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CHAP. IV.

OF THE PRACTICE OF THE GRACES PROPER TO THE STATE OF SICKNESS, WHICH A SICK MAN MAY PRACTISE ALONE.

SECT. I.

Of the Practice of Patience.

Now we suppose the man entering upon his scene of sorrows and passive graces. It may be he went yesterday to a wedding, merry and brisk, and there he felt his sentence, that he must return home and die, (for men very commonly enter into the snare singing, and consider not whither their fate leads them;) nor feared that then the Angel was to strike his stroke, till his knees kissed the earth and his head trembled with the weight of the rod which God put into the hand of an exterminating Angel. But, whatsoever the ingress was, when the man feels his blood boil, or his bones weary, or his flesh diseased with a load of a dispersed and disordered humour, or his head to ache or his faculties discomposed; then he must consider, that all those discourses he hath heard concerning patience and resignation, and conformity to Christ's sufferings, and the melancholic lectures of the Cross, must all of them now be reduced to practice, and pass from an ineffective contemplation to such an exercise as will really try whether we were true disciples of the Cross, or only believed the doctrines of Religion when we were at ease, and that they

never passed through the ear to the heart, and dwelt not in our spirits. But every man should consider God does nothing in vain; that He would not to no purpose send us preachers, and give us rules, and furnish us with discourse, and lend us books, and provide sermons, and make examples, and promise His Spirit, and describe the blessedness of holy sufferings, and prepare us with daily alarms, if He did not really purpose to order our affairs so that we should need all this, and use it all. There were no such thing as the grace of Patience, if we were not to feel a sickness, or enter into a state of sufferings: whither when we are entered, we are to practise by the following Rules.

The Practice and Acts of Patience, by way of Rule.

1. At the first address and presence of Sickness stand still and arrest thy spirit, that it may without amazement or affright consider that this was that thou lookedst for, and wert always certain should happen, and that now thou art to enter into the actions of a new Religion, the agony of a strange constitution; but at no hand suffer thy spirits to be dispersed with fear or wildness of thought, but stay their looseness and dispersion by a serious consideration of the present and future employment. For so doth the Libyan lion, spying the fierce huntsman; first beats himself with the strokes of his tail, and curls up his spirits, making them strong with union and recollection, till, being struck with a Mauritanian spear, he rushes forth into his defence and noblest contention; and either 'scapes into the secrets of his own dwelling, or else dies the bravest of the forest. Every man when shot

with an arrow from God's quiver, must then draw in

all the auxiliaries of Reason, and know that then is the time to try his strength, and to reduce the words of his Religion into action, and consider that if he behaves himself weakly and timorously, he suffers never the less of sickness; but if he returns to health, he carries along with him the mark of a coward and a fool; and if he descends into his grave, he enters into the state of the faithless and unbelievers. Let him set his heart firm upon this resolution, I must bear it inevitably, and I will by God's grace do it nobly.

2. Bear in thy sickness all along the same thoughts, propositions, and discourses, concerning thy person, thy Life and Death, thy Soul and Religion, which thou hadst in the best days of thy health, and when thou didst discourse wisely concerning things spiritual. For it is to be supposed (and if it be not yet done, let this rule remind thee of it, and direct thee), that thou hast cast about in thy health, and considered concerning thy change and the evil day, that thou must be sick and die, that thou must need a comforter, and that it was certain thou shouldst fall into a state in which all the cords of thy anchor should be stretched, and the very rock and foundation of Faith should be attempted; and whatsoever fancies may disturb you, or whatsoever weaknesses may invade you, yet consider, when you were better able to judge and govern the accidents of your life, you concluded it necessary to trust in God, and possess your Souls with patience3. Think of things as they think that stand by you, and as you did when you stood by others; that it is a blessed thing to be patient; that a quietness of spirit hath a certain reward; that still there is infinite truth

Luke xxi. 19.

and reality in the promises of the Gospel; that still thou art in the care of God, in the condition of a Son, and working out thy salvation with labour and pain, with fear and trembling ; that now the sun is under a cloud, but it still sends forth the same influence : and be sure to make no new principles upon the stock of a quick and an impatient sense, or too busy an apprehension: keep your old principles, and upon their stock discourse and practise on towards your conclusion.

3. Resolve to bear your sickness like a child; that is, without considering the evils and the pains, the sorrows and the danger; but go straight forward, and let thy thoughts cast about for nothing, but how to make advantages of it by the instrument of Religion. He that from a high tower looks down upon the precipice, and measures the space through which he must descend, and considers what a huge fall he shall have, shall feel more by the horror of it than by the last dash on the pavement: and he that tells his groans and numbers his sighs, and reckons one for every gripe of his belly or throb of his distempered pulse, will make an artificial sickness greater than the natural. And if thou beest ashamed that a child should bear an evil better than thou, then take his instrument, and allay thy spirit with it; reflect not upon thy evil, but contrive as much as you can for duty; and in all the rest inconsideration will ease your pain.

4. If thou fearest thou shalt need, observe and draw together all such things as are apt to charm thy spirit, and ease thy fancy in the sufferance. It is the counsel of Socrates: It is (said he) a great danger, and you

y Phil. ii, 12.

must by discourse and arts of reasoning enchant it into slumber and some rest. It may be thou wert moved much to see a person of honour to die untimely; or thou didst love the Religion of that death-bed, and it was dressed up in circumstances fitted to thy needs, and hit thee on that part where thou wert most sensible; or some little saying in a sermon or passage of a book was chosen and singled out by a peculiar apprehension, and made consent lodge awhile in thy spirit, even then when thou didst place death in thy meditation, and didst view it in all its dress of fancy: Whatsoever that was, which at any time did please thee in thy most passionate and fantastic part, let not that go, but bring it home at that time especially; because, when thou art in thy weakness, such little things will easier move thee than a more severe discourse and a better reason. For a sick man is like a scrupulous; his case is gone beyond the cure of arguments, and it is a trouble that can only be helped by chance, or a lucky saying; and Ludovico Corbinelli was moved at the death of Henry the second more than if he had read the saddest elegy of all the unfortunate princes in Christendom, or all the sad sayings of Scripture, or the threnes of the funeral Prophets. I deny not but this course is most proper to weak persons; but it is a state of weakness for which we are now providing remedies and instruction: a strong man will not need it: but when our sickness hath rendered us weak in all senses, it is not good to refuse a remedy because it supposes us to be sick. But then, if to the catalogue of weak persons we add all those who are ruled by fancy, we shall find that many persons in their health, and more in their sickness, are