converse with no man else; and think his office so much to relate to the other world, that he is not to be treated with, while we hope to live in this: and indeed, that our religion be taken care of only when we die: and the event is this (of which I have seen some sad experience,) that the man is deadly sick, and his reason is useless, and he is laid to sleep, and his life is in the confines of the grave, so that he can do nothing towards the trimming of his lamp; and the curate shall say a few prayers by him, and talk to a dead man, and the man is not in a condition to be helped, but in a condition to need it hugely. He cannot be called upon to confess his sins, and he is not able to remember them; and he cannot understand an advice, nor hear a free discourse, nor be altered from a passion, nor cured of his fear, nor comforted upon any grounds of reason or religion, and no man can tell what is likely to be his fate; or if he does, he cannot prophesy good things concerning him, but evil. Let the spiritual man come when the sick man can be conversed withal and instructed, when he can take medicine, and amend, when he understands, or can be taught to understand the case of his soul, and the rules of his conscience: and then his advice may turn into advantage it cannot otherwise be useful. 2. The intercourses of the minister with the sick man have so much variety in them, that they are not to be transacted at once and therefore they do not well, that send once to see the good man with sorrow, and hear him pray, and thank him, and dismiss him civilly, and desire to see his face no more. To dress a soul for funeral, is not a work to be despatched at one meeting: at first he needs a comfort, and anon something to make him willing to die; and by and by he is tempted to impatience, and that needs a special cure; and it is a great work to make his confessions well and with advantages; and it may be the man is careless and indifferent, and then he needs to understand the evil of his sin, and the danger of his person; and his cases of conscience may be so many and so intricate, that he is not quickly to be reduced to peace, and one time the holy man must pray, and another he must exhort, a third time administer the holy sacrament; and he that ought to watch all the periods and little portions of his life, lest he should be surprised and overcome, had need be watched when he is sick, and assisted, and called upon, and re minded of the several parts of his duty, in every instant of his temptation. This article was well provided for among the Easterlings; for the priests in their visitations of a sick person did abide in their attendance and ministry for seven days together. The want of this makes the visitations fruitless, and the calling of the clergy contemptible, while it is not suffered to imprint its proper effects upon them that need it in a lasting ministry. * 3. St. James advises, that when a man is sick, he should send for the elders; one sick man for many presbyters, and so did the castern churches; they sent for seven, and like a college of physicians, they ministered spiritual remedies, and sent up prayers like a choir of singing clerks. In cities they might do so, while the Christians were few, and the priests many. But when they that dwelt in the Pagi or villages ceased to be Pagans, and were baptized, it grew to be an impossible felicity, unless in few cases, and to some more eminent persons: but because they need it most, God hath taken care, that they may best have it; and they that can, are not very prudent, if they neglect it. 4. Whether they be many or few, that are sent to the sick person, let the curate of his parish, or his own confessor, be amongst them; that is, let him not be wholly advised by strangers, who know not his particular necessi ties; but he that is the ordinary judge cannot safely be passed by in his extraordinary necessity, which, in so great portions, depends upon his whole life past: and it is a matter of suspicion, when we decline his judgment, that knows us best, and with whom we formerly did converse, either by choice or by law, by private election or by public constitution. It concerns us then to make severe and profitable judgments, and not to conspire against ourselves, or procure such assistances, which may handle us softly, or comply with our weakness more than relieve our necessities. 5. When the ministers of religion are come, first let them do their ordinary offices, that is, pray for grace to the sick man, for patience, for resignation, for health, (if it seems good to God in order to his great end.) For that is one of the ends of the advice of the apostle. And therefore the minister is to be sent for, not when the case is desperate, but before the sickness is come to its crisis or period. Let * James v. 14. him discourse concerning the causes of sickness, and by a general instrument move him to consider concerning his condition. Let him call upon him to set his soul in order; to trim his lamp; to dress his soul; to renew acts of grace by way of prayer; to make amends in all the evils he hath done; and to supply all the defects of duty, as much as his past condition requires, and his present can admit. 6. According as the condition of sickness or the weakness of the man is observed, so the exhortation is to be less, and the prayers more, because the life of the man was his main preparatory; and therefore, if his condition be full of pain and infirmity, the shortness and small number of its own acts is to be supplied by the acts of the ministers and standers-by, who are, in such case, to speak more to God for him than to talk to him. For the prayer of the righteous,* when it is fervent, hath a promise to prevail much in behalf of the sick person. But exhortations must prevail with their own proper weight, not by the passion of the speaker. But yet this assistance by way of prayers is not to be done by long offices, but by frequent, and fervent, and holy in which offices if the sick man joins, let them be short, and apt to comply with his little strength and great infirmities; if they be said in his behalf without his conjunction, they that pray, may prudently use their own liberty and take no measures, but their own devotions and opportunities, and the sick man's necessities. When he hath made this general address and preparatory entrance to the work of many days and periods, he may descend to particulars by the following instruments and dis courses. SECTION III. Of ministering in the Sick Man's Confession of Sins and Repentance. THE first necessity, that is to be served, is that of repentance, in which the ministers can in no way serve him, but by first exhorting him to confession of his sins, and declaration of the state of his soul. For unless they know the manner of his life, and the degrees of his restitution, either they can do nothing at all, or nothing of advantage and certainty. His discourses, like Jonathan's arrows, may shoot short, or shoot over, but not wound where they * James v. 16. L should, nor open those humours that need a lancet or :: cautery. To this purpose the sick man may be reminded Arguments and Exhortations to move the Sick Man to Confession of Sins. 1. That God hath made a special promise to confession of sins. "He that confesseth his sins, and forsaketh them, shall have mercy ;" and, "If we confess our sins, God is righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."+ 2. That confession of sins is a proper act and introduction to repentance. 3. That when the Jews, being warned by the sermons of the Baptist, repented of their sins, they confessed their sins to John in the sus ception of baptism. 4. That the converts, in the days of the apostles, returning to Christianity, instantly declared their faith and their repentance, by confession and decla ration of their deeds,§ which they then renounced, abjured, and confessed to the apostles. 5. That confession is an act of many virtues together. 6. It is the gate of repent ance; 7. An instrument of shame and condemnation of our sins; 8. A glorification of God, so called by Joshua, par. ticularly in the case of Achan; 9. An acknowledgment, that God is just in punishing; for, by confessing of our sins, we also confess his justice, and are assessors with God in this condemnation of ourselves. 10. That by such an act of judging ourselves, we escape the more angry judgment of God: St. Paul expressly exhorting us to it, upon that very inducement.|| 11. That confession of sins is so necessary a duty, that in all Scriptures, it is the immediate preface to pardon, and the certain consequent of godly sorrow, and an integral or constituent part of that grace, which together with faith, makes up the whole duty of the gospel. 12. That in all ages of the gospel, it hath been taught and practised respectively, that all the penitents made confessions proportionable to their repentance, that is, public or private, general or particular. 13. That God by testimonies from heaven, that is, by his word, and by a consequent rare peace of conscience, hath given approbation to this holy duty. 14. That by this instrument, those, whose office it is to apply remedies to every spiritual sickness, can best perform their offices. 15. That it *Prov. xxviii. 13. † 1 John i. 9. + Matt. iii, 6 Acts xix. 18. is by all churches esteemed a duty necessary to be done in cases of a troubled conscience. 16. That what is necessary to be done in one case, and convenient in all cases, is fit to be done by all persons. 17. That, without confession, it cannot easily be judged concerning the sick person, whether his conscience ought to be troubled or no, and therefore it cannot be certain that it is not necessary. 18. That there can be no reason against it, but such as consults with flesh and blood, with infirmity and sin, to all which confession of sins is a direct enemy. 19. That now is that time, when all the imperfections of his repentance and all the breaches of his duty are to be made up, and that, if he omits this opportunity, he can never be admitted to a salutary and medicinal confession. 20. That St. James gives an express precept, that we Christians should confess our sins to each other, that is, Christian to Christian, brother to brother, the people to their minister; and then he makes a specification of that duty, which a sick man is to do, when he hath sent for the elders of the church. 21. That in all this there is no force lies upon him; but "if he hides his sins, he shall not be directed," so said the wise man; but ere long he must appear before the great Judge of men and angels: and his spirit will be more amazed and confounded to be seen among the angels of light with the shadows of the works of darkness upon him, than he can suffer by confessing to God in the presence of him, whom God hath sent to heal him. However, it is better to be ashamed here, than to be confounded hereafter. "Pol pudere præstat quam pigere, totidem literis." 22. That confession, being in order to pardon of sins, it is very proper and analogical to the nature of the thing, that it be made there, where the pardon of sins is to be administered and that, of pardon of sins God hath made the minister the publisher and dispenser: and all this is besides the accidental advantages, which accrue to the conscience, which is made ashamed, and timorous, and restrained by the mortifications and blushings of discovering to a man the faults committed in secret. 23. That the ministers of the gospel are the ministers of reconciliation, are commanded to restore such persons a snare overtaken in a fault; and to that purpose they come to offer their ministry, if they may have cognizance of the fault and person. 24. That, in the matter of prudence, it is not safe to p 2 s 2 |