ments of Mercy and Grace, and preparatives to Glory. In fickness the Soul begins to drefs her felf for Immortality. And first, she unties the strings of Vanity, that made her upper garment cleave to the world, and fit uneafte. First, he puts off the light and phantaftick Summer-robe of lust and wanton appetite and as foon as that Ceftus, that lafcivious girdle is thrown away, then the reins chaften us and give us warning in the night; then that which called us formerly to ferve the manliness of the body, and the childishness of the foul, keeps us waking, to divide the hours with the intervals of Prayer, and to number the minutes with our penitential groans; then the flesh fits uneafily and dwells in forrow; and then the fpirit feels it felf at ease, freed from the petulant follicitations of thofe paffions which in health were as bufie and as reftlefs as atoms in the fun, always dancing, and always bufie, and never fitting down, till a fad night of grief and uneafinefs draws the veil, and lets them die alone in fecret dishonour.

2. Next to this, The Soul by the help of sickness knocks off the fetters of pride, and vainer complacencies. Then The draws the curtains, and ftops the light from coming in, and takes the Pictures Nunc feftinatos nimiùm fibi fentit honores, down, thofe fantaftick images of Actaque lauriferæ damnat Syllana juven felf-love, and gay remembrances

Lucan. lib. 8.

of vain opinion, and popular noifes. Then the fpirit ftoops into the fobrieties of humble thoughts, and feels corruption chiding the forwardness of fancy, and allaying the vapours of conceit and factious opinions. For Humility is the Soul's Grave, into which the enters, not to die, but to meditate and interr fome of its troublesome appendages. There fhe fees the duft, and feels the difhonour of the body, and reads the Register of all its fad adherences; and then the lays by all her vain reflections, beating upon her crystal and pure mirrour from the tancies of ftrength and beauty, and little decayed prettineffes of the body. And when in fickness we forget all our knotty Difcourfes of Philofophy, and a Syllogifin makes our head ake, and we feel our many and loud talkings fer

Ꮐ

ved

Sect. 6. ved no lasting end of the foul, no purpose that now we must abide by, and that the body is like to deicend to the land where all things are forgotten; then fhe lays afide all her remembrances of applaufes, all her ignorant confidences, and cares only to know Chrift Jefus and him crucified, to know him plainly, and with much heartiness and fimplicity. And I cannot think this to be a contemptible advantage. For ever fince man tempted himself by his impatient defires of knowing, and being as God, man thinks it the finest thing in the World to know much, and therefore is hugely apt to esteem himself better than his Brethren, if he knows fome little impertinencies, and them imperfectly, and that with infinite uncertainty. But God hath been pleafed with a rare art to prevent the inconveniences apt to arife by this paffionate longing after Knowledge; even by giving to every Man a fufficient opinion of his own Understanding: And who is there in the World that thinks himself to be a Fool, or indeed not fit to govern his Brother? There are but few men but they think they are wife enough, and every man believes his own opinion the foundelt; and if it were otherwife, men would burft themfelves with envy, or elfe become irrecoverable flaves to the talking and difputing man. But when God intended this permiffion to be an antidote of envy, and a fatisfaction and allay to the troublefome appetites of knowing, and made that this univerfal opinion, by making men in fome proportions equal, fhould be a keeper out, or a great reftraint to flavery, and tyranny refpectively; Man (for fo he uses to do) hath turned this into bitterness: For when Nature had made to juít a diftribution of Understanding, that every man might think he had enough, he is not content with that, but will think he hath more than his Brother: And whereas it might be well employed in reftraining flavery, he hath used it to break off the bands of all obedience, and it ends in Pride and Schifms, in Herefies and Tyrannies; and it being a fpiritual Evil, it grows upon the foul with old age and flattery, with health and the fupports of a profperous fortune. Now

befides

befides the direct operations of the Spirit, and a pow-
erful Grace, there is in Nature left to us no remedy
for this Evil, but a fharp Sickness, or an equal Sor-
row, and allay of Fortune: And then we are humble
enough to ask counsel of a defpised Prieft, and to
think that even a common sentence from the mouth of
an appointed comforter
ftreams forth more re-
freshment than all our
own wifer and more re-
puted difcourfes: Then our Understandings and our
Bodies, peeping through their own breaches, fee their
fhame and their dishonour, their dangerous follies
and their huge deceptions, and they go into the clefts
of the Rock, and every little hand may cover them.

-Ubi jam validis quaffatum eft viribus ævi
Corpus, & obtufis ceciderunt viribus artus,
Claudicat ingenium, delirat linguáque menfque.

3. Next to thefe, As the Soul is ftill undressing, she takes off the roughness of her great and little Angers and Animofities, and receives the oil of Mercies and fmooth Forgiveness, fair Interpretations and gentle Answers, defigns of Reconcilement and Christian Atonement, in their places. For fo did the wraftlers in Olympus, they stripped themselves of all their Garments, and then anointed their naked Bodies with oil smooth and vigorous; with contracted Nerves and enlarged voice they contended vehemently, till they obtained their Victory, or their Eafe; and a Crown of Olive, or a huge Pity, was the reward of their fierce Contentions. Some wife men have said, that Anger fticks to a Man's Nature as infeparably as other Vices do to the Manners of Fools; and that Anger is never quite cured: But God, that hath found out Remedies for all Difeafes, hath fo ordered the circumftances of Man, that, in the worfer fort of Men, Anger and great Indignation confume and fhrivel into little peevishneffes and uneafie accents of Sickness, and spend themselves in trifling inftances; and in the better and more fanctified, it goes off in Prayers, and Alms, and folemn Reconcilement. And however the Temptations of

-Quatenus excidit penitùs vitium iræ,
Cætera item nequeunt ftultis hærentia.

G 2

Hor lib. 1. Sat. §.

this

this ftate, fuch I mean which are proper to it, are little and inconfiderable; the Man is apt to chide a Servant too bitterly, and to be difcontented with his Nurfe, or not fatisfied with his Phyfician, and he refts uneafily, and (poor Man!) nothing can please him: And indeed thefe little undecencies must be cured and stopped, left they run into an inconvenience. But ficknets is in this particular a little image of the ftate of bleffed Souls, or of Adam's early morning in Paradife, free from the troubles of Luft, and violences of Anger, and the intricacies of Ambition, or the restlefnefs of Covetoufnefs. For though a Man may carry all thefe along with him into his fickness, yet there he will not find them; and in defpight of all his own malice, his Soul fhall find fome reft from labouring in the Galleys and bafer captivity of Sin: And if we value thofe moments of being in the love of God and in the kingdom of Grace, which certainly are the beginnings of Felicity; we may alfo remember that the not finning actually is one ftep of Innocency; and therefore this ftate is not intolerable, which by a fenfible trouble makes it in moft inftances impoffible to commit thofe great fins which make Death, Hell, and horrid Damnations. And then let us but add this to it, that God fends Sickneffes, but he never caufes Sin; that God is angry with a finning Perfon, but never with a man for being fick; that fin caufes God to hate us, and ficknets caufes him to pity us; that all wife Men in the world chufe trouble rather than dishonour, affliction rather than baseness; and that fickness ftops the torrent of fin, and interrupts its violence, and even to the worft Men makes it to retreat many degrees. We may reckon fickness amongit good things, as we reckon Rhubarb, and Aloes, and Child-birth, and Labour, and Obedience, and Difcipline: Thefe are unpleasant, and yet late; they are troubles in order to bleffings, or they are fe curities from danger, or the hard choices of a lefs and a more tolerable evil.

4. Sicknets is in fome fenfe eligible, because it is the opportunity and the proper fcene of exercising

* fome

Nolo quod cupio ftatim tenere, Nec victoria mi placet parata.

* fome vertues: It is that agony in
which men are tried for a crown.
And if we remember what glorious
things are spoken of the grace of Faith, that it is the
life of juft men, the reftitution of the dead in trespasses
and fins, the juftification of Sinners, the fupport of
the weak, the confidence of the strong, the magazine
of promifes, and the title to very glorious rewards; we
may eafily imagine that it must have in it a work and
a difficulty in fome proportion anfwerable to fo great
effects. But when we are bidden to believe ftrange
propofitions, we are put upon it when we cannot
judge, and thofe propofitions have poffeffed our dif
cerning faculties, and have made a party there, and
are become domeftick, before they come to be difpu-
ted; and then the Articles of Faith are fo few, and are
made fo credible, and in their event and in their ob-
ject are to ufeful and gaining upon the affections, that
he were a prodigy of Man, and would be to esteem-
ed, that fhould in all our prefent circumftances dif-
believe any point of Faith: and all is well as long
as the Sun fhines, and the fair breath of Heaven gent-
ly wafts us to our own purpofes. But if you will
try the excellency, and feel the work of Faith, place
the man in a perfecution, let him ride in a ftorm, let
his bones be broken with forrow, and his eye lids
loofed with Sicknefs, let his bread be dipped with tears,
and all the daughters of Mufick be brought low; let
God commence a quarrel against him, and be bitter
in the accents of his anger or his difcipline: then
God tries your Faith. Can you then truft his good-
nefs, and believe him to be a Father, when you groan
under his rod? Can you rely upon all the ftrange
propofitions of Scripture, and be content to perifh if
they be not true? Can you receive comfort in the
difcourfes of Death and Heaven, of Immortality and
the Refurrection, of the death of Chrift and confor-
ming to his fufferings? Truth is, there are but two
great periods in which Faith demonftrates it felt to be
a powerful and mighty Grace: and they are perfecu-
tion and the approaches of death, for the paffive part;
and

G 3

Petron