this reason it is the world grows worse and worse, because so many original sins are multiplied, and so many evils from parents descend upon the succeeding generations of men, that they derive nothing from us but original misery. b.net') s toplu

But he who restored, the law of nature did also restore us to the condition of nature; which, being violated by the introduction of death, Christ then repaired when he suffered and overcame death for us: that is, he hath taken away the unhappiness of sickmess, and the sting of death, and the dishonours of the grave, of dissolution and weakness, of decay and change; and hath turned them into acts of favour, into instances of comfort, into opportunities of virtue. Christ hath now knit them into rosaries and coronets, he hath put them into promises and rewards, he hath made them part of the portion of his elect: they are instruments, and earnests, and securities, and passages to the greatest perfection of human nature, and the divine promises, so that it is possible for us now to be reconciled to sickness; It came in by sin, and thereforesis cured when it is turned into virtue: and although it may have in it the uneasiness of labour; yet it will not be uneasy as sin, or the restlessness of a discomposed conscience. If therefore we can well manage our state of sickness, that we may not fall by pain, as we usually do by pleasure, we need not fear; for no evil shall happen to us. bu

C

SECT. II.

Of the first Temptation proper to the State of Sickness, Impatience.

MEN that are in health are severe exactors of patience at the hands of them that are sick; and they usually judge it not by terms of relation between God and the suffering man, but between him and the friends that stand by the bed-side. It will be therefore necessary that we truly understand to what duties and actions the patience of a sick man ought to extend.

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1. Sighs nd groans, sorrows and prayers, humble complaints and dolorous expressions, are the sad accents of a sick man's language*. For it is not to be expected that a sick man should act a part of patience with a countenance like an orator, or grave, like, a dramatic person; it were well if all men could bear an exterior decency in their sickness, and regulate their voice, their face, their discourse, and all their circumstances, by the measures and proportions of comeliness and satisfaction to all the standers-by. But this would better please them than assist them; the sick man would do more good to others than he would receive to himself.

2. Therefore silence, and still composures, and not complaining, are no part of a sick man's duty, they

* Ejulatu, questu, gemitu, fremitibus, resonando multùm flebiles voces refert. Cice Tusc.

are not necessary parts of patience *. We find that David roared for the very disquietness of his sickness; and he lay chattering like a swallow, and his throat was dry with calling for help upon his God. That's the proper voice of sickness: and certain it is that the proper voices of sickness are expressly vocal and petitory in the ears of God, and call for pity in the same accent as the cries and oppressions of widows and orphans do for vengeance upon their persecutors, though they say no collect against them. For there is the voice of a man, and there is the voice of the disease, and God hears both; and the louder the disease speaks, there is the greater need of mercy and pity, and therefore God will the sooner hear it. Abel's blood had a voice, and cried to God; and humility hath a voice, and cries so loud to God that it pierces the clouds; and so hath every sorrow and every sickness: and when a man cries out, and complains, but according to the sorrow of his pain, it cannot be any part of a culpable impatience, but an argument for pity.

3. Some men's senses are so subtle, and their perceptions so quick and full of relish, and their spirits so active, that the same load is double upon them to what it is to another person: and therefore comparing the expressions of the one to the silence of the other, a different judgment cannot be made concerning their patience. Some natures are querulous, and

*

+ Concedendum est gementi.! Flagrantior æquo

Non debet dolor esse viri, nec vulnere major. Juven. Sat. 12.

melancholic, and soft, and nice, and tender, and weeping, and expressive; others are sullen, dull, without apprehension, apt to tolerate and carry burthens: and the crucifixion of our blessed Saviour, falling upon a delicate and virgin body, of curious temper, and strict, equal composition, was naturally more full of torment than that of the rader thieves, whose proportions were coarser and uneven,

4. In this case it was no imprudent advice, which Cicero gave*: nothing in the world is more amiable than an even temper in our whole life, and in every action: but this evenness cannot be kept unless every man follows his own nature, without striving to imitate the circumstances of another. And what is so in the thing itself, ought to be so in our judgments concerning the things. We must not call any one impatient, if he be not silent in a fever, as if he were asleep, or as if he were dull, as Herod's son of Athens.

5. Nature in some cases hath made cryings-out and exclamations to be an entertainment of the spirit, and an abatement or diversion of the pain. For so did the old champions, when they threw their fatal nets that they might load their enemy with the snares and weights of death, they groaned aloud, and sent forth

* Omnino si quicquam est decorum; nihil est profectò magis quàm æquabilitas universæ vitæ, tum singularum actionum: quam autem conservare non possis, si aliorum naturam imitans omittas tuam.

† Quia profundenda voce omne corpus intenditur, venitque plaga vehementior. Cic. Tusc.

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the anguish of their spirit into the eyes and heart of the man that stood against them. So it is in the endurance of some sharp pains, the complaints and shriekings, the sharp groans and the tender accents send forth the afflicted spirits, and force away, that they may ease their oppression and their load, that when they have spent some of their sorrows by a sally forth, they may return better able to fortify the heart. Nothing of this is a certain sign, much less an laction or part of impatience; and when our blessed Saviour suffered his last and sharpest pang of sorrow, he cried out with a loud voice, and resolved to die, and did so givin wo eid euon A

Constituent or Integral Parts of Patience.

1. THAT we may secure our patience, we must take care that our complaints be without despair. Despair sins against the reputation of God's goodness, and the efficacy of all our old experience. By despair we destroy the greatest comfort of our sorrows, and turn our sickness into the state of devils and perishing souls. No affliction is greater than despair: för that it is which makes hell-fire, and turns a natural evil into an intolerable; it hinders prayers, and fills "up the intervals of sickness with a worse torture; it makes all spiritual arts useless, and the office of spiritual comforters and guides to be impertinent.