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 entercourses 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 time 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 reminded of the several parts of his duty, in every instant of his tempta tion. 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. S. James advises, that when a man is sick he should send for the Elders; one sick man for many Presbyters: and so did the Eastern 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 necessities; 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 public constitution. It concerns us then to make severe and profitable judg d James v. 14. ments, and not to conspire against ourselves, or procure such assistances which may handle us softly, or comply with our weaknesses 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 ends.) For that is one of the ends of the advice of the Apostle. And therefore the Minister is to be sent for, not while the case is desperate, but before the sickness is come to its crisis or period. Let 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 the 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 his own acts is to be supplied by the act 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 muche in behalf of the sick person. But exhort • James v. 16. ations 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 discourses. SECT. III. Of ministering in the sick man's Confession of sins and 1. 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 overf, but not wound where they should, nor open those humours that need a lancet or a cautery. To this purpose the sick man may be reminded,— f 1 Sam. xx. 18-22. 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 1. 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 susception of Baptismi. 4. That the Converts in the days of the Apostles returning to Christianity instantly declared their Faith and their Repentance, by Confession and declaration 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 Repentance; 7. An instrument of shame and condemnation of our sins; 8. A glorification of God, so called by Joshua particularly in the case of Achan1; 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: S. Paul expressly exhorting us to it upon that very inducement m. 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 Prov. xxviii. 13. k Acts xix. 18. h 1 John i. 9. i Matt. iii. 6. |