should come out of minority, and be at age to be a god in sixty 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, and for life he prays to that which is dead. Should we do so? says thy prophet"; 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 seed 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, and not die, and let not his men be few; let him propagate many. And it is a malediction, That that dieth, let it die', let it do no good in dying; for trees without fruit, thou, by thy apostle, callest 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, that there was not a house where there was not one dead; for thereupon the Egyptians said, 4 Wisd. xiii. 18. 7 Zech. xi. 9. 5 Isaiab, viii. 19, 6 Deut. xxxiii. 6. 9 Exod. xii. 30, We are all dead men: the death of others should catechise us to death. Thy Son Christ Jesus is the first begotten of the dead 10; 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, 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 thou didst send to the angel of Sardis, with commission to strengthen the things that remain, and that are ready to die12, 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 Gideon, Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die13; or whether thou say, as unto Aaron, Thou shalt die there"; yet thou wilt preserve that which is ready to die, my soul, from the worst death, that of sin. Zimri died for his sins, says thy Spirit, which he sinned in doing evil; and in his sin which he did to make Israel sin 15; 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 10 Rev. i. 5. 1 Numb. xx. 26. 13 11 1 Sam. xix. 11. 13 Judg. vi. 23. 15 1 Kings, xvi. 18, 19. : they refused the light offered), You shall die in your sin 16 and then when they proceeded to farther disputations, and vexations, and temptations, he adds, You shall die in your sins"; he multiplies the former expression to a plural. In this sin, 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 immortal; that I shall die, and the worm of mine own conscience shall never die 18? XVIII. PRAYER. 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 toldest 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 born dead, and from the first laying of these mud walls in my conception, they have mouldered away, and the whole course of life is but an active death. Whether 16 John, viii. 21. 17 John, viii. 24. 18 Isaiah, lxvi. 24. 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 humbly beseech thee also to accept my prayers in his behalf, by whose occasion this voice, this sound, is come to me. For 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 joyful 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 consummation of his dignity, by entering into his last office, the office of a judge, and may have society of human bodies in heaven, as well as he hath had ever of souls; 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 be one entire and everlasting sacrifice to thee, where thou mayst receive delight from them, and they glory from thee, for evermore, Amen. XIX. OCEANO TANDEM EMENSO, ASPICIANDA RESURGIT TERRA; VIDENT, JUSTIS, MEDICI, JAM COCTA MEDERI SE POSSE, INDICIIS. 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. A XIX. MEDITATION. LL 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 disease, 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 January, 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 we look for I |