, and she will be left to her liberty. Nature would not be spurred, nor forced to mend her pace; nor power, the power of man; greatness lou●s not that kind of violence neither● There are of them that will giue ● that will do justice, that will pardon, but they have their own seasons for all these, and h● that knows not them, shall starve before that gift come, and ruin, before the justice, and dye before the pardon save him: some tree bears no fruit, except much dung be laid about it, and justice comes not from some, till they be richly manured: some trees require much visiting, much watering, much labour; and some men give not their fruits but upon importunity; some trees require incision, and pruning, and lopping; some men must be intimidated and syndicated with Commissions, before they will deliver the fruits of justice; some trees require the early and the often access of the Sun; some men open not, but upon the favours and letters of Court mediation; some trees must be ●ousd and kept within doors; some men lock up, not only their liberality, but their justice, and their compassion, till the solicitation of a wife, or a son, or a friend, or a servant turn the key. Reward is the season of one man, and importunity of another; fear the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of one man, ●nd natural affection of ●nother; and he that knows not their seasons, nor cannot stay ●hem, must lose the ●ruits; As Nature will not, so power and greatness will not be put to change their seasons; and shall we look for this Indulgence in a disease, or think to shake it off before it be ripe? All this while therefore, we are but upon a defensive war, and that is but a doubtful state: Especially where they who are besieged do know the best of their defences, and do not know the worst of their enemy's power; when they cannot mend their works within, and the enemy can increase his numbers without ● O how many far more miserable, and far more worthy to be less miserable than I, are besieged with this sickness, and lack their Sentinels, their Physicians to watch, and lack their munition, their cordials to d●f●nd, and perish before ●●e enemy's weakness might invite them to sally, before the disease show any declination, or admit any way of working upon itself? In me the siege is ●o far slackened, as that we may come to fight, and so die in the field, if I die, and not in a prison.   

19 EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, Thou a●t a direct God, may I not say, a literal God, a God that wouldst be understood literally, and according to the plain sense of all that thou sayest? But thou art also (Lord I intent it to thy glory, and let no profane mis-interpreter abuse it to thy diminution) thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too: A God in whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such peregrinations to ●e●ch remo●e and precious metaphors, such extentions, such spreadings, such Curtains of Allegories, such third Heavens of Hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane Authors, seem of the seed of the Serpent, that creeps, thou art the dove, that flies. O, what words but thine, can express the inexpressible texture, and composition of thy word; in which, to one Man, that argument that binds his faith to believe that to be the Word of God, is the reverend simplicity of the Word, and to another, the majesty of the Word; and in which two men, equally pious, may meet, and one wonder, that all should not understand it, and the other, as much, that any man should. So, Lord, thou givest us the same Earth, to labour on, and to lie in; a house, and a grave, of the same earth; so Lord, thou givest us the same Word for our satisfaction, and for our Inquisition, for our instruction, and for our Admiration too; for there are places, that thy servants Hierom and Augustine would scarce believe (when they grew warm by mutual letters) of one another, that they understood them, and yet both Hierome and Augustine call upon persons, whom they knew to be far weaker, than they thought one another (old women & young maids) to read thy Scriptures, without confining them, to these or those places. Neither art thou thus a figurative, a Metaphorical God, in thy word only, but in thy works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine Actions, is Metaphorically ● The institution of thy whole worship in the old Law, was a continual Allegory; types & figures overspread all; and figure● flowed into figures, and poured themselves ou● into farther ●igures; Circumcision carried a fig●●● of Baptism, & Baptis●● carries a figure of that purity, which we shall have in perfection in the new jerusalem. Neither didst thou speak, and work in this language, only in the time of thy Prophets; but since thou spokest in thy Son, it is so too. How often, how much more often doth thy Son call himsel●e a way, and a light, and a gate, and a Vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of Man? How much oftener doth he exhibit a Metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal? This hath occasioned thine ancient servants, whose delight it was to write after thy Copy, to proceed the same way in their expositions of the Scriptures, and in their composing both of public liturgies, and of private prayers to thee, to make their accesses to thee in such a kind of language, as thou wast pleased to speak to them, in a figurative, in a Metaphorical language; in which manner I am bold to call the comfort which I receive now in this sickness, in ●he indication of the concoction and maturity thereof, in certain clouds, and residences, which the Physicians observe, a discovering of land from Sea, after a long, and tempestuous voyage. But wherefore, O my God, hast thou presented to us, the afflictions and calamities of this life, in the name of waters? so often in the name of waters, and deep waters, and Seas of waters? must we look to be drowned? are they bottomless, are they boundless? That's not the dialect of thy langauge; thou hast given a Remedy against the deepest water, by water; against the inundation of sin, by Baptism; and the first life, that thou gavest to any Creatures, was in waters, therefore ●hou do●●t not ●hr●●ten v●, wi●h an irrem●diablenesse, when our affliction is a Sea. It is so, if we consider ourselves; so thou callest Gennezareth, which was but a lake, and not salt, a Sea; so thou callest the Mediterranean Sea, still the great Sea; because the inhabitants saw no other Sea; they that dwelled there, thought a Lake, a Sea, and the others thought a little Sea, the greatest, and we that know not the afflictions of others, call our own the heaviest. But, O my God, that is truly great, that overflows the chan●ell; that is really a great affliction, which is above my strength, but, thou, O God, art my strength, and then what can be above it? 
Psal. 46.3.  Mountains shake with the swelling of thy Sea, secular, Mountains, men strong in power, spiritual mountains, men strong in grace, are shaked with afflictions; 
Psa. 33.7  but thou layest up thy sea in storehouses; even thy corrections are of thy treasure, and thou wilt not waste thy corrections; when they have done their service, to humble thy patient, thou wilt call them in again; for, 
Psa. 8.29  thou givest the Sea thy decree, that the waters should not pass thy Commandment. All our waters shall run into jordan, 
jos. 3.17  & thy servants passed jordan dry foot; they shall run into the red Sea (the Sea of thy Son's blood) & the red Sea, that red Sea, drowns none of thine. But, 
Ecelus. 43.24.  they that sail in the Sea, tell of the danger thereof; I that am yet in this affliction, owe thee the glory of speaking of it; But, as the wise man bids me, 
vers. 27.  I say, I may speak much, and come short; wherefore in sum, thou art all. Since thou art so, O my God, and affliction is a Sea, too deep for us, what is our refuge? thine Ark, thy ship. In all other Seas, in all other afflictions, those means which thou hast ordained; In this Sea, in Sickness, thy Ship is thy Physician. 
Sap. 14.3.  Thou hast made a way in the Sea, and a safe path in the waters, showing that thou canst save from all dangers; yea, though a man went to Sea without art; yet where I find all that, I find this added, Nevertheless thou wouldst not, that the work of thy wisdom should be idle. Thou canst save without means; but thou hast told no man that thou wilt: Thou hast told every man, that thou wilt not. When the Centurion believed the Master of the ship more than Saint Paul, 
Act. 17.11.  they were all opened to a great danger; this was a preferring of thy means, before thee, the Author of the means; but, my God, though thou be'st every where, I have no promise of appearing to me, but in thy ship: Thy blessed Son preached out of a Ship: 
Luc. 5.3.  The means is preaching, he did that; and the Ship was a type of the Church; he did it there● Thou gavest S. Paul the lives of all them, 
Act. 27.24.  that sailed with him; If they had not been in the Ship with him, the gift had not extended to them. 
Mar. 5.2.  As soon as thy Son was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit, and no man could hold him, no not with chains. Thy Son needed no use of means; yet there we apprehend the danger to us; if we leave the ship, the means; in this case, the Physician. But as they are Ships to us in those Seas, so is there a Ship to them too, in which they are to stay. Give me leave, O my God, to assist myself with such a construction of these words of thy servant Paul, to the Centurion, when the Mariners would have left the Ship, 
Act. 27.31.  Except these abide in the Ship, you cannot be safe; Except they who are our ships, the Physicians, abide in that which is theirs, and our ship, the truth, and the sincere and religious worship of thee, and thy Gospel, we cannot promise ourselves, so good safety; for though we have our ship, the Physician, he hath not his ship, Religion; And means are not means, but in their concatenation, as they depend, and are chained together. 
jac. 3.4.  The ships are great, says thy Apostle, but a helm turns them; the men are learned, but their religion turns their labours to good: And therefore it was a heavy ●●●se, when the third part o● the ships perished: 
Apo. 8.9.  It is a heavy case, where either all Religion, or true Religion should forsake many of these ships, whom thou hast sent to convey us over these Seas. But, O my God, my God, since I have my ship, and they theirs, I have them, and they have thee, why are we yet no nearer land? As soon as thy Son's Disciple had taken him into the ship, immediately the ship was at the land, 
Io. 6.21.  whither they went. Why have nor they and I this dispatch? Every thing is immediately done, which is done when thou wouldst have it done. Thy purpose terminates every action, and what was done before that, is undone yet. Shall that slacken my hope? Thy Prophet from thee, hath forbid it. 
Lam. 3.26.  It is good that a man should both hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. Thou puttest off many judgements, till the last day, many pass this life without any; and shall not I endure the putting off thy mercy for a day? and yet, O my God, thou puttest me not to that; for, the assurance of future mercy, ●s present mercy. But what is my assurance now? What is my seal? It is but a cloud; that which my Physicians call a cloud, in that, which gives them their Indication. But a Cloud? Thy great Seal to all the world, the rainbow, that ●ecured the world for ever, from drowning, 
Exo. 13.21.  was but a reflection upon a cloud. A cloud itself was a pillar which guided the church, and the glory of God, 
16.10.  not only was, but appeared in a cloud. Let me return, O my God, to the consideration of thy servant Eliahs' proceeding, 
1 Reg. 19.43.  in a time of desperate drought; he bids them look towards the Sea; They look, and ●ee nothing. He bids them again and again, seven times: and at the seventh time, they saw a little cloud rising out of the Sea; and presently they had their desire of rain. Seven days, O my God, have we looked for this cloud, and now we have it; none of thy Indications are frivolous; thou makest thy signs, seals; and thy Seals, effects; and thy effects, consolation, and restitution, wheresoever thou mayest receive glory by that way.   

19 PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who though thou passedst over infinite millions of generations, before thou camest to a Creation of this world, yet when thou beganst, didst never intermit that work, but continuedst day to day, till thou hadst perfited all the work, and deposed it in the hands and rest of a Sabbath, though thou have been pleased to glorify thyself in a long exercise of my patience, with an expectation of thy declaration of thyself in this my sickness, yet since thou hast now of thy goodness afforded that, which affords us some hope, if that be still the way of thy glory, proceed in that way, and perfect that work, and establish me in a Sabbath, and rest in thee, by this thy seal of bodily restitution. Thy Priests came up to thee, by steps in the Temple; Thy Angels came down to jaacob, by steps upon the ladder; we find no stair, by which thou thyself camest to Adam in Paradise, nor to Sodom in thine anger; for thou, and thou o●ely art able to do all at once. But, O Lord, I am not weary of thy pace, nor weary of mine own patience. I provoke ●he● not with a prayer, not with a wish, not with a ●ope, to more haste than consists with thy purpose, nor look that any other thing should have entered into thy purpose, but thy glory. To hear thy ●steps coming towards me, is the same comfort, as to see thy face present with me; whether thou do the work of a thousand year in a day, or extend the work of a day, to a thousand year, as long as thou workest, it is light, and comfort. Heaven itself is but an extension of the same joy; and an extension of this mercy, to proceed at thy leisure, in the way of restitution, is a manifestation of heaven to me here upon earth. From that people, to whom thou appearedst in signs, and in Types, the jews, thou art departed, because they trusted in them; but from thy Church, to whom thou hast appeared in thyself, in thy Son, thou wilt never depart; because we cannot trust too much in him. Though thou have afforded me these signs of restitution, yet if I confide in them, and begin to say, all was but a Natural accident, and nature begins to discharge herself, and sh●e will perfect the whole work, my hope shall vanish because it is not in thee. If thou shouldest take thy hand utterly from me, and have nothing to do with me, Nature alone were able to destroy me; but if thou withdraw thy helping hand, alas how frivolous are the helps of Nature, how impotent the assistances of Art? As therefore the morning dew, is a pawn of the evening fatness, so, O Lord, let this day's comfort be the earnest of to morrows, so f●rre as may conform me entirely to thee, to what end, and by what way soever thy mercy have appointed me.    

20. Id●agunt. Upon these Indications of digested matter, they proceed to purge.  

10. MEDITATION.  
Though counsel seem rather to consist of spiritual parts, than action, yet action is the spirit and the soul of counsel. Counsels are not always determined in Resolutions; we cannot always say, this was concluded; actions are always determined in effects; we can say this was done. Then have Laws their reverence, and their majesty, when we see the judge upon the Bench executing them. Then have counsels of war their impressions, and their operations, when we see the seal of an Army set to them. It was an ancient way of celebrating the memory of such as deserved well of the State, to afford them that kind of statuary representation, which was then called Hermes; which was, the head and shoulders of a man, standing upon a Cube, but those shoulders without arms and hands. All together it figured a constant supporter of the state, by his counsel: But in this Hierogliphique, which they made without hands, they pass their consideration no farther, but that the Counsellor should be without hands, so far, as not to reach out his hand to foreign tentations of bribes, in matters of Counsel, and, that it was not necessary, that the head should employ his own hand; that the same men should serve in the execution, which assisted in the Counsel; but that there should not belong hands to every head, action to every counsel, was never intended, so much as in figure, and representation. For, as matrimony is scarce to be called matrimony, 
August.  where there is a resolution against the fruits of matrimony, against the having of Children, so counsels are not counsels, but illusions, where there is from the beginning no purpose to execute ●he determina●ions of ●hose counsels. The arts and sciences are most properly referred to the head; that is their proper Element and Sphere; But yet the art of proving, Logic; and the Art of persuading, Rhetoric, are deduced to the hand, and that expressed by a hand contracted into a sister, and this by a hand enlarged, and expanded; and evermore the power of man, and the power of God himself is expressed so● All things are in hi● hand ● neither is God so often presented ●o us, by names that carry our consideration upon counsel, as upon execution of counsel, he is oftener called the Lord of Hosts, ●han by all other names, that may be referred to the other signification● Hereby● therefore we take into our meditation, the slippery condition of man, whose happiness, in any kind, the defect of any one thing, conducing to that happiness, may ruin; but i● must have all the pieces to make it up. Without counsel, I had not got thus farre● without action and practice, I should go no farther towards health? But what is ●he present necessary action? purging: A withdrawing, a violating of Nature, a farther weakening: O dear price, & O strange way of addition, to do it by substraction; of restoring Nature, to violate Nature; of providing strength, by increasing weakness. Was I not sick before? And is it a question of comfort to be asked now, Did your Physic make you sick? Was that it that my Physic promised, to make me sick? This is another step, upon which we may stand, and see farther into the misery of man, the time, the season of his Misery; It must be done now: O overcunning, over-watchfull, over-diligent, and over-sociable misery of man, that seldom comes alone, but then when it may accompany other miseries, and so put one another into the higher exaltation, and better ●eart. I am ground even to an attenuation, and must proceed to evacuation, all ways to exinanition and annihilation.   

20. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, the God of Order, but yet not of Ambition, who assignest place to every one, but not contention for place, when shall it be thy pleasure to put an end to all these quarrels, for spiritual precedences? when shall men leave their uncharitable disputations, which is to take place, faith or repentance, and which, when we consider faith, and works? The head and the hand too, are required to a perfect natural man; Counsel and action too, to a perfect civil man; saith and works too, to him that is perfectly spiritual. But because it is easily said, I believe, and because it doth not easily lie in proof, nor is easily demonstrable by any evidence taken from my heart, (for who sees th●●, who f●●rches those Rolls●) whether I do believe, or no, is it not therefore, O my God, that thou dost so frequently, so earnestly, refer us to the hand, to the observation of actions? There is a little suspicion, a little imputation laid upon over-tedious and dilatory counsels. Many good occasions slip away in long consultations; and it may be a degree of sloth, to be too long in mending nets, though that must be done. 
Eccles. 11.4.  He that observeth the wind, shall not saw, and he that regardeth the ●●ouds, shall not reap; that is, he that is too dilatory, too superstitious ●n these observations, and study's but the excuse of his own idleness in ●hem; But, that which ●he same wise and royal servant of thine, says in ●n other place, all accept, ●nd ask no comment upon it, 
Prou. 10 4.  He becometh poor, that dealeth with a slack hand● but the hand of the diligent maketh rich; All evil imputed to the absence, all good attributed to the presence of the ●and. I know, my God, (and I bless thy name for knowing it● for all good knowledge is from thee) that thou considerest the heart; but thou takest not off thine eye, till thou come to the hand. Nay, my God, doth not thy spirit intimate, that thou beginnest where we begin, (at least, that thou allowest us to begin there) when thou orderest thine own answer to thine own question, 
Psal. 24.3.  Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Thus, he that hath clean hands, and a pure heart? Dost ●●ou not (at least) send 〈◊〉, first to the hand? ●nd is not the work of ●heir hands, that decla●●tion of their holy zeal, 〈◊〉 the present execution ●f manifest Idolaters, ●●lled a consecration of themselves, 
Exod. 31.29.  by thy holy spirit? Their hands are ●alled all themselves: for, ●uen counsel itself goes ●nder that name, in thy word, who knowest best ●ow to give right names: because the counsel of the ●riests assisted David, Saul says, the hand of the Priest is with Dauid● 
1 Sam. 22.17.  And that which is often said by Moses, is very often repeated by thy other Prophets, 
Levit. 8.36.  These and these things, the Lord spoke, and the Lord said, and the Lord commanmanded, not by the counsels, not by the voice, but by the hand of Moses, and by the hand of the Prophets: Evermore we are referred for our Evidence, of others, and of ourselves, to the hand, to action, to works. There is something before it, believing; and there is some thing after it, suffering; but in the most eminent, and obvious, and conspicuous place, stands doing. Why then, O my God, my bl●ss●d God, in the ways of my spiritual strength, come ●l so slow to action? I was whipped by thy rod, before I came to consultation, to consider my state, and shall I go● no farther? As he that would describe a circle in paper, if he have brought that circle within one inch of finishing yet if he remove his compass, he cannot make i● up a perfect circle, except he fall to work again to find out the sam● centres ● so, though setting that foot of my compass● upon thee, I have gon● so far, as to the consideration of myself, yet i● I depart from thee, my centre, all is vnperfit● This proceeding to action therefore, is a returning to thee, and a working upon myself by thy Physic, by thy purgative physic, a free and entire evacuation of my soul by confession. The working of purgative physic, is violent and contrary to Nature. O Lord, I decline not this potion of confession, how ever it may be contrary to a natural man. To take physic, 
Gal●n.  and not according to the right method, is dangerous. O Lord, I decline not that method in this physic, in things that burden my conscience, to make my confession to him, into whose hands thou hast put th● power of absolution. ● know that Physic may be made so pleasant, 
Galen.  as tha● it may easily be taken; bu● not so pleasant as the virtue and nature of the me●dicine be extinguished I know, I am not sub●mitted to such a confession as is a rack and tor●ture of the Conscience but I know I am not exempt from all. If it were merely problematical left merely indifferent whether we should tak● this Physic, use thi● confession, or no, a great Physician acknowledges this to have been his practice, 
Galen.  To minister many things, which he was not sure would do good but never any other thing, but such as he was sure would do no harm. The use of this spiritual Physic can certainly do no harm; and the Church hath always thought that it might, and doubtless, many humble souls have found, that it hath done them good. I will therefore take the cup of Salvation, 
Psa. 106 12.  and call upon thy Name; I will fill this Cup of compunction, as full as I have formerly filled the Cups of worldly confections, that so I may scape the cup of Malediction, and irrecoverable destruction that depends upon that. And since thy blessed and glorious Son, being offered in the way to his Execution, 
Mar. 15 23.  a Cup of Su●pefaction, to take away the sense of his pain, (a charity afforded to condemned persons ordinarily in those places, and times) refused that ease, and embraced the whole torment, I take not this Cup, but this vessel of mine own sins, into my contemplation, and I pour them out here according to the Motions of thy holy Spirit, and any where, according to the ordinances of thy holy Church.   

20. PRAYER.  
O Eternal, and most gracious God, who having married Man, and Woman together, and made them one flesh, wouldst have them also, to become one soul so, as that they might maintain a sympathy in their affections, and have a conformity to one another, in the accidents of this world, good or bad, so having married this soul and this body in me, I humbly beseech thee, that my soul may look, and make her use of thy merciful proceedings towards my bodily restitution, & go the same way to a spiritual. I am come by thy goodness, to the use of thine ordinary means for my body, to wash away those peccant humours, that endangered it. I have, O Lord, a River in my body, but a Sea in my soul, and a Sea swollen into the depth of a Deluge, above the Sea. Thou hast raised up certain hills in me heretofore, by which I might have stood safe, from these inundations of sin. Even our Natural faculties are a hill, and might preserve us from some sin. Education, study, observation, example, are hills too, and might preserve us from some. Thy Church, and thy Word, and thy Sacraments, and thine Ordinances, are hills, above these; thy Spirit of remorse, and compunction, & repentance for former sin, are hills too; and to the ●op of all these hills, thou hast brought me heretofore; but this Deluge, this inundation, is got above all my Hills; and I have sinned and sinned, and multiplied sin to sin, after all these thy assistances against sin, and where is there water enough to wash away this Deluge? There is a red Sea, greater than this Ocean; and there is a little spring, through which this Ocean, may pour itself into that red Sea. Let thy Spirit of true contrition, and sorrow pass all my sins through these eyes, into the wounds of thy Son, and I shall be clean, and my soul so much better purged than my body, as it is ordained for a better, and a longer life.    

21— Atque annuit Ille, Qui, per eos, clamat, Linquas iam, Lazare, lectum. God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Lazarus out of his tomb, me out of my bed.  

21. MEDITATION.  
IF man had been left alone in this world, at first, shall I think, that he would not have fallen? If there had been no Woman, would not Man have served, to have been his own Tempter? When I see him now, subject to infinite weaknesses, fall into infinite sin, without any foreign tentations, shall I think, he would have had none, if he had been alone? GOD saw that Man needed a Helper, if he should be well; but to make Woman ill, the Devil saw, that there needed no third. When God, and we were alone, in Adam, that was not enough; when the Devil and we were alone, in Eve, it was enough● O what a Giant is Man, when he fights against himself, and what a dwarf, when he needs, or exercises his own assistance for himself? I cannot rise out of my bed, till the Physician enable me, nay I cannot tell, that I am able to rise, till he tell me so. I do nothing, I know nothing of myself: how little, and how impotent a pe●ce of the world, is any Man alone? and how much less a piece of himself is that Man? So little, as that when it falls out, (as it falls out in some cases) that more misery, and more oppression, would be an ease to a man, he cannot give himself that miserable addition, of more misery ● A man that is pressed to death, and might be eased by more weights, cannot lay those more weights upon himself: He can sin alone, and suffer alone, but not repent, not be absolved, without another. Another tells me, I may rise; and I do so. But is every raising a preferment? or is every present preferment a station? I am readier to fall to the Earth now I am up, than I was wh●n I lay in the bed: O perverse way, irregular motion of Man; even rising itself is the way to Ruin. How many men are raised, and then do not fill the place they are raised to? No corner of any place can be empty; there can be no vacuity; If that Man do not fill the place, other men will; complaints of his insufficiency will fill it; Nay, such an abhorring is there in Nature, of vacuity, that if there be but an imagination of not filling, in any man, that which is but imagination neither, will ●ill it, that is, rumour and voice, and it will be given ●ut, (upon no ground, but Imagination, and no man knows, whose imagination) that he is corrupt in his place, or insufficient in his place, and another prepared to succeed him in his place. A man rises, sometimes, and stands not, because he doth not, or is not believed to fill his place; and sometimes he stands not, because he over-fills his place: He may bring so much virtue, so much justice, so much integrity to the place, as shall spoil the place, burden the place; his integrity may be a Libel upon his Predecessor, and cast an infamy upon him, and a burden upon his successor, to proceed by example, and to bring the place itself, to an undervalue, and the market to an uncertainty. I am up, and I seem to stand, and I go round; and I am a new Argument of the new Philosophy, That the Earth ●oues round; why may ● not believe, that the ●hole earth moves in a round motion, though that seem to me to stand, when as I seem ●o stand to my Company, and yet am carried, in a giddy, and circular motion, as I stand? Man hath no centre, but misery; there and only there, he is fixed, and sure to find himself. How little soever he be raised, he moves, and moves in a circle, giddily; and as in the Heavens, there are bu● a few Circles, th●t go about the whole world, but many Epicicles, and other lesser Circles, but yet Circles, so of those men, which are raised, and put into Circles, few of them move from place to place, and pass through many and beneficial places, but fall into little Circles, and within a step or two, are at their end, and not so well, as they were in ●he Centre, from which ●hey were raised. Every thing serves to exemplify, to illustrate man's misery; But I need go ●o farther, than myself; ●or a long time, I was not ●ble to rise; At last, I ●ust be raised by o●hers; and now I am up, I am ready to sink lower than before.   

●1. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, how large a glass of the next World is this? As we have an Art, to cast from on● glass to another, and so to carry the Species a great way off, so hast thou, that way, much more; we shall have a Resurrection in Heaven; the knowledge of that thou castest by another glass upon us here; we feel that we have a Resurrection from sin; and that by another glass too; we see we have a Resurrection of the body, from the miseries and calamities of ●his life. This Resurrection of my body, shows me the Resurrection of ●ny soul; and both ●ere severally, of both together hereafter. Since ●hy Martyrs under the Altar, press thee with ●heir solicitation for the Resurrection of the body to glory, thou wouldst pardon me, if I should press thee by Prayer, for the accomplishing of this Resurrection, which thou hast begun in me to blessed and glorious Triunity, was none to hear but you three, and yo● easily hear one ano●ther, because you sa● the same things. Bu● when thy Son cam● to the work of Re-demption, 
Io. 12.28.  thou spokest and they that heard it took it for Thunder and thy Son himself cried with a loud voice ● upon the Cross, twice● as he, who was to prepare his coming john Baptist, 
Mat. 27 46.50.  was th● voice of a crier, and ●ot of a Whisperer. Still, ●f it be thy voice, it is a loud voice; 
Deut. 5.22.  These words, ●aies thy Moses, Thou ●okest with a great voice, ●nd thou addest no more, ●aies he there; That which thou hast said, is evident, and it is evident, ●hat none can speak so ●oud; none can bind us ●o hear him, as we ●ust thee. The most high uttered his voice: what was his voice? 
2 Sam. 22.14.  The Lord ●●undred from heaven, it might be heard; But ●his voice, thy voice, is also a mighty voice; 
Psal. 68 33.  not only mighty in power, it may be heard, nor mighty in obligation, it shoul● be heard, but mighty in operation, it will be● heard; and therefore has● thou bestowed a whol● Psalm upon us, 
Psal. 29.  to lead● us to the consideration of thy voice. It is such a voice, as that thy Son says, 
Io. 5.25.  the dead shall hear● it; and that's my state ● And why, O God, dost thou not speak to me● in that effectual loudness? Saint john heard a voice, 
Apo. 1.12.  ●●d he turned about to see ●he voice: sometimes we ●●e too curious of the instrument, by what man ●od speaks; but thou ●peakest loudest, when ●hou speakest to the ●eart. There was silence, ●nd I heard a voice, 
job. 4.16  says ●ne, to thy servant job. I harken after thy voice, 〈◊〉 thine Ordinances, and ● seek not a whispering ●n Conventicles; but yet, O my God, speak louder, ●hat so, though I do ●eare thee now, than I may hear nothing but thee. My sins cry aloud; cain's murder di● so; my afflictions cri● aloud; 
Psa. 93.3.4.  The floods hau● lifted up their voice, (an● waters are afflictions) bu●●hou, O Lord, art migh●tier than the voice o● many waters; than ma●ny temporal, many spi●rituall afflictions; tha● any of either kind; and why dost thou no● speak to me in that voice? 
Ecclus. 8.8.  What is man, and whereto serveth he? what is hi● good, and what is his evil? My bed of sin is no● ●uill, not desperately evil, for thou dost call me out of it; but my rising out of it is not good, (not perfectly good) if thou call not louder, and hold me now I am up. O my God, I am afraid of a fearful application of ●hose words, when a man ●ath done, than he begins; 
Ibid. v. 7.  when his body is unable to sin, his sinful memory sins over his old sins again; and that which thou wouldst have us to remember for compunction, we remember with delight. 
1 Sam. 19.15.  Bring him to me in his bed, that I may kill him, says Saul of David; Thou hast not said so, that is not thy voice. joasb his own servants slew him, when he was sick in his bed; 
2 Chro. 24.25.  Thou hast not suffered that, that my servants should so much as neglect me, or be weary of me, in my sickness. Thou threatnest, 
Amos 3.12.  that as a shepherd takes out of the mouth of the Lion, two legs, or a piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel, that ●well in Samaria, in the corner of a bed, and in Da●ascus, in a couch be ta●en away. That even they that are secure from danger, shall perish; How much more might I, who was in the bed of death, die? But thou hast not dealt so with me. 
Act. 5.15.  As they brought out sick persons in beds, that thy servant Peter's shadow might overshadow them; Thou hast, O my God, over-shadowed me, refreshed me: But when wilt thou do more? when wilt thou do all? when wilt thou speak in thy loud voice? when wilt thou bid me take up my bed and walk? 
Mat. 96  As my bed is my affections, when shall I bear them so as to subdue them? As my bed is my afflictions, when shall I bear them so, as not to murmur at them? When shall I take up my bed and walk? not lie down upon it, as it is my pleasure, not sink under it, as it is my correction? But, O my God, my God, the God of all flesh, and of all spirit too, let me be content with that in my ●ainting spirit, which thou declarest in this decayed flesh, that as this body is content to sit still, that it may learn to stand, and to learn by standing to walk, and by walking to travel, so my soul by obeying this thy voice of rising, may by a farther and farther growth of ●hy grace, proceed so, and be so established, as may remove all suspicions, all jealousies between thee and me, and may speak and hear in such a voice, as that still I may be acceptable to thee, and satisfied from thee.   

21. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, who hast made little things to signify great, and conuaid the infinite merits of thy Son in the water of Baptism, and in the Bread and Wine of thy other Sacrament, unto us, receive the sacrifice of my humble ●hanks, that ●hou hast not only afforded me, the ability ●o rise out of this bed of weariness & discomfort, ●ut hast also made this bodily rising, by thy grace, an earnest of a second resurrection from sin, and of a third, to everlasting glory. Thy Son himself, always infinite in himself, & incapable ●f addition, was yet pleased to grow in the Virgi●s womb, & to grow in stature, in the sight of men. Thy good purposes upon me, I ●now, have their determination and perfection, in thy holy will upon me; there thy grace is, and there I am altogether; but manifest thē●o unto me in thy seasons, and in thy measures and degrees, that I may not only have that comfort of knowing thee to be infinitely good, but that also of finding thee to be every day better and better to me: and that as ●hou gavest Saint Paul, ●he Messenger of Satan, to humble him, so for my humiliation, thou mayest give me thyself, in this knowledge, that what ●race soever thou afford me to day, yet I ●hould perish to morrow, if I had not to morrow's grace too. Therefore I beg of thee, my daily bread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, and since the bread of hope for some, and this day the bread of possessing, in rising by that strength, which thou the God of all strength, hast infused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life; the spiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; the sacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the more real bread of life, in an everlasting union to thee. I know, O Lord, that when thou hadst created Angels, and they saw thee produce fowl, and fish, and beasts, and worms, they did not importune thee, and say, shall we have no better ●reatures than these, no better companions than these; but stayed thy leisure, and then had man delivered over to them, not much inferior in nature to themselves. No more do I, O God, now that by thy first mercy, I am able to rise, importune thee for present confirmation of ●ealth; nor now, tha● by thy mercy, I am brought to see, that thy correction hath wrought medicinally upon me, presume I upon that spiritual strength I have; but as I acknowledge, that my bodily strength is subject to every pu●●e of wind, so is my spiritual strength to every blast of vanity. Keep me therefore still, O my gracious God, in such a proportion of both strengths, as I may still h●●e something to thank thee for, which I have received, & still something to pray for, and ask at thy hand.    

●●. Si● morbi fomes tibi cura; ●he Physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals, and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that.  

●2. MEDITATION.  
HOw ruinous a farm hath man taken, in ●aking himself? how ●eady is the house every day to fall down, and how is all the groun● overspread with weeds ● all the body with diseases? where not only every turf, but every stone ● bears weeds; not only every muscle of the flesh, but every bone of the body, hath some infirmity ● every little flint upon the face of this soil, hath some infectious weed, every tooth in our head, such a pain, as a constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that fear, of that sense of the pain. How dear, and how of●●n a rent doth Man ●ay for this farm? he ●ies twice a day, in ●ouble meals, and how ●●tle time he hath to raise 〈◊〉 rent? How many ho●● days to call him from ●s labour? Every day is ●alfe-holy day, half spent ●n sleep. What repara●ions, and subsidies, and ●ontributions he is put to, ●esides his rent? What medicines, besides his di●●? and what Inmates ●e is fain to take in, besides ●is own family, what infectious diseases, from other men. Adam might have had Paradise for dressing and keeping it; and then his ren● was not improved to such a labour, as would have made his brow sweat; and yet he gave it over; how far greater a rent do we pay for this farm, this body, who pay ourselves, who pay the farm itself, and cannot live upon it? Neither is our labour at an end, when we have cut down some weed, as soon as it sprung up, corrected some violent ●nd dangerous accident of a disease, which would ●aue destroyed speedily; ●or when we have pulled up that weed, from the very root, recovered ●ntirely and sound, from that particular disease; but the whole ground is of an ill nature, the whole soil ill disposed; there are inclinations, there is a propenseness to diseases in the body, out of which without any other disorder, diseases will grow, and so we are put to a continual labour upon this farm, to a continual study of the whole complexion and constitution of our body. In the distempers and diseases of soils, sourness, dryness, weeping, any kind of barrenness, the remedy and the physic, is, for a great part, sometimes in themselves; sometime the very situation relieves them, the hanger of a hill, will purge and vent his own malignant moisture; and the burning of the upper turf of some ground (as ●ealth from cauterizing) ●uts a new and a vigorous youth into that soil, ●nd there rises a kind of Phoenix out of the ashes, ● fruitfulness out of that which was barren before, and by that, which is the barrenest of all, ashes. And where the ground cannot give it ●elfe physic, yet it receives Physic from other grounds, from other soils, which are not the worse, for having contributed that help to them, fro● Marle in other hills, o● from slimy sand in other shores: grounds help themselves, or hurt no other grounds, fro● whence they receiu● help. But I have take● a farm at this hard rent and upon those heaume covenants, that it can afford itself no help; (no part of my body, if it were cut off, would cure another part; in som● ca●es it might preserve a sound part, but in no case recover an infected) ●nd, if my body may have ●ny Physic, any Medicine 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 soils, which are never the worse for contributing their Marl, or their fat slime to my ground. There is nothing in the same man, to help man, nothing in mankind to help one another, (in this sort, by way of Physic) but that he who ministers the help, is in as ill case, as he that receives it would have been, if he had not had it; for he, from whose body the Physic comes, is dead. When therefore I took this farm, undertook this body, I undertook to drain, not a marish, but a moat, where there was, not water mingled to offend, but all was water; I undertook to perfume dung, where no one part, but all was equally unsavoury; I undertook to make such a thing wholesome, as was not poison by any manifest quality, intense heat, or cold, but poison in the whole substance, and in the specifique form of it. To cure the sharp accidents of diseases, is a great work; to cure the disease itself, is a greater; but to cure the body, the root, the occasion of diseases, is a work reserved for the great Physician, which he doth ne●er any other way, but by glorifying these bodies in the next world.   

22. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, what am I put to, when I am put to consider, and put off, the root, the fuel, the occasion of my sickness? What Hypocrates, what Galen, could show me that in my body? It lies deeper than so; it lies in my soul: And deeper than so; for we may well consider the body, before the soul came, before inanimation, to be without sin; and the soul b●fore it come to the body, before that infection, to be without sin; sin is the root, and the fuel of all sickness, and yet that which destroys body & soul, is in neither, but in both together; It is in the unions ● of the body and soul; and, O my God, could I prevent that, or can I dissolve that? The root, and the fuel of my sickness, is my sin, my actual sin; but even that sin hath another root, another fuel, original sin; and can I divest that? Wilt thou bid me to separate the leaven, that a lump of Dowe hath received, or the salt, that the water hath contracted, from the Sea? Dost thou look, that I should so look to the fuel, or embers of sin, that I never take fire? The whole world is a pile of faggots, upon which w●e are laid, and (as though there were no other) we are the bellowes. Ignorance blows the fire, 
Leu. 5.2  He that touched any unclean thing, though he knew it not, became unclean, 
Num. 15 22.  and a sacrifice was required, (therefore a sin imputed) though it were done in ignorance. Ignorance blows this Coal; but then knowledge much more; for, 
Rom. 1.32.  there are that know thy judgements, and yet not only do, but have pleasure in others, that do against them. Nature blows this Coal; 
Eph. 2.3.  By nature we are the children of wrath: And the Law blows it, thy Apostle, Saint Paul, ●ound, That sin took occasion by the Law, that therefore because it is forbidden, we do some things. If we break the Law, we sin; 
1 ●o. 3.4.  Sin is the transgression of the Law; And sin itself becomes a Law in our members. 
Rom. 7.23.  Our fathers have imprinted the seed, infused a spring of sin in us: 
jer. 6.7.  As a fountain casteth out her waters, we cast out our wickedness; 
7.26.  but we have done worse than our fathers. We are open to infinite tentations, and yet, as though we lacked, 
jacob. 1.14.  we are tempted of our own lusts. And not satisfied with that, as though we wer● not powerful enough, or cunning enough, to demolish, or undermine ourselves, when we ourselves have no pleasure in the sin, we sin for others sakes. 
Gen. 3.6.  When Adam sinned for Eve's sake, and Solomon to gratify his wives, 
1 Reg. 1●. 3.  it was an uxorious sin: When the judges sinned for jezabels' sake, 
1 Reg. 21  and joab to obey David, 
1 Par. 22 3.  it was an ambitious sin: 
Lu●. 23.23.  When Pilate sinned to humour the people, 
Act. 12.3.  and Herod to give farther contentment to the jews, it was a popular sin: Any thing serves, to occasion sin, at home, in my bosom, or abroad, in my Mark, and aim; that which I am, and that which I am not, that which I would be, proves coals, and embers, and fuel, and bellowes to sin; and dost thou put me, O my God, to discharge myself, of myself, before I can be well? When ●hou bidst me to put off ●he old Man, 
Eph. 4.22.  dost thou mean, not only my old habits of actual sin, but the oldest of all, original sin? When thou biddest me purge out the ●euen, 
1 Cor. 5.7.  dost thou mean, not only the sourness of mine own ill contracted customs, but the innate tincture of sin, imprinted by Nature? How shall I do that which thou requirest, and not falsify that which thou hast said, that sin is gone over all? But, O my God, I press thee not, with thine own text, without thine own comment; I know that in the state of my body, which is more discernible, than that of my soul, thou dost effigiate my Soul to me. And though no Anatomist can say, in dissecting a body, here lay the coal, the fuel, the occasion of all bodily diseases, but yet a man may have such a knowledge of his own constitution, and bodily inclination to diseases, as that he may prevent his danger in a great part: so though we cannot assign the place of original sin, nor the Nature of it, so exactly, as of actual, or by any diligence divest it, yet having washed it in the water of thy Baptism, we have not only so cleansed it, that we may the better look upon it, and discern it, but so weakened it, that howsoever it may retain the former nature, it doth not retain the former force, and though it may have the same name, it hath not the same venom.   

22. PRAYER.  
O Eternal and most gracious God, the God of security, and the enemy of security too, who wouldst have us always sure of thy love, and yet wouldst have us always doing something for it, let me always 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 fifteen years; Thou renewedst Lazarus his lease, for a time, which we know not: But thou didst never so put out any of these fires, as that thou didst not rake up the embers, and wrap up a future mortality, in that body, which thou hadst then so reprieved. Thou proceedest no otherwise in our souls, O our good, but fearful God: Thou pardonest no sin so, as that that sinner can sin no more; thou makest no man so acceptable, as that thou mak●st him impeccable. Though therefore it were a diminution of the largeness, and derogatory to the fullness of thy mercy, to look back upon those sins which in a true repentance ● I have buried in the wounds of ●hy Son, with a jealous or suspicious eye, as though they were now my sins, when I had so transferred them upon ●hy Son, as though ●hey could now be raised to life again, to condemn me to death, when they are dead in ●im, who is the fountain of life, yet were it an irregular anticipation, and an insolent presumption, to thinks that thy present mercy extended to all my future sins, or that there were no embers, no coals of future sins left in me. Temper therefore thy mercy so to my soul, O my God, that I may neither decline to any faintness of spirit, in suspecting thy mercy now, to be less hearty, less sincere, than it uses to be, to those who are perfectly reconciled to thee, nor presume so of it, as either to think this present mercy an antidote against all poisons, and so expose myself to tentations, upon confidence that this thy mercy shall preserve me, or that when I do cast myself into new sins, I may have new mercy at any time, because thou didst so easily afford me this.    

23.— Metusque, Relabi They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing.  

23. MEDITATION.  
IT is not in man's body, as it is in the City, that when the Bell hath rung, to cover your fire, and ●ake up the embers, you may lie down, and sleep without fear. Though you have by physic and diet, raked up the embers of your ●isease, still there is a fear 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 enjoying and experience, and most intimidated with those pains which are his, his by a woeful ●ense of them, in former afflictions. A couetous ●erson, who hath preoccupated all his senses, filled all his capacities, with the delight of gathering, wonders how any man can have any taste of any pleasure in any openness, or liberality; So also in bodily pains, in a fit of the stone, th● patient wonders why any man should call the Gout a pain: And he that hath felt neither, but the toothache, 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 ourselves, ●ome but to a compassi●● of others that have ●ndured them; Nay, compassion itself, comes ●o no great degree, if we ●aue not felt, in some proportion, in ourselves, ●hat which we lament ●nd condole in another. But when we have had ●hose torments in their exaltation, ourselves, we ●emble at a relapse. ●hen we must pant ●hrough all those fiery ●eats, and sail thorough ●ll those overflowing sweats, when we must watch through all those long nights, and mourn through all those long days, (days and nights, so long, as that Nature herself shall seem to be perverted, and to hau● put the longest day, and the longest night, which should be six months asunder, into one natural, unnatural day) when we must stand at the same bar, expect the return of Physicians from ●heir consultations, and not be sure of the s●me verdict, in any good Indications, when we must go the same way over again, and not see the same issue, this is a state, a condition, a calamity, in respect of which, any other sickness were a ●onualescence, and any greater, less. It adds to the affliction, that relapses are, (and for the most part justly) imputed to ourselves, as occasioned by some disorder in us; and so we are not only passive, but active, in our own ruin; we do not only stand under a falling house, but pull it down upon us; and we are not only executed, (that implies guiltiness) but we are executioners, (that implies dishonour;) and executioners of ourselves, (and that implies impiety.) And we fall from that comfort which we might have in our first sickness, from that meditation, Alas, how generally miserable is Man, and how subject to diseases, (for in that it is some degree of comfort, that we are but in the sta●e common to all) we fall, I say, to this discomfort, and self accusing, & self condemning; Alas, how unprovident, and in that, how unthankful to God and his instruments am I, in making so ill use of so great benefits, in destroying so soon, so long a work, in relapsing, by my disorder, to that from which they had delivered me; and so my meditation is fearfully transferred from the body to the mind, and from the consideration of the sickness, to that sin, that sinful carelessness, by which I have occasioned my relapse. And amongst the many weights that aggravate a relapse, this also is one, that a relapse proceeds with a more violent dispatch, and more irremediably, because it finds the Country weakened, and depopulated before. Upon a sickness, which as yet appears not, we can scarce fix a fear, because we know not what to fear; but as fear 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 object, the most immediate exercise of that affection of fear●.   

23. EXPOSTULATION.  
MY God, my God, my God, thou mighty Father, who hast been my Physician; Thou glorious Son, who hast been my physic; Thou blessed Spirit, who hast prepared and applied all to me, shall I alone be able to overthrow the work of all you, and relapse into those spiritual sicknesses, from which your infinite mercies have withdrawn me? Though thou, O my God, h●ue filled my measure with mercy, 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 over many other sins 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 upon other gods, and embracing the Idolatries of their neighbours. O my God, how slippery a way, to how irrecoverable a bottom, is murmuring? and how near thyself he comes, that murmurs at him, who comes from thee? The Magistrate is the garment in which thou apparellest thyself; and he that shoots at the clothes, cannot say, he meant no ill to the man: Thy people were fearful examples of that; for, how often did their murmuring against thy Ministers, end in a departing from thee? when they would have other officers, they would have other gods; and still to days murmuring, was to morrow's Idolatry; As their murmuring induced Idolatry, and they relapsed often into both, I have found in myself, O my God, (O my God, thou hast found it in me, and thy finding it, hath showed it to me) such a transmigration of sin, as makes me afraid of relapsing too. The soul of sin, (for we have made sin immortal, and it must have a soul) The soul of sin, is disobedience to thee; and when one sin hath been dead in me, that soul hath passed into another sin. Our youth dies, and the sins of our youth with it; some sins die a violent death, and some a natural; poverty, penury, imprisonment, banishment, kill some sins in us, and some die of age; many ways we become unable to do that sin; but still the soul lives, and passes into another sin; and that, that was licentiousness, grows ambition, and that comes to indevotion, and spiritual coldness; we have three lives, in our state of sin; and where the sin's o● youth expire, those of our middle years enter; and those of our age after them. This transmigration of sin, found in myself, makes me afraid, O my God, of a Relapse: but the occasion of my fear, is more pregnant ●han so; for, I have had, I have 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 sins, seems 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 itself, in the same place, thou chargest them, with the iterating, the redoubling of ●hat fault, before the fault was named; How oft did they provoke me in the Wilderness; and grieve me in the Desert? That which brings thee to that exasperation against them, as to say, that thou wouldst break thine own oath, 
Num. 14 22.  rather than leave them unpunished, (They shall not see the land, which I swore unto their fathers) was because they had tempted thee ten times, infinitely; upon that, thou threatnest with that vehemency, 
jos. 23.12.  if ye do in any wise go back, know for a certainty, God will no more drive out any of these Nations from before you; but they shall be snares, and traps unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, till ye perish. No tongue, but thine own, O my GOD, can express 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 recovery) it is desperate: And thine anger works, not only where the evidence is pregnant, and without exception, (so thou sayest, when it is said, 
Deut. 13 12.  That certain men in a City, have withdrawn others to Idolatry, and that inquiry is made, and it is found true, the City, and the inhabitants, and the cattle are to be destroyed) but where there is but a suspicion, a rumour, of such a relapse to Idolatry, thine anger is awakened, and thine indignation stirred. 
I●s. 22.11.  In the government of thy servant josua, there was a voice, that Reuben and Gad, with those of Manasseh, had built a new altar. Israel doth not send one to inquire; 
1.12.  but the whole congregation gathered to go up to war against them; and there went a Prince of every Tribe: And they object to them, not so much their present declination to Idolatry, as their Relapse; 
Num. 25 4.  is the iniquity of Peor too little for us? An idolatry formerly committed, and punished with the slaughter of twenty four thousand delinquents. At last Reuben, and Gad satisfy them, that that Altar was not built for Idolatry, but built as a pattern of theirs, that they might thereby profess themselves to be of the same profession, that they were; and so the Army returned without blood. Even where it comes not so far, as to an actual 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 ever there were occasion of suspicious rumours, given to thine Israel, of relapsing. So odious to thee, & so aggravating a weight upon sin, is a relapse. But, O my God, why is it so? so odious? It must be so, because he that hath sinned, and then repent, hath weighed God and the Devil in a balance; he hath heard God and the Devil plead; and after hearing, given judgement on that side, to which he adheres, by his subsequent practice; 
Tertull.  if he return to his sin, he decrees for Satan; he prefers sin before grace, and Satan before God; and in contempt of God, declares the precedency for his adversary: And a contempt wounds deeper than an injury; a relapse deeper, than a blasphemy. And when thou hast told me, that a relapse is more odious to thee, need I ask why it is more dangerous, more pernicious to me? Is there any other measure of the greatness of my danger, than the greatness of thy displeasure? How fitly, and how fearfully hast thou expressed my case, in a storm ●t Sea, if I relapse? (They mount up to Heaven, 
Psa. 107 26.  and they go down again to the depth:) My sickness brought me to thee in repentance, and my relapse hath cast me farther from thee: 
Mat. 12.45.  The end of that man shall be worse than the beginning, says thy Word, thy Son; My beginning was sickness, punishment for sin; but a worse thing may follow, 
Io. 8.14.  says he also, if I sin again: not only death, which is an ●nd, worse than sickness, which was the beginning, but Hell, which is a beginning worse than that end. 
Mar. 14 70.  Thy great servant denied thy Son, and he denied him again; but all before Repentance; here was no relapse. O, if thou hadst ever readmitted Adam into Paradise, how abstinently would he have walked by that tree? and would not the Angels, that fell, have fixed themselves upon thee, if thou hadst once readmitted them to thy sight? They never relapsed; If I do, must not my case be as desperate? Not so desperate, for, 
Ecclus. 2.18.  as thy Majesty, so is thy Mercy, both infinite: and thou who hast commanded me to pardon my brother seventy seven times, hast limited thyself to no Number. If death were ill in it self, thou wouldst never have raised any dead Man, to life again, because that man must necessarily die again. If thy Mercy, in pardoning, did so far aggravate a Relapse, as that there were no more mercy after it, our case were the worse for that former Mercy; for who is not under, even a necessity of sinning, whilst he is here, if we 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 Eternal and most gracious God, who though thou be'st ever infinite, yet enlargest thyself, by the Number of our prayers, and takest our often petitions to thee, to be an addition to thy glory, and thy greatness, as ever upon all occasions, so now, O my God, I come to thy Majesty with two Prayers, two Supplications. I have Meditated upon the jelouzie, which thou h●st of thine own honour; and considered, that Nothing can come nearer a violating of that honour, nearer to the Nature of a scorn to thee, then to sue out thy P●rdon, and receive the Seals of Reconciliation to thee, and then return to th●t sin, for which I needed, and had thy pardon before. I know that this comes to near, to a making thy holy Ordinances, thy Word, thy Sacraments, thy Seals, thy Grace, instruments of my Spiritual Fornications. Since therefore thy Correction hath brought me to such a participation of thyself (thyself, O my God, cannot be parted) to such an entire possession of thee, as that I durst deliver myself over to thee this Minute, If this Minute thou wouldst accept my dissolution, preserve me, O my God the God of constancy, and perseverance, in this state, from all relapses into those sins, which have induced thy former judgements upon me. But because, by too lamentable Experience, I I know how slippery my customs of sin, have made my ways of sin, I presume to add this petition too, That if my infirmity overtake me, thou forsake me not. Say to my Soul, My Son, thou hast sinned, do so no more; 
Ecclus. 21.1.  but say also, that though I do, thy Spirit of Remorse, and Compunction shall never depart from me. Thy Holy Apostle, Saint Paul, 
2. Cor. 11.25.  was shipwrackd thrice; & yet still saved. Though the rocks, and the sands, the heights, and the shallowes, the prosperity, and the adversity of this world do diversely threaten me, though mine own leaks endanger me, yet, O God, let me never put myself aboard with Hymeneus, 
Timo. 1.19.  nor make shipwreck of faith, and a good Conscience, and then thy long-liud, thy everlasting Mercy, will visit me, though that, which I most earnestly pray against, should fall upon me, a relapse into those sins, which I have truly repent, and thou hast fully pardoned.    
FINIS.