nor carry our felves ftrangely Quam pellunt lacrymæ fovent fortem: in fo certain, fo expected, fo Dura negant cedere mollibus. ordinary, fo unavoidable an Accident. All reluctancy Siccas fi videat genas, or unwillingness to obey the Divine Decree, is but Duræ ceder a fnare to ourselves, and a Load to our Spirits, and hebes fors is either an entire Caufe, or a great Aggravation of the patientiæ. Calamity. Who did not fcorn to look upon Xerxes, when he caufed Three Hundred Stripes to be given to the Sea, and fent a Chartel of Defiance against the Mountain Athos? Who did not fcorn the proud Vanity of Cyrus, when he took fo goodly a revenge upon the River Cydnus, for his hard paffage over it? Or did not deride or pity the Thracians, for fhooting Arrows against Heaven when it thunders? To be angry with God, to quarrel with the Divine Providence, by repining against an unalterable, a natural, an eafie Sentence, is an argument of a huge Folly, and the Parent of a great Trouble; a Man is bafe and foolish to no purpofe, he throws away a Vice to his own Mifery, and to no Advantages of eafe and pleasure. Fear keeps Men in Non levat bondage all their Life, faith St. Paul; and Patience makes Mileros do him his own Man, and Lord of his own Interest and Perfon. Therefore poffefs yourselves in Patience, with Reason and Religion, and you fhall die with ease. Νήπιοι οἳ Ζηνὶ μενεαίνομεν αφρονέοντες. Et cùm nihil imminuat dolores, lor. Seneca ut lucum ligna. If all the Parts of this Difcourfe be true, if they be better than Dreams, and unless Virtue be nothing Virtutum verba putas, but Words, as a Grove is a heap of Trees; if they be not the Phantafms of hypochondriacal Perfons, and defigns upon the Interefts of Men and their Perfuafions to evil Purpofes; then there is no reason but that we fhould really defire Death, and account it among the good Things of God, and the foure and laborious Felicities of Man. St. Paul understood it well, when he defired to be diffolved: He well-enough knew his own Advantages, and purfued them accordingly. But it is certain, that he that is afraid of Death, I mean, with a violent transporting Fear, with a Fear apt to dif and compofe compose his Duty or his Patience, that Man either loves this World too much, or dares not truft God for the next. SECT. IX. General Rules and Exercises, whereby our Sickness may become fafe and fanctified. 1.TAK AKE care that the Caufe of thy Sickness be fuch as may not foure it in the principal and original Causes of it. It is a fad Calamity to pass into the House of Mourning, through the Gates of Intemperance, by a Drunken Meeting, or the Surfeits of a loaded and luxurious Table: For then a Man fuffers the Pain of his own Folly, and he is like a Fool fmarting under the Whip which his own Vicioufnefs twisted for his Back; then a Man pays the Price of his Sin, and hath a pure and an unmingled Sorrow in his Suffering; and it cannot be alleviated by any Circumstances, for the whole Affair is a mere process of Death and Sorrow. Sin is in the Head, Sickness is in the Body, and Death and an eternity of Pains in the Tail; and nothing can make this Condition tolerable, unless the Miracles of the Divine Mercy will be pleas'd to exchange the eternal Anger for the temporal. True it is, that in eft pro ho- all Sufferings, the Caufe of it makes it noble or ignotolerare, & ble, honour or fhame, tolerable or intolerable. For ad caufam, when Patience is affaulted by a ruder violence, by a patientia blow from Heaven or Earth, from a gracious God refpicit. 1 Pet. 2. 19. Or an unjust Man, Patience looks forth to the Doors Heb. 11. 36. which Way the may efcape; and if Innocence or a Matth.5.11 Caufe of Religion keep the firft entrance, then, whe Solatium nefto dura ther the escapes at the Gates of Life or Death, there, is a Good to be received, greater than the Evils of a Sickness: But if Sin thruft in that Sickness, and that Hell ftands at the Door, then Patience turns into FuMagis his ry; and feeing it impoffible to go forth with fafety, quæ patitur rolls up and down with a circular and infinite Revolupatiendi. tion, making its Motion not from, but upon its own Centre; it doubles the Pain, and increases the Sor vexat caufa row, row, till by its weight it breaks the Spirit, and burfts Hi quicquid biberint vomitu remetientur triftes, & bilem fuam reguftantes. Seneca or or the Shame, if we truly fuffer the Rewards of our evil Deeds, we must thank our felves; that is, we are fallen into an evil Condition, and are the Sacrifice of the divine Justice. But if we live holy Lives, and if we enter well in, we are fure to pass on safe, and to go forth with advantage, if we lift our felves. 2. To this relates, that we should not counterfeit Sickness: For he that is to be careful of his paffage into a Sickness, will think himself concern'd that he fall not into it through a Trap-door; for fo it hath sometimes happened, that fuch counterfeiting to light and evil Purposes, hath ended in a real Sufferance. Appian tells of a Roman Gentleman, who, to escape the Profcription of the Triumvirate, fled, and to fecure his privacy counterfeited himself blind on one Eye, and wore a Plaister upon it, till beginning to be free from the Malice of the three prevailing Princes, he opened his Hood, but cou'd not open his Eye, but for ever loft the use of cura poteft it, and with his Eye paid for his Liberty and Hypocrify. And Coelius counterfeited the Gout, and all its CircumfingereCoe-ftances and Pains, its Dreffings and Arts of Remedy lius poda-, and Complaint, till at laft the Gout really enter'd and gram. Vid. fpoil'd the Pageantry. His Arts of Diffimulation were fo witty, that they put Life and Motion into the very very Image of the Disease; he made the very Picture to figh and groan. Tantum & ars do loris. Defiit Mart. L. 7. Ep. 38. It is eafy to tell upon the Intereft of what Virtue fuch counterfeiting is to be reproved. But it will be harder to fnatch the Politicks of the World from following that which they call a canoniz'd and authentick Precedent: And David's counterfeiting himfelf mad before the King of Gath, to fave his Life and Liberty, will be fufficient to entice Men to ferve an end upon the Stock and Charges of fo fmall an Irregularity, not in the Matter of Manners, but in the Rules and Decencies of natural or civil Deportment. I cannot certainly tell what Degrees of excufe David's Action might put on: This only, befides his prefent Neceffity, the Laws, whofe coercive or directive Power David lived under, had lefs of Severity, and more of Liberty, and towards Enemies had had fo little of restraint, and fo great a power, that what amongst them was a direct Sin, if used to their Brethren the Sons of Jacob, was lawful and permitted to be acted against Enemies. To which alfo I add this general Caution; That the Actions of holy Perfons, in Scripture, are not always good precedents to us Christians, who are to walk by a Rule and a greater ftrictness, with more fimplicity and heartinefs of purfuit. And amongst them, fanctity and holy Living did in very many of its Inftances increase in new Particulars of Duty; and the Prophets reproved many Things which the Law forbad not, and taught many Duties which Mofes prefcribed not: And as the time of Chrift's approach came, fo the Sermons and Revelations too were more Evangelical, and like the Patterns which were fully to be exhibited by the Son of God. Amongft which, it is certain that Chriftian Simplicity and Godly Sincerity is to be accounted: * And counterfeiting of Sickness, is a huge Enemy to this: It is an upbraiding the divine Providence, a jefting with Fire, a playing with a Thunderbolt, a making the Decrees of God to ferve the vicious or fecular Ends of Men; * it is a tempting of a Judgment, a false Accufation of God, a forestalling and antedating his Anger; it is a cozening of Men, by making God a Party in the Fraud: And therefore if the Cozenage returns upon the Man's own Head, he enters like a Fox into his Sickness, and perceives himself catch'd in a Trap, or earthed in the intolerable Dangers of the Grave. * * * 3. Although we must be infinitely careful to prevent it, that Sin does not thruft us into a Sickness; yet when we are in the Houfe of Sorrow, we should do well to take Phyfick against Sin, and fuppofe that it is the caufe of the Evil, if not by way of natural Caufality and proper Effect, yet by a moral Influence, and by a juft Demerit. We can eafily fee when a Man hath got a Surfeit; Intemperance is as plain as the Hand-writing upon the Wall, and easier to be read: but Covetournefs may caufe a Fever as well as Drunkennefs, and Pride can produce a Falling -ficknefs as |