his repentance by a patient submission to the rod of sicknesse For sicknesse does the work of penances or sharp afflictions and dry diet perfectly well to which if we also put our wills and make it our act by an after election by confessing the justice of God by bearing if sweetly by begging it may be medicinal there is nothing wanting to the perfection of this part but that God confirme our patience and hear our prayers When the guilty man runs to punishment the injured person is prevented and hath no whither to go but to forgivenesse 10. I have learned but of one suppletory more for the perfection and proper exercise of a sick mans repentance but it is such a one as will go a great way in the abolition of our past sinnes and making our peace with God even after a lesse severe life and that is that the sick man do some heroical actions in the matter of charity or religion of justice or severity There is a story of an infamous thief who having begged his pardon of the Emperor Mauritius was yet put into the Hospital of S. Sampson where he so plentifully bewailed his sins in the last agonies of his death that the Physitian who attended found him unexpectedly dead and over his face a handkerchief bathed in tears and soon after some body or other pretended to a revelation of this mans beatitude It was a rare grief that was noted in this man which begat in that age a confidence of his being saved and that confidence as things then went was quickly called a revelation But it was a stranger severity which is related by Thomas Cantipratanus concerning a young Gentleman condemned for robbery and violence who had so deep a sense of his sin that he was not content with a single death but begged to be tormented and cut in pieces joynt by joynt with intermedial senses that he might by such a smart signifie a greater sorrow Some have given great estates to the poor and to religion some have built colledges for holy persons many have suffered martyrdom and though those that died under the conduct of the Maccabees in defence of their countrey and religion had pendants on their breasts consecrated to the idols of the Iamnenses yet that they gave their lives in such a cause with so great a duty the biggest things they could do or give it was esteemed to prevail hugely towards the pardon and acceptation of their persons An heroic action of uertue is a huge compendium of religion for if it be attained to by the usual measures and progresse of a Christian from inclination to act from act to habit from habit to abode from abode to reigning from reigning to perfect possession from possession to extraordinary emanations that is to heroick actions then it must needs do the work of man by being so great towards the work of God but if a man comes thither per saltum or on a sudden which is seldome seen then it supposes the man alwayes well inclined but abused by accident or hope by confidence or ignorance taen it supposes the man for the present in a great fear of evil and a passionate desire of pardon it supposes his apprehensions great and his time little and what the event of that will be no man can tell but it is certain that to some purposes God will account for our religion on our death bed not by the measures of our time but the eminency of affection as said Celestin the first that is supposing the man in the state of grace or in the revealed possibility of salvation then an heroical act hath the reward of a longer series of good actions in an even and ordinary course of vertue 11. In what can remain for the perfecting a sick mans repentance he is to be helped by the ministeries of a spiritual Guide SECT VII Acts of repentance by way of prayer and ejaculation to be used especially by old men in their age and by all men in their sicknesse LEt us search and try our wayes and turne again to the Lord let us lift up our hearts with our hands unto God in the heavens We have transgressed and rebelled and thou hast not pardoned Thou hast covered with anger and persecured us thou hast slain thou hast not pitied O cover not thy self with a cloud but let our prayer passe thorough I have sinned what shall I do unto thee O thou preserver of men why hast thou set me as a mark against thee so that I am a burden to my self and why doest not thou pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity for now shall I sleep in the dust and thou shalt seek me in the morning but I shall not be The Lord is righteous for I have rebelled against his commandments Hear I pray all ye people behold my sorrow behold O Lord I am in distresse my bowels are troubled my heart is turned within me for I have grievously rebelled Thou O Lord remainest for ever thy throne from generation to generation wherefore doest thou forget us for ever and forsake us so long time turn thou us unto thee O Lord and so shall we be turned renew our dayes as of old O reject me not utterly and be not exceeding wroth against thy servant O remember not the sins of my youth nor my transgressions but according to thy mercies remember thou me for thy goodnesse sake O Lord Do thou for me O God the Lord for thy Names sake because thy mercy is good deliver thou me for I am poor and needy and my heart is wounded within me I am gone like the shadow that declineth I am tossed up and down as the locust Then Zacheus stood forth and said Behold Lord half of my goods I give to the poor and if I have wronged any man I restore him fourfold Hear my prayer O Lord and consider my desire let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice And enter not into judgement with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified Teach me to do the thing that pleaseth thee for thou art my God let thy loving spirit lead me forth into the land of righteousnesse I will speak of mercy and judgement unto thee O Lord will I make my prayer I will behave my self wisely in a perfect way O when wilt thou come unto me I will walk in my house with a perfect heart I will set no wicked thing before my eyes I hate the work of them that turn aside it shall not cleave to me Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Deliver me from blood guiltinesse O God from malice envy the follies of lust and violences of passion c. thou God of my salvation and my
the renewings of devotion and in the way of prayer and that is to be continued as long as life and voice and reason dwell with us SECT X. Acts of charity by way of prayer and ejaculation which may also be used for thanksgiving in case of recovery O My soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my goodnesse extendeth not to thee But to the saints that are in the earth and to the excellent in whom is all my delight The Lord is the portion of my inheritance and of my cup thou maintainest my lot As for God his way is perfect the word of the Lord is tried he is a buckler to all those that trust in him For who is God save the Lord or who is a rock save our God It is God that girdeth me with strength and maketh my way perfect Be not thou far from me O Lord O my strength haste thee to help me Deliver my soul from the sword my darling from the power of the dog save me from the lions mouth and thou hast heard me also from among the horns of the Unicorns I will declare thy Name unto my brethren in the midst of the Congregation will I praise thee Ye that fear the Lord praise the Lord ye sons of God J Glorifie him and fear before him all ye sons of men For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted neither hath he hid his face from him but when he cryed unto him he heard As the hart panteth after the water brooks so longeth my soul after thee O God My soul thirsteth for God for the living God when shall I come and appear before the Lord. O my God my soul is cast down within me all thy waves and billows are gone over me as with a sword in my bones I am reproached yet the Lord will command his loving kindnesse in the day time and in the night his song shall be with me and my prayer unto the God of my life Blesse ye the Lord in the congregations even the Lord from the fountains of Israel My mouth shall shew forth thy righteousnesse and thy salvation all the day for I know not the numbers thereof I will go in the strength of the Lord God I will make mention of thy righteousnesse even of thine onely O God thou hast taught me from my youth And hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works But I will hope continually and will yet praise thee more and more Thy righteousnesse O God is very high who hast done great things O God who is like unto thee thou which hast shewed me great and sore troubles shalt quicken me again and shalt bring me up again from the depth of the earth Thou shalt encrease thy goodnesse towards me and comfort me on every side My lips shall greatly rejoyce when I sing unto thee And my soul which thou hast redeemed Blessed be the Lord God the God of Israel who only doth wondrous things And blessed be his glorious name for ever and let the whole earth be filled with his glory Amen Amen I love the Lord because he hath heard my voice and my supplication The sorrows of death compassed me I found trouble and sorrow Then called I upon the name of the Lord O Lord I beseech thee deliver my soul. Gracious is the Lord and righteous yea our God is merciful The Lord preserveth the simple I was brought low and he helped me Return to thy rest O my soul the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee For thou hast delivered my soul from death mine eyes from tears and my feet from falling Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints O Lord truly I am thy servant I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid thou shalt loose my bonds He that loveth not the Lord Jesus let him be accursed O that I might love thee as well as ever any creature loved thee He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God There is no fear in love The prayer O Most Gracious and eternal God and loving Father who hast powred out thy bowels upon us and sent the son of thy love unto us to die for love and to make us dwell in love and the eternal comprehensions of thy divine mercies O be pleased to inflame my heart with a holy charity towards thee and all the world Lord I forgive all that ever have offended me and beg that both they and I may enter into the possession of thy mercies and feel a gracious pardon from the same fountain of grace and do thou forgive me all the acts of scandall whereby I have provoked or tempted or lessened or disturbed any person Lord let me never have my portion amongst those that divide the union and disturb the peace and break the charities of the Church and Christian communion And though I am fallen into evil times in which Christendom is divided by the names of an evil division yet I am in charity with all Christians with all that love the Lord Jesus and long for his coming and I would give my life to save the soul of any of my brethren and I humbly beg of thee that the publike calamity of the severall societies of the Church may not be imputed to my soul to any evil purposes II. LOrd preserve me in the unity of the holy Church in the love of God and of my neighbours let thy grace inlarge my heart to remember deeply to resent faithfully to use wisely to improve and humbly to give thanks to thee for all thy favours with which thou hast enriched my soul and supported my estate and preserved my person and rescued me from danger and invited me to goodnesse in all the dayes and periods of my life Thou hast led me thorow it with an excellent conduct and I have gone astray after the manner of men but my heart is towards thee O do unto thy servant as thou usest to do unto those that love thy Name let thy truth comfort me thy mercy deliver me thy staffe support me thy grace sanctifie my sorrow and thy goodnesse pardon all my sins thy Angels guide me with safety in this shadow of death and thy most holy Spirit lead me into the land of righteousnesse for thy Names sake which is so comfortable and for Jesus Christ his sake our Dearest Lord and most Gracious Saviour Amen CHAP. V. Of visitation of the sick or the assistance that is to be done to dying persons by the ministery of their Clergy Guides SECT I. GOd who hath made no new Covenant with dying persons distinct from the Covenant of the living hath also appointed no distinct Sacraments for them no other manner of usages but such as are common to all the spirituall necessities of living and healthfull persons In all the dayes of our religion from our baptisme to the resignation and delivery of our soul God hath appointed
his brother nor give to God a ransome for him for the redemption of their soul is precious and it ceaseth for ever that he should still live for ever and not see corruption But wise men die likewise the fool and the brutish person perish and leave their wealth to others but God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me As for me I will behold thy face in righteousnesse I shall be satisfied when I awake in thy likenesse Thou shalt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore Glory be to the Father c. As it was in the beginning c. Let us Pray ALmighty God Father of mercies the God of peace and comfort of rest and pardon we thy servants though unworthy to pray to thee yet in duty to thee and charity to our brother humbly beg mercy of thee for him to descend upon his body and his soul One sinner O Lord for another the miserable for the afflicted the poor for him that is in need but thou givest thy graces and thy favours by the measures of thy own mercies and in proportion to our necessities we humbly come to thee in the Name of Jesus for the merit of our Saviour and the mercies of our God praying thee to pardon the sins of this thy servant and to put them all upon the accounts of the Crosse and to bury them in the grave of Jesus that they may never rise up in judgement against thy servant nor bring him to shame and confusion of face in the day of finall inquiry and sentence Amen II. GIve thy servant patience in his sorrows comfort in this his sicknesse and restore him to health if it seem good to thee in order to thy great ends and his greatest interest And however thou shalt determine concerning him in this affair yet make his repentance perfect and his passage and his faith strong and his hope modest and confident that when thou shalt call his soul from the prison of the body it may enter into the securities and rest of the sons of God in the bosome of blessednesse and the custodies of Jesus Amen III. THou O Lord knowest all the necessities and all the infirmities of thy servant fortifie his spirit with spirituall joyes and perfect resignation and take from him all degrees of inordinate or insecure affections to this world and enlarge his heart with desires of being with thee and of freedome from sins and fruition of God IV. LOrd let not any pain or passion discompose the order and decencie of his thoughts and duty and lay no more upon thy servant then thou wilt make him able to bear and together with the temptation do thou provide a way to escape even by the mercies of a longer and a more holy life or by the mercies of a blessed death even as it pleaseth thee O Lord so let it be V. LEt the tendernesse of his conscience and the Spirit of God call to mind his sins that they may be confessed and repented of because thou hast promised that if we confesse our sins we shall have mercy Let thy mighty grace draw out from his soul every root of bitternesse lest the remains of the old man be accursed with the reserves of thy wrath but in the union of the Holy Jesus and in the charities of God and of the world and the communion of all the saints let this soul be presented to thee blamelesse and intirely pardoned and thorowly washed through Jesus Christ our Lord. Here also may be inserted the prayers set down after the Holy Communion is administred The Prayer of S. Eustratius the Martyr to be used by the sick or dying man or by the Priests or assistants in his behalf which he said when he was going to martyrdom I Will praise thee O Lord that thou hast considered my low estate and hast not shut me up in the hands of my enemies nor made my foes to rejoyce over me and now let thy right hand protect me and let thy mercy come upon me for my soul is in trouble and anguish because of its departure from the body O let not the assemblies of its wicked and cruell enemies meet it in the passing forth nor hinder me by reason of the sins of my passed life O Lord be favourable unto me that my so I may not behold the hellish countenance of the spirits of darknesse but let thy bright and joyfull Angels entertain it Give glory to thy Holy Name and to thy Majesty place me by thy mercifull arm before thy seat of Judgement and let not the hand of the prince of this world snatch me from thy presence or bear me into hell Mercy sweet Jesu Amen A Prayer taken out of the Euchologion of the Greek Church to be said by or in behalf of people in their danger or neer their death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I. BEmired with sins and naked of good deeds I that am the meat of worms cry vehemently in spirit Cast not me wretch away from thy face place me not on the left hand who with thy hands didst fashion me but give rest unto my soul for thy great mercy sake O Lord. II. SUpplicate with tears unto Christ who is to judge my poor soul that he would deliver me from the fire that is unquenchable I pray you all my friends and acquaintance make mention of me in your prayers that in the day of Judgement I may find mercy at that dreadfull Tribunall III. Then may the by-standers pray WHen in unspeakable glory thou dost come dreadfully to judge the whole world vouchsafe O gracious Redeemer that this thy faithfull servant may in the clouds meet thee cheerfully They who have been dead from the beginning with terrible and fearfull trembling stand at thy Tribunall waiting thy just O Blessed Saviour Jesus None shall there avoid thy formidable and most righteous judgement All Kings and Princes with servants stand together and hear the dreadfull voyce of the Judge condemning the people which have sinned into hell from which sad sentence O Christ deliver thy servant Amen Then let the sick man be called upon to rehearse the Articles of his Faith or if he be so weak he cannot let him if he have not before done it be called to say Amen when they are recited or to give some testimony of his faith and confident assent to them After which it is proper if the person be in capacity that the Minister examine him and invite him to confession and all the parts of repentance according to the foregoing rules after which he may pray this prayer of absolution OUr Lord Jesus Christ who hath given Commission to his Church in his Name to pronounce pardon to all that are truly penitent he of his mercy pardon and forgive thee all thy sins deliver thee from all evils past present and future
preserve thee in the faith and fear of his holy Name to thy lives end and bring thee to his everlasting Kingdom to live with him for ever and ever Amen Then let the sick man renounce all heresies and whatsoever is against the truth of God or the peace of the Church and pray for pardon for all his ignorances and errors known and unknown After which let him if all other circumstances be fitted be disposed to receive the Blessed Sacrament in which the Curate is to minister according to the form prescribed by the Church When the rites are finished let the sick man in the dayes of his sicknesse be imployed with the former offices and exercises before described and when the time drawes neer of his dissolution the Minister may assist by the following order of recommendation of the soul. I. O Holy and most Gracious Saviour Jesus we humbly recommend the soul of thy servant into thy hands thy most mercifull hands let thy Blessed Angels stand in ministery about thy servant and defend him from the violence and malice of all his ghosâ—ly enemies and drive far from hence all the spirits of darknesse Amen II. LOrd receive the soul of this thy servant Enter not into judgement with thy servaant spare him whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood deliver him from all evil and mischief from the crafts and assaults of the Devil from the fear of death and from everlasting death Good Lord deliver him Amen III. IMpute not unto him the follies of his youth nor any of the errors and miscarriages of his life but strengthen him in his agony let not his faith waver nor his hope fail nor his charity be disordered Let none of his enemies imprint upon him any afflictive or evil phantasme let him die in peace and rest in hope and rise in glory Amen IIII. LOrd we know and beleeve assuredly that whatsoever is under thy custody cannot be taken out of thy hands nor by all the violences of hell robbed of thy protection preserve the work of thy hands rescue him from all evil for whose sake thou didst suffer all evil Take into the participation of thy glories him to whom thou hast given the seal of Adoption the earnest of the inheritance of the Saints Amen V. LEt his portion be with Abraham Isaac and Iacob with Iob and David with the Prophets and Apostles with Martyrs and all thy holy Saints in the arms of Christ in the bosome of felicity in the Kingdom of God to eternall ages Amen These following prayers are fit also to be added to the foregoing offices in case there be no communion or entercourse but prayer Let us Pray O Almighty and eternall God there is no number of thy dayes or of thy mercies thou hast sent us into this world to serve thee and to live according to thy lawes but we by our sins have provoked thee to wrath and we have planted thorns and sorrows round about our dwellings and our life is but a span long and yet very tedious because of the calamities that inclose us in on every side the dayes of our pilgrimage are few and evil we have frail and sickly bodies violent and distempered passions long designes and but a short stay weak understandings and strong enemies abused fancies perverse wils O Dear God look upon us in mercy and pity let not our weaknesses make us to sin against thee nor our fear cause us to betray our duty nor our former follies provoke thy eternall anger nor the calamities of this world vex us into tediousnesse of spirit and impatience but let thy Holy Spirit lead us thorow this vally of misery with safety and peace with holiness and religion with spirituall comforts and joy in the Holy Ghost that when we have served thee in our generations we may be gathered unto our Fathers having the testimony of a holy conscience in the communion of the Catholike Church in the confidence of a certain faith and the comforts of a reasonable religious and holy hope and perfect charity with thee our God and all the world that neither death nor life nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other creature may be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen II. O Holy and most gracious Saviour Jesus in whose hands the souls of all faithfull people are laid up till the day of recompence have mercy upon the body and soul of this thy servant and upon all thy elect people who love the Lord Jesus and long for his coming Lord refresh the imperfection of their condition with the aids of the Spirit of grace and comfort and with the visitation and guard of Angels and supply to them all their necessities known onely unto thee let them dwell in peace and feel thy mercies pitying their infirmities and the follies of their flesh and speedily satisfying the desires of their spirits and when thou shalt bring us all forth in the day of Judgement O then shew thy self to be our Saviour Jesus our Advocate and our Judge Lord then remember that thou hast for so many ages prayed for the pardon of those sins which thou art then to sentence Let not the accusations of our consciences nor the calumnies and aggravation of Devils nor the effects of thy wrath presse those souls whâ—ch thou lovest which thou didst redeem which thou doest pray for but enable us all by the supporting hand of thy mercy to stand upright in judgement O Lord have mercy upon us have mercy upon us O Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us as our trust is in thee O Lord in thee have we trusted let us never be confounded Let us meet with joy and for ever dwell with thee feeling thy pardon supported with thy graciousnesse absolved by thy sentence saved by thy mercy that we may sing to the glory of thy Name eternall Allelujahs Amen Amen Amen Then may be added in the behalf of all that are present these ejaculations O spare us a little that we may recover our strength before we go hence and be no more seen Amen Cast us not away in the time of age O forsake us not when strength faileth Amen Grant that we may never sleep in sin or death eternall but that we may have our part of the first resurrection and that the second death may not prevail over us Amen Grant that our souls may be bound up in the bundle of life and in the day when thou bindest up thy Jewels remember thy servants for good and not for evil that our souls may be numbred amongst the righteous Amen Grant unto all sick and dying Christians mercy and aids from heaven and receive the souls returning unto thee whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood Amen Grant unto thy servants to have faith in the Lord Jesus a daily meditation of death a contempt of
body and wrapt it self about his head till the Philosophers of Egypt said it was natural that from the marrow of some bodies such productions should arise and indeed it represents the condition of some men who being dead are esteemed saints and beatified persons when their head is encircled with dragons and is entered into the possession of Devils that old serpent and deceiver For indeed their life was secretly so corrupted that such serpents fed upon the ruines of the spirit and the decayes of grace and reason To be cosened in making judgements concerning our finall condition is extremely easie but if we be cosened we are infinitely miserable SECT III. Of exercising Charity during our whole life HE that would die well and happily must in his life time according to all his capacities exercise charity and because Religion is the life of the soul and charity is the life of religion the same which gives life to the better part of man which never dies may obtain of God a mercy to the inferiour part of man in the day of its dissolution 1. Charity is the great chanel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankinde For we receive absolution of our sins in proportion to our forgiving our brother this is the rule of our hopes and the measure of our desire in this world and in the day of death and judgement the great sentence upon mankinde shall be transacted according to our almes which is the other part of Charity Certain it is that God cannot will not never did reject a charitable man in his greatest needs and in his most passionate prayers for God himself is love and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the divine nature and therefore when upon our death-bed a cloud covers our heads and we are enwrapped with sorrow when we feel the weight of a sicknesse and do not feel the refreshing visitations of Gods loving kindnesse when we have many things to trouble us and looking round about us we see no comforter then call to minde what injuries you have forgiven how apt you were to pardon all affronts and real persecutions how you embraced peace when it was offered you how you followed after peace when it run from you and when you are weary of one side turn upon the other and remember the alms that by the grace of God and his assistances you have done and look up to God and with the eye of faith behold him coming in the cloud and pronouncing the sentence of dooms day according to his mercies and thy charity 2. Charity with its Twin-daughters almes and forgivenesse is especially effectual for the procuring Gods mercies in the day and the manner of our death almes deliver from death said old Tobias and almes make an atonement for sins said the son of Sirach and so said Daniel and so say all the wise men of the world And in this sence also is that of S. Peter Love covers a multitude of sins and S. Clement in his Constitutions gives this counsell If you have any thing in your hands give it that it may work to the remission of thy sins for by faith and alms sins are purged The same also is the counsel of Salviâ—n who wonders that men who are guilty of great and many sins will not work out their pardon by alms and mercy But this also must be added out of the words of Lactantius who makes this rule compleat and useful But think not that because sins are taken away by alms that by thy money thou mayest purchase a license to sin For sins are abolished if because thou hast sinned thou givest to God that is to Gods poor servants and his indigent necessitous creature But if thou sinnest upon confidence of giving thy sins are not abolished For God desires infinitely that men should be purged from their sins and therefore commands us to repent But to repent is nothing else but to professe and affirm that is to purpose and to make good that purpose that they will sin no more Now almes are therefore effective to the abolition and pardon of our sins because they are preparatory to and impetratory of the grace of repentance and are fruits of repentance and therefore S. Chrysostom affirmes that repentance without almes is dead and without wings and can never soar upwards to the element of love But because they are a part of repentance and hugely pleasing to Almighty God therefore they deliver us from the evils of an unhappy and accursed death for so Christ delivered his Disciples from the sea when he appeased the storm though they still sailed in the chanel and this S. Hierome verifies with all his reading and experience saying I do not remember to have read that ever any charitable person died an evil death and although a long experience hath observed Gods mercies to descend upon charitable people like the dew upon Gideons fleece when all the world was dry yet for this also we have a promise which is not onely an argument of a certain number of years as experience is but a security for eternall ages Make ye friends of the mammon of unrighteousnesse that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations When faith fails and chastity is uselesse and temperance shall be no more then charity shall bear you upon wings of cherubins to the eternall mountain of the Lord. I have been a lover of mankinde and a friend and mercifull and now I expect to communicate in that great kindnesse which he shews that is the great God and Father of men and mercies said Cyrus the Persian on his death-bed I do not mean this should onely be a death-bed charity any more then a death-bed repentance but it ought to be the charity of our life healthfull years a parting with portions of our goods then when we can keep them we must not first kindle our lights when we are to descend into our houses of darknesse or bring a glaring torch suddenly to a dark room that will amaze the eye and not delight it or instruct the body but if our Tapers have in their constant course descended into their grave crowned all the way with light then let the death-bed charity be doubled and the light burn brightest when it is to deck our hearse But concerning this I shall afterwards give account SECT IV. General considerations to enforce the former practises THese are the generall instruments of preparation in order to a holy death It will concern us all to use them diligently and speedily for we must be long in doing that which must be done but once and therefore we must begin betimes and lose no time especially since it is so great a venture and upon it depends so great a state Seneca said well There is no Science or Art in the world so hard as to
evil into an intolerable it hinders prayers and fills up the intervalls of sicknesse with a worse torture it makes all spiritual arts uselesse and the office of spiritual comforters and guides to be impertinent Against this hope is to be opposed and its proper acts as it relates to the vertue and exercise of patience are 1 Praying to God for help and remedy 2 sending for the guides of souls 3. using all holy exercises and acts of grace proper to that state which who so does hath not the impatience of despair every man that is patient hath hope in God in the day of his sorrows 2. Our complaints in sicknesse must be without murmure Murmur sins against Gods providence and government by it we grow rude and like the falling Angels displeased at Gods supremacy and nothing is more unreasonable it talks against God for whose glory all speech was made it is proud and phantastic hath better opinions of a sinner then of the Divine justice and would rather accuse God then himself Against this is opposed that part of patience which resignes the man into the hands of God saying with old Eli It is the Lord let him do what he will and Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven and so by admiring Gods justice and wisdom does also dispose the sick person for receiving Gods mercy and secures him the rather in the grace of God The proper acts of this part of patience are 1. To confesse our sins and our own demerits 2. It increases and exercises humility 3. It loves to sing praises to God even from the lowest abysse of humane misery 3. Our complaints in sicknesse must be without peevishnesse This sins against civility and that necessary decency which must be used toward the ministers and assistants By peevishnesse we increase our own sorrowes and are troublesome to them that stand there to ease ours It hath in it harshnesse of nature and ungentlenesse wilfulnesse and Phantastic opinions morosity and incivility Against it are opposed obedience tractability easinesse of persuasion aptnesse to take counsel The acts of this part of patience are 1. To obey our Physitians 2. To treat our persons with respect to our present necessities 3. Not to be ungentle and uneasy to the ministers and nurses that attend us But to take their diligent and kinde offices as sweetly as we can and to bear their indiscretions or unhandsome accidents contentedly and without disquietnesse within or evil language or angry words without 4. Not to use unlawful means for our recovery If we secure these particulars we are not lightly to be judged of by noises and postures by colours and images of things by palenesse or tossings from side to side For it were a hard thing that those persons who are loaâ—en with the greatnesse of humane calamities should be strictly tyed to ceremonies and forms of things He is patient that calls upon God that hopes for health or heaven that believes God is wise and just in sending him afflictions that confesses his sins and accuses himself and justifies God that expects God will turne this into good that is civil to his Physitians and his servants that converses with the guides of souls the ministers of religion and in all things submits to Gods will and would use no indirect means for his recovery but had rather be sick and die then enter at all into Gods displeasure SECT IV. Remedies against impatience by way of consideration AS it happens concerning death so it is in sicknesse which is deathâ— handmaid It hath the fate to suffer calumny and reproach and hath a name worse thâ—n its nature 1. For there is no sicknesse so great but children endure it and have natural strengths to bear them out quite through the calamity what period soever nature hath allotted it Indeed they make no reflexions upon their sufferings and complain of sicknesse with an uneasy sigh or a natural groan but consider not what the sorrows of sicknesse mean and so bear it by a direct sufferance and as a pillar bears the weight of a roof But then why cannot we bear it so to For this which we call a reflexion upon or a considering of our sicknesse is nothing but a perfect instrument of trouble and consequently a temptation to impatience It serves no end of nature it may be avoided and we may consider it onely as an expression of Gods Anger and an emissary or procurator of repentance But all other considering it except where it serves the purposes of medicine and art is nothing but under the colour of reason an unreasonable device to heighten the sicknesse and increase the torment But then children want this act of reflex perception or reasonable sense whereby their sicknesse becomes lesse pungent and dolorous so also do they want the helps of reason whereby they should be able to support it For certain it is reason was as well given us to harden our spirits and stiffen them in passions and sad accidents as to make us bending and apt for action and if in men God hath heightned the faculties of apprehension he hath increased the auxiliaries of reasonable strengths that Gods rod and Gods staffe might go together and the beam of Gods countenance may as well refresh us with its light as scorch us with its heat But poor children that endure so much have not inward supports and refreshments to bear them through it they never heard the sayings of old men nor have been taught the principles of severe philosophy nor are assisted with the results of a long experience nor know they how to turn a sicknesse into vertue and a Feaver into a reward nor have they any sense of favors the remembrance of which may alleviate their burden and yet nature hath in them teeth and nails enough to scratch and fight against the sickness and by such aids as God is pleased to give them they wade thorough the storm and murmur not and besides this yet although infants have not such brisk perceptions upon the stock of reason they have a more tender feeling upon the accounts of sense and their flesh is as uneasy by their natural softnesse and weak shoulders as ours by our too forward apprehensions Therefore bear up either you or I or some man wiser and many a woman weaker then us both or the very children have endured worse evil then this that is upon thee now That sorrow is hugely tolerable which gives its smart but by instants and smallest proportions of time No man at once feels the sicknesse of a week or of a whole day but the smart of an instant and still every portion of a minute feels but its proper share and the last groan ended all the sorrow of its peculiar burden and what minute can that be which can pretend to be intolerable and the next minute is but the same as the last and the pain flowes like the drops of a river or the
hand of the most High No temptation hath taken me but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not suffer me to be tempted above what I am able but will with the temptation also make a way to escape that I may be able to bear it Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Now the God of peace and consolation grant me to be so minded It is the Lord let him do what seemeth good in his eyes Surely the word that the Lord hath spoken is very good But thy servant is weak O remember mine infirmities and lift thy servant up that leaneth upon thy right hand There is given unto me a thorn in the flesh to buffet me For this thing I besought the Lord thrice that it might depart from me and he said unto me My grace is sufficient for thee For my strength is made perfect in weaknesse Most gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me For when I am weak then am I strong O Lord thou hast pleaded the causes of my soul thou hast redeemed my life And I said My strength and my hope is in the Lord remembring my affliction and my misery the wormwood and the gall My soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled within me This I recall to my minde therefore I have hope It is the Lords mercies that we are not consumed because his compassions fail not They are new every morning great is thy faithfulnesse The Lord is my portion said my soul therefore will I hope in him The Lord is good unto them that wait for him to the soul that seeketh him It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. For the Lord will not cast off for ever But though he cause grief yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men Wherefore doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sins O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave of Jesus that thou wouldest keep me secret until thy wrath be past that thou wouldest appoint me a set time and remember me Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil The sick man may recite or hear recited the following Psalms in the intervals of his agony I. O Lord rebuke me not in thine anger neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure Have mercy upon me O Lord for I am weak O Lord heal me for my bones are vexed My soul is also sore vexed but thou O Lord how long Return O Lord deliver my soul O save me for thy mercies sake For in death no man remembreth thee in the grave who shall give thee thanks I am weary with my groaning all the night make I my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears Mine eye is consumed because of grief it waxeth old because of all my sorrowes Depart from me all ye workers of iniquity for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer Blessed be the Lord who hath heard my prayer and hath not turned his mercy from me II. IN the Lord put I my trust how say ye to my soul flee as a bird to your mountain The Lord is in his holy temple the Lords throne is in heaven his eyes behold his eye-lids try the children of men Preserve me O God for in thee do I put my trust O my soul thou hast said unto the Lord thou art my Lord my goodnesse extendeth not to thee The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup thou maintainest my lot I will blesse the Lord who hath given me counsel my reins also instruct me in the night seasons I have set the Lord alwayes before me because he is at my right hand I shall not be moved Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoyceth my flesh also shall rest in hope Thou wilt shew me the path of life in thy presence is the fulnesse of joy at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore As for me I will behold thy face in righteousnesse I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likenesse III. HAve mercy upon me O Lord for I am in trouble mine eye is consumed with grief yea my soul and my belly For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing my strength faileth because of mine iniquity and my bones are consumed * I am like a broken vessel But I trusted in thee O Lord I said thou art my God My times are in thy hand make thy face to shine upon thy servant save me for thy mercies sake When thou saidst seek ye my face my heart said unto thee thy face Lord will I seek Hide not thy face from me put not thy servant away in thy anger thou hadst been my help leave me not neither forsake me O God of my salvation I had fainted unlesse I had beleeved the goodnesse of the Lord in the land of the living O how great is thy goodnesse which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues from the calumnies and aggravation of sins by Devils I said in my haste I am cut off from before thine eyes neverthelesse thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried unto thee O love the Lord all ye his Saints for the Lord preserveth the faithfull and plenteously rewardeth the proud doer Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart all ye that hope in the Lord. The Prayer to be said in the beginning of a sicknesse O Almighty God mercifull and gracious who in thy justice didst send sorrow and tears sicknesse and death into the world as a punishment for mans sins and hast comprehended all under sin and this sad covenant of sufferings not to destroy us but that thou mightest have mercy upon all making thy justice to minister to mercy short afflictions to an eternall weight of glory as thou hast turned my sins into sicknesse so turn my sicknesse to the advantages of holinesse and religion of mercy and pardon of faith and hope of grace and glory thou hast now called me to the fellowship of sufferings Lord by the instrument of religion let my present condition be so sanctified that my sufferings may be united to the sufferings of my Lord that so thou mayest pity me and assist me relieve my sorrow and support my spirit direct my
tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousnesse The sacrifice of God is a broken heart a broken and a contrite heart O God thou wilt not despise Lord I have done amisse I have been deceived let so great a wrong as this be removed The prayer for the grace and perfection of Repentance I. O Almighty God thou art the great Judge of all the world the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies the Father of men and Angels thou lovest not that a sinner should perish but delightest in our conversion and salvation and hast in our Lord Jesus Christ established the Covenant of repentance and promised pardon to all them that confesse their sins and forsake them O my God be thou pleased to work in me what thou hast commanded should be in me Lord I am a dry tree who neither have brought forth fruit unto thee and unto holinesse nor have wept out salutary tears the instrument of life and restitution but have behaved my self like an unconcerned person in the ruins and breaches of my soul But O God thou art my God earnestly will I seek thee my soul thirsteth for thee in a barren and thirsty land where no water is Lord give me the grace of tears and pungent sorrow let my heart be as a land of rivers of waters and my head a fountain of tears turn my sin into repentance and let my repentance proceed to pardon refreshment II. SUpport me with thy graces strengthen me with thy Spirit soften my heart with the fire of thy love and the dew of heaven with penitentiall showers make my care prudent and the remaining portion of my dayes like the perpetuall watches of the night full of caution and observance strong and resolute patient and severe I remember O Lord that I did sin with greedinesse and passion with great desires and an unabated choice O let me be as great in my repentance as ever I have been in my calamity and shame let my hatred of sin be great as my love to thee and both as neer to infinite as my proportion can receive III. O Lord I renounce all affection to sin and would not buy my health nor redeem my life with doing any thing against the Lawes of my God but would rather die then offend thee O dearest Saviour have pity upon thy servant let me by thy sentence be doomed to perpetuall penance during the abode of this life let every sigh be the expression of a repentance and every groan an acccent of spiritual life and every stroke of my disease a punishment of my sin and an instrument of pardon that at my return to the land of innocence I may eat of the votive sacrifice of the supper of the Lamb that was from the beginning of the world slâ—in for the sins of every sorrowful and returning sinner O grant me sorrow here and joy hereafter through Jesus Christ who is our hope the resurrection of the dead the justifier of a sinner and the glory of all faithful souls Amen A prayer for pardon of sins to be said frequently in time of sicknesse and in all the portions of old age I. O Eternal and most gracious Father I humbly throw my self down at the foot of thy mercy seat upon the confidence of thy essential mercy and thy commandment that we should come boldly to the throne of grace that we may finde mercy in time of need O my God hear the prayers and cries of a sinner who calls earnestly for mercy Lord my needs are greater then all the degrees of my desire can be unlesse thou hast pity upon me I perish infinitely and intolerably and then there will be one voice fewer in the quire of singers who shall recite thy praises to eternal ages But O Lord in mercy deliver my soul. O save me for thy mercy sake For in the second death there is no remembrance of thee in that grave who shall give thee thanks II. O Just and dear God my sins are innumerable they are upon my soul in multitudes they are a burden too heavy for me to bear they already bring sorrow and sicknesse shame and displeasure guilt and a decaying spirit a sense of thy present displeasure and fear of worse of infinitely worse But it is to thee so essential so delightful so usual so desired by thee to shew mercy that although my sin be very great and my fear proportionable yet thy mercy is infinitely greater then all the world and my hope and my comfort rise up in proportions towards it that I trust the Devils shall never be able to reprove it nor my own weaknesse discompose it Lord thou hast sent thy Son to die for the pardon of my sins thou hast given me thy holy Spirit as a seal of adoption to consigne the article of remission of sins thou hast for all my sins still continued to invite me to conditions of life by thy ministers the prophets and thou hast with variety of holy acts softned my spirit and possessed my fancie and instructed my understanding and bended and inclined my will and directed or overruled my passions in order to repentance and pardon and why should not thy servant beg passionately and humbly hope for the effect of all these thy strange and miraculous acts of loving kindnesse Lord I deserve it not but I hope thou wilt pardon all my sins and I beg it of thee for Jesus Christ his sake whom thou hast made the great endearment of thy promises and the foundation of our hopes and the mighty instrument whereby we can obtain of thee whatsoever we need and can receive III. O My God how shall thy servant be disposed to receive such a favour which is so great that the ever blessed Jesus did die to purchase for us so great that the falling angels never could hope and never shall obtain Lord I do from my soul forgive all that have sinned against me O forgive me my sins as I forgive them that have sinned against me Lord I confesse my sins unto thee daily by the accusations and secret acts of conscience and if we confesse our sins thou hast called it a part of justice to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse Lord I put my trust in thee and thou art ever gracious to them that put their trust in thee I call upon my God for mercy and thou art alwayes more ready to hear then we to pray But all that I can do and all that I am and all that I know of my self is nothing but sin and infirmity and misery therefore I go forth of my self and throw my self wholly into the arms of thy mercy through Jesus Christ and beg of thee for his death and passions sake by his resurrection and ascension by all the parts of our redemption and thy infinite mercy in which thou pleasest thy self above all the works of the creation to be pitifull and compassionate to thy servant
for pardon and S. Iames tells that if the sick man sends for the Church and they pray over him and he confesse his sins they shall be forgiven him 15. That onely one sin is declared to be irremissible the sin against the Holy Ghost the sin unto death as S. Iohn calls it for which we are not bound to pray for all others we are and certain it is no man commits a sin against the Holy Ghost if he be afraid he hath and desires that he had not for such penitentiall passions are against the definition of that sin 16. That all the Sermons in the Scripture written to Christians Disciples of Jesus exhorting men to repentance to be afflicted to mourn and to weep to confession of sins are sure testimonies of Gods purpose and desire to forgive us even when we fall after baptisme and if our fall after baptisme were irrecoverable then all preaching were in vain and our faith were also vain and we could not with comfort rehearse the Creed in which as soon as ever we professe Jesus to have died for our sins we also are condemned by our own conscience of a sin that shall not be forgiven and then all exhortations and comforts and fasts and disciplines were uselesse and too late if they were not given us before we can understand them for most commonly as soon as we can we enter into the regions of sin For we commit evil actions before we understand and together with our understanding they begin to be imputed 17. That if it could be otherwise infants were very ill provided for in the Church who were baptized when they have no stain upon their brows but the misery they contracted from Adam and they are left to be Angels for ever after and live innocently in the midst of their ignorances and weaknesse and temptations and the heat and follies of youth or else to perish in an eternall ruine we cannot think or speak good things of God if we entertain such evil suspicions of the mercies of the Father of our Lord Jesus 18. That the long-sufferance and patience of God is indeed wonderfull but therefore it leaves us in certainties of pardon so long as there is possibilitie to return if we reduce â—he power to act 19. That God calls upon us to forgive our brother seventy times seven times and yet all that is but like the forgiving a hundred pence for his sake who forgives us ten thousand talents for so the Lord professed that he had done to him that was his servant and his domestic 20. That if we can forgive a hundred thousand times it is certain God will do so to us Our Blessed Lord having commanded us to pray for pardon as we pardon our offending and penitent brother 21. That even in the case of very great sins and great judgements inflicted upon the sinners wise and good men and Presidents of Religion have declared their sense to be that God spent all his anger and made it expire in that temporall misery and so it was supposed to have been done in the case of Ananias but that the hopes of any penitent man may not rely upon any uncertainty we find in holy Scripture that those Christians who had for their scandalous crimes deserved to be given over to Sathan to be buffetted yet had hopes to be saved in the day of the Lord. 22. That God glories in the titles of mercy and forgivenesse and will not have his appellatives so finite and limited as to expire in one act or in a seldome pardon 23. That mans condition were desperate and like that of the falling Angels equally desperat but unequally oppressed considering our infinite weaknesses and ignorances in respect of their excellent understanding and perfect choice if he could be admitted to no repentance after his infant Baptisme and if he may be admitted to one there is nothing in the Covenant of the Gospel but he may also to a second and so for ever as long as he can repent and return and live to God in a timely religion 24. That every man is a sinner In many things we offend all and if we say we have no sin we deceive our selves and therefore either all must perish or else there is mercy for all and so there is upon this very stock because Christ died for sinners and God hath comprehended all under sin that he might have mercy upon all 25. That if ever God sends temporall punishments into the world with purposes of amendment and if they be not all of them certain consignations to hel and unlesse every man that breaks his leg or in punishment loses a child or wife be certainly damned it is certain that God in these cases is angry and loving chastises the sin to amend the person and smites that he may cure and judges that he may absolve 26. That he that will not quench the smoaking flax nor break the bruised reed will not tie us to perfection and the lawes and measures of heaven upon earth and if in every period of our repentance he is pleased with our duty and the voyce of our heart and the hand of our desires he hath told us plainly that he will not onely pardon all the sins of the dayes of our folly but the returns and surprises of sins in the dayes of repentance if we give no way and allow no affection and give no peace to any thing that is Gods enemy all the past sins and al the seldom returning and ever repented evils being put upon the accounts of the Crosse. An exercise against despair in the day of our death TO which may be added this short exercise to be used for the curing the temptation to direct despair in case that the hope and faith of good men be assaulted in the day of their calamity I consider that the ground of my trouble is my sin and if it were not for that I should not need to be troubled but the help that all the world looks for is such as supposes a man to be a sinner * Indeed if from my self I were to derive my title to heaven then my sins were a just argument of despair but now that they bring me to Christ that they drive me to an appeal to Gods mercies and to take sanctuary in the Crosse they ought not they cannot infer a just cause of despair * I am sure it is a stranger thing that God should take upon him hands and feet and those hands and feet should be nailed upon a crosse then that a man should be partaker of the felicities of pardon and life eternall and it were stranger yet that God should do so much for man and that a man that desires it that labours for it that is in life and possibilities of working his salvation should inevitably misse that end for which that God suffered so much For what is the meaning and what is the extent and what are the significations
our actions and condemning the Criminal by being Assessors in Gods Tribunal at least we shall obtain the favour of the Court. As therefore every night we must make our bed the memoriall of our grave so let our Evening thoughts be an image of the day of judgement 5. This advice was so reasonable and proper instrument of vertue that it was taught even to the Scholers of Pythagoras by their Master Let not sleep seiz upon the Regions of your senses before you have three times recalled the conversation and accidents of the day Examine what you have committed against the Divine Law what you have omitted of your duty and in what you have made use of the Divine Grace to the purposes of vertue and religion joyning the Iudge reason to the legislative mind or conscience that God may reigne there as a Law-giver and a Judge Then Christs kingdom is set up in our hearts then we alwayes live in the Eye of our Judge and live by the measures of reason religion and sober counsels The benefits we shall receive by practising this advice in order to a blessed death will also adde to the account of reason and fair inducements The Benefits of this exercise 1. By a daily examination of our actions we shall the easier cure a great sin and prevent its arrival to become habitual For to examine we suppose to be a relative duty and instrumentall to something else We examine our selves that we may finde out our failings and cure them and therefore if we use our remedy when the wound is fresh and bleeding we shall finde the cure more certain and lesse painfull For so a Taper when its crown of flames is newly blown off retains a nature so symbolical to light that it will with greedinesse reenkindle and snatch a ray from the neighbour fire So is the soul of Man when it is newly fallen into sin although God be angry with it and the state of Gods favour and its own graciousnesse is interrupted yet the habit is not naturally changed and still God leaves some roots of vertue standing and the Man is modest or apt to be made ashamed and he is not grown a bold sinner but if he sleeps on it and returns again to the same sin and by degrees growes in love with it and gets the custome and the strangenesse of it is taken away then it is his Master and is sweld into a heap and is abetted by use and corroborated by newly entertained principles and is insinuated into his Nature and hath possessed his affections and tainted the will and the understanding and by this time a man is in the state of a decaying Merchant his accounts are so great and so intricate and so much in arrear that to examine it will be but to represent the particulars of his calamity therefore they think it better to pull the napkin before their eyes then to stare upon the circumstances of their death 2. A daily or frequent examination of the parts of our life will interrupt the proceeding and hinder the journey of little sins into a heap For many dayes do not passe the best persons in which they have not many idle words or vainer thoughts to sully the fair whitenesse of their souls Some indiscreet passions or trifling purposes some impertinent discontents or unhandsome usages of their own persons or their dearest Relatives And though God is not extreme to mark what is done amisse and therefore puts these upon the accounts of his Mercy and the title of the Crosse yet in two cases these little sins combine and cluster and we know that grapes were once in so great a bunch that one cluster was the load of two men that is 1. When either we are in love with small sins or 2. When they proceed from a carelesse and incurious spirit into frequency and continuance For so the smallest atomes that dance in all the little cels of the world are so trifling and immaterial that they cannot trouble an eye nor vex the tenderest part of a wound where a barbed arrow dwelt yet when by their infinite numbers as Melissa and Parmenides affirm they danced first into order then into little bodies at last they made the matter of the world So are the little indiscretions of our life they are alwayes inconsiderable if they be considered and contemptible if they be not despised and God does not regard them if we do We may easily keep them asunder by our daily or nightly thoughts and prayers and severe sentences But even the least sand can check the tumultuous pride and become a limit to the Sea when it is in a heap and in united multitudes but if the wind scatter and divide them the little drops and the vainer froth of the water begins to invade the Strand Our sighes can scatter such little offences but then be sure to breath such accents frequently least they knot and combine and grow big as the shoar and we perish in sand in trifling instances He that despiseth little things shall perish by little and little So said the son of Sirach 3. A frequent examination of our actions will intenerate and soften our consciences so that they shall be impatient of any rudenesse or heavier load And he that is used to shrink when he is pressed with a branch of twining Osier will not willingly stand in the ruines of a house when the beam dashes upon the pavement And provided that our nice and tender spirit be not vexed into scruple nor the scruple turn into unreasonable fears nor the fears into superstition he that by any arts can make his spirit tender and apt for religious impressions hath made the fairest seat for religion and the unaptest and uneasiest entertainment for sin and eternal death in the whole world 4. A frequent examination of the smallest parts of our lives is the best instrument to make our repentance particular and a fit remedy to all the members of the whole body of sin For our examination put off to our death-bed of necessity brings us into this condition that very many thousands of our sins must be or not be at al washed off with a general repentance which the more general and indefinite it is it is ever so much the worse And if he that repents the longest and the oftnest and upon the most instances is still during his whole life but an imperfect penitent and there are very many reserves left to be wiped off by Gods mercies and to be eased by collateral assistances or to be groaned for at the terrible day of judgement it will be but a sad story to consider that the sins of a whole life or of very great portions of it shall be put upon the remedy of one examination and the advices of one discourse and the activities of a decayed body and a weak and an amazed Spirit Let us do the best we can we shall finde that the meer sins of ignorance
state of sicknesse are onely upon the stock of vertue and religion There is nothing can make sicknesse in any sense eligible or in many senses tolerable but onely the grace of God that onely turns sicknesse into easinesse and felicity which also turnes it into vertue For whosoever goes about to comfort a vitious person when he lies sick upon his bed can onely discourse of the necessities of nature of the unavoidableness of the suffering of the accidental vexations and increase of torments by impatience of the fellowship of all the sons of Adam and such other little considerations which indeed if sadly reflected upon and found to stand alone teach him nothing but the degree of his calamity and the evil of his condition and teach him such a patience and minister to him such a comfort which can only make him to observ decent gestures in his sicknesse and to converse with his friends and standers by so as may do them comfort and ease their funeral and civil complaints but do him no true advantage For all that may be spoken to a beast when he is crowned with hairlaces and bound with fillets to the Altar to bleed to death to appease the anger of the Deity and to ease the burden of his Relatives And indeed what comfort can he receive whose sicknesse as it looks back is an effect of Gods indignation and fierce vengeance and if it goes forward and enters into the gates of the grave is a beginning of a sorrow that shall shall never have an ending But when the sicknesse is a messenger sent from a chastising Father when it first turns into degrees of innocence and then into vertues and thence into pardon this is no misery but such a method of the Divine oeconomy and dispensation as resolves to bring us to heaven without any new impositions but meerly upon the stock and charges of nature 2. Let it be observed that these advantages which spring from sicknesse are not in all instances of vertue nor to all persons Sicknesse is the proper scene for patience and resignation for all the passive graces of a Christian for faith and hope and for some single acts of the love of God But sicknesse is not a fit station for a penitent and it can serve the ends of the grace of repentance but accidentally Sicknesse may begin a repentance if God continues life and if we cooperate with the Divine grace or sicknesse may help to alleviate the wrath of God and to facilitate the pardon if all the other parts of this duty be performed in our healthfull state so that it may serve at the entrance in or at the going out But sicknesse at no hand is a good stage to represent all the substantiall parts of this duty 1. It invites to it 2. It makes it appear necessary 3. It takes off the fancies of vanity 4. It attempers the spirit 5. It cures hypocrisie 6. It tames the fumes of pride 7. It is the school of patience 8. And by taking us from off the brisker relishes of the world it makes us with more gust to taste the things of the Spirit and all this onely when God fits the circumstances of the sicknesse so as to consist with acts of reason consideration choice and a present and reflecting minde which then God sends when he means that the sickness of the body should be the cure of the soul. But let no man so rely upon it as by designe to trust the beginning the progresse and the consummation of our piety to such an estate which for ever leaves it unperfect and though to some persons it addes degrees and ministers opportunities and exercises single acts with great advantage in passive graces yet it is never an intire or sufficient instrument for the change of our condition from the state of death to the liberty and life of the sons of God 3. It were good if we would transact the affairs of our souls with noblenesse and ingenuity and that we would by an early and forward religion prevent the necessary arts of the Divine providence It is true that God cures some by incision by fire and torments but these are ever the more obstinate and more unrelenting natures Gods providence is not so afflictive and full of trouble as that it hath placed sicknesse and infirmity amongst things simply necessary and in most persons it is but a sickly and an effeminate vertue which is imprinted upon our spirits with fears and the sorrowes of a feaver or a peevâ—sh consumption It is but a miserable remedy to be beholding to a sicknesse for our health and though it be better to suffer the losse of a finger then that the arm and the whole body should putrifie yet even then also it is a trouble and an evil to lose a finger He that mends with sicknesse pares the nails of the beast when they have already torn off part of the flesh But he that would have a sicknesse become a clear and an entire blessing a thing indeed to be reckoned among the good things of God and the evil things of the world must lead an holy life and judge himself with an early sentence and so order the affairs of his soul that in the usuall method of Gods saving us there may be nothing left to be done but that such vertues should be exercised which God intends to crown and then as when the Athenians upon a day of battell with longing and uncertain souls sate in their Common-hall expecting what would be the sentence of the day at last received a messenger who onely had breath enough left him to say We are conquerours and so died So shall the sick person who hath fought a good fight and kept the faith and onely waitâ— for his dissolution and his sentence breaths forth his spirit with the accents of a conquerour and his sicknesse and his death shall onely make the mercy and the vertue more illustrious But for the sicknesse it self if all the calumnies were true concerning it with which it is aspersed yet it is far to be preferred before the most pleasant sin and before a great secular businesse and a temporall care and some men wake as much in the foldings of the softest beds as others on the crosse and sometimes the very weight of sorrow and the wearinesse of a sicknesse presses the spirit into slumbers and the images of rest when the intemperate or the lustfull person rolls upon his uneasie thorns and sleep is departed from his eyes Certainly it is some sicknesse is a blessing Indeed blindnesse were a most accursed thing if no man were ever blind but he whose eyes are pulled out with tortures or burning basins and if sickness were always a testimony of Gods anger and a violence to a mans whole condition then it were a huge calamity but because God sends it to his servants to his children to little infants to Apostles and Saints with designes
so have I known passionate women to shrike aloud when their neerest relatives were dying and that horrid shrike hath stayed the spirit of the man a while to wonder at the folly and represent the inconvenience and the dying person hath lived one day longer full of pain amazed with an undeterminate spirit distorted with convulsions and onely come again to act one scene more of a new calamity and to die with less decency so also do very many men with passion and a troubled interest they strive to continue their life longer and it may be they escape this sickness and live to fall into a disgrace they escape the storm and fall into the hands of pyrats and instead of dying with liberty they live like slaves miserable and despised servants to a litle time and sottish admirers of the breath of their own lungs Paulus Aemilius did handsomly reprove the cowardice of the King of Macedon who begged of him for pities sake and humanity that having conquered him and taken his kingdom from him he would be content with that and not lead him in triumph a prisoner to Rome Aemilius told him he need not be beholding to him for that himself might prevent that in despite of him But the timorous King durst not die But certainly every wise man will easily believe that it had been better the Macedonian Kings should have dyed in battel then protract their life so long till some of them came to be Scriveners and Joyners at Rome or that the Tyrant of Sicily better had perished in the Adriatic then to be wafted to Corinth safely and there turn Schoolmaster It is a sad calamity that the fear of death shall so imbecill mans courage and understanding that he dares not suffer the remedie of all his calamities but that he lives to say as Liberius did I have lived this one day longer then I should either therefore let us be willing to die when God calls or let us never more complain of the calamities of our life which we feel so sharp and numerous And when God sends his Angel to us with a scroll of death let us look on it as an act of mercy to prevent many sins and many calamities of a longer life and lay our heads down softly and go to sleep without wrangling like babies and froward children For a man at least gets this by death that his calamities are not immortal But I do not onely consider death by the advantages of comparison but if we look on it in it self it is no such formidable thing if we view it on both sides and handle it and consider all its appendages 2. It is necessary and therefore not intolerable and nothing is to be esteemed evil which God and nature have fixed with eternal sancâ—ions It is a law of God it is a punishment of our sins and it is the constitution of our nature Two differing substances were joyned together with the breath of God and when that breath is taken away they part asunder and return to their several principles the soul to God our Father the body to the earth our Mother and what in all this is evil Surely nothing but that we are men nothing but that we were not born immortall but by declining this change with great passion or receiving it with a huge naturall fear we accuse the Divine Providence of Tyranny and exclaim against our naturall constitution and are discontent that we are men 3. It is a thing that is no great matter in it self if we consider that we die daily that it meets us in every accident that every creature carries a dart along with it and can kill us And therefore when Lysimachus threatned Theodorus to kill him he told him that was no great matter to do and he could do no more then the Cantharides could a little flie could do as much 4. It is a thing that every one suffers even persons of the lowest resolution of the meanest vertue of no breeding of no discourse Take away but the pomps of death the disguises and solemn bug-bears the tinsell and the actings by candle-light and proper and phantastic ceremonies the minstrels and the noise-makers the women and the weepers the swoonings and the shrikings the Nurses and the Physicians the dark room and the Ministers the Kinred and the Watchers and then to die is easie ready and quitted from its troublesome circumstances It is the same harmelesse thing that a poor shepherd suffered yesterday or a maid-servant to day and at the same time in which you die in that very night a thousand creatures die with you some wise men and many fools and the wisdom of the first will not quit him and the folly of the latter does not make him unable to die 5. Of all the evils of the world which are reproached with an evil character death is the most innocent of its accusation For when it is present it hurts no body and when it is absent 't is indeed troublesome but the trouble is owing to our fears not to the affrighting and mistaken object and besides this if it were an evil it is so transient that it passes like the instant or undiscerned portion of the present time and either it is past or it is not yet for just when it is no man hath reason to complain of so insensible so sudden so undiscerned a change 6. It is so harmelesse a thing that no good man was ever thought the more miserable for dying but much the happier When men saw the graves of Calatinus of the Servicij the Scipio's the Metelli did ever any man among the wisest Romans think them unhappy And when S. Paul fell under the sword of Nero and S. Peter died upon the crosse and S. Stephen from an heap of stones was carried into an easier grave they that made great lamentation over them wept for their own interest and after the manner of men but the Martyrs were accounted happy and their dayes kept solemnly and their memories preserved in never dying honours When S. Hilary Bishop of Poictiers in France went into the East to reproove the Arian heresie he heard that a young noble Gentleman treated with his daughter Abra for marriage The Bishop wrote to his daughter that she should not ingage her promise nor do countenance to that request because he had provided for her a husband fair rich wise and noble farre beyond her present offer The event of which was this She obeyed and when her father returned from his Eastern triumph to his Western charge he prayed to God that his daughter might die quickly and God heard his prayers and Christ took her into his bosome entertaining her with antepasts and caresses of holy love till the day of the marriage Supper of the Lamb shall come But when the Bishops wife observed this event and understood of the good man her husband what was done and why she never left
us from that but our own uncharitablenesse 7. Be obedient unto thy Physitian in those things that concern him if he be a person fit to minister unto thee God is he onely that needs no help and God hath created the Physitian for thine therefore use him temperately without violent confidences and sweetly without uncivil distrustings or refusing his prescriptions upon humors or impotent fear A man may refuse to have his arme or leg cut off or to suffer the pains of Marius his incision and if he believes that to dye is the lesse evil he may compose himself to it without hazarding his patience or introducing that which he thinks a worse evil but that which in this article is to be reproved and avoided is that some men will choose to die out of fear of death and send for Physitians and do what themselves list and call for counsel and follow none When there is reason they should decline him it is not to be accounted to the stock of a sin but where there is no just cause there is a direct impatience Hither is to be reduced that we be not too confident of the Physitian or drain our hopes of recovery from the â—ountain through so imperfect chanels laying the wells of God dry and digging to our selves broken cisterns Physitians are the Ministers of Gods mercies and providence in the matter of health and ease of restitution or death and when God shall enable their judgements and direct their counsels and prosper their medicines they shall do thee good for which you must give God thanks and to the Physitian the honour of a blessed instrument But this cannot alwayes be done and Lucius Cornelius the Lieutenant in Portugal under Fabius the Consul boasted in the inscription of his monument that he had lived a healthful and vegete age till his last sicknesse but then complained he was forsaken by his Physitian and railed upon Esculapius for not accepting his vow and passionate desire of preserving his life longer and all the effect of that impatience and the folly was that it is recorded to following ages that he died without reason and without religion But it was a sad sight to see the favour of all France confined to a Physitian and a Barber and the King Lewis the XI to be so much their servant that he should acknowledge and own his life from them and all his ease to their gentle dressing of his gout and friendly ministeries for the King thought himself undone and robbed if he should die his portion here was fair and he was loth to exchange his possession for the interest of a bigger hope 8. Treat thy nurses and servants sweetly and as it becomes an obliged and a necessitous person remember that thou art very troublesome to them that they trouble not thee willingly that they strive to do thee ease and benefit that they wish it and sigh and pray for it and are glad if thou likest their attendance that whatsoever is amisse is thy disease and the uneasinesse of thy head or thy side thy distemper or thy disaffections and it will be an unhandsome injustice to be troublesome to them because thou art so to thy self to make them feel a part of thy sorrowes that thou mayest not bear them alone evilly to requite their care by thy too curious and impatient wrangling and fretful spirit That tendernesse is vitious and unnatural that shrikes out under the weight of a gentle cataplasm and he will ill comply with Gods rod that cannot endure his friends greatest kindnesse And he will be very angry if he durst with Gods smiting him that is peevish with his servants that go about to ease him 9. Let not the smart of your sicknesse make you to call violently for death you are not patient unlesse you be content to live God hath wisely ordered that we may be the better reconciled with death because it is the period of many calamities But where ever the General hath placed thee stirre not from thy station until thou beest called off but abide so that death may come to thee by the designe of him who intends it to be thy advantage God hath made sufferance to be thy work and do not impatiently long for evening lest at night thou findest the reward of him that was weary of his work for he that is weary before his time is an unprofitable servant and is either idle or diseased 10 That which remains in the practise of this grace is that the sick man should do acts of patience by way of prayer and ejaculations In which he may serve himself of the following collection SECT II. Acts of patience by way of prayer and ejaculation I Will seek unto God unto God will I commit my cause which doth great things and unsearchable marvellous things without number To set upon high those that be low that those which mourn may be exalted to safety So the poor have hope and iniquity stoppeth her mouth Behold happy is the man whom God correcteth therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty For he maketh sore and bindeth up he woundeth and his hands make whole He shall deliver thee in six troubles yea in seven there shall no evil touch thee Thou shalt come to thy grave in a just age like as a shock of corn cometh in his season I remember thee upon my bed and meditate upon thee in the night watches Because thou hast been my help therefore under the shadow of thy wings will I rejoyce My soul followeth hard after thee for thy right hand hath upholden me God restoreth my soul he leadeth me in the path of righteousnesse for his names sake Yea though I walk thorough the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me thy rod and thy staff they comfort me In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion in the secret of his tabernacle shal he hide me he shal set me up upon a rock The Lord hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary from the heaven did the Lord behold the earth To hear the groaning of his prisoners to loose those that are appointed to death I cryed unto God with my voice even unto God with my voice and he gave ear unto me In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord my sore ran in the night and ceased not my soul refused to be comforted * I remember God and was troubled I complained and my spirit was overwhelmed thou holdest mine eyes waking I am so troubled that I cannot speak will the Lord cast me off for ever and will he be favourable no more Is his promise clean gone for ever doth his promise fail for evermore Hath God forgotten to be gracious hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies And I said this my infirmity but I will remember the years of the right
thoughts and sanctifie the accidents of my sicknesse and that the punishment of my sin may be the school of vertue In which since thou hast now entred me Lord make me a holy proficient that I may behave my self as a son under discipline humbly and obediently evenly and penitently that I may come by this means neerer unto thee that if I shall go forth of this sicknesse by the gate of life and health I may return to the world with great strengths of spirit to run a new race of a stricter holinesse and a more severe religion Or if I passe from hence with the out-let of death I may enter into the bosome of my Lord and may feel the present joyes of a certain hope of that Sea of pleasures in which all thy Saints and servants shall be comprehended to eternall ages Grant this for Jesus Christ his sake our Dearest Lord and Saviour Amen An act of resignation to be said by a sick person in all the evil accidents of his sicknesse O Eternall God thou hast made me and sustained me thou hast blessed me in all the dayes of my life and hast taken care of me in all variety of accidents and nothing happens to me in vain nothing without thy providence and I know thou smitest thy servants in mercy and with designes of the greatest pity in the world Lord I humbly lie down under thy rod do with me as thou pleasest do thou choose for me not onely the whole state and condition of being but every little and great accident of it Keep me safe by thy grace and then use what instrument thou pleasest of bringing me to thee Lord I am not sollicitous of the passage so I may get thee Onely O Lord remember my infirmities and let thy servant rejoyce in thee alwayes and feel and confesse and glory in thy goodnesse O be thou as delightfull to me in this my medicinal sicknesse as ever thou wert in any of the dangers of my prosperity let me not peevishly refuse thy pardon at the rate of a severe discipline I am thy servant and thy creature thy purchased possession and thy son I am all thine and because thou hast mercy in store for all that trust in thee I cover my eyes and in silence wait for the time of my redemption Amen A Prayer for the grace of Patience MOst Mercifull and Gracious Father who in the redemption of lost Mankind by the passion of thy most holy Son hast established a Covenant of sufferings I blesse and magnifie thy Name that thou hast adopted me into the inheritance of sons and hast given me a portion of my elder Brother Lord the crosse falls heavy and sits uneasie upon my shoulders my spirit is willing but my flesh is weak I humbly beg of thee that I may now rejoyce in this thy dispensation and effect of providence I know and am perswaded that thou art then as gracious when thou smitest us for amendment or triall as when thou releevest our wearied bodies in compliance with our infirmity I rejoyce O Lord in thy rare and mysterious mercy who by sufferings hast turned our misery into advantages unspeakable for so thou makest us like to thy Son and givest us a gift that the Angels never did receive for they cannot die in conformity to and imitation of their Lord and ours but blessed be thy Name we can and dearest Lord Let it be so Amen II. THou who art the God of patience and consolation strengthen me in the inner man that I may bear the yoak and burden of the Lord without any uneasie and uselesse murmurs and ineffective unwillingnesse Lord I am unable to stand under the crosse unable of my self but thou O Holy Jesus who didst feel the burden of it who didst sink under it and wert pleased to admit a man to bear part of the load when thou underwentest all for him be thou pleased to ease this load by fortifying my spirit that I may be strongest when I am weakest and may be able to do and suffer every thing thou pleasest through Christ which strengthens me Lord if thou wilt support me I will for ever praise thee If thou wilt suffer the load to presse me yet more heavily I will cry unto thee and complain unto my God and at last I will lie down and die and by the mercies and intercession of the Holy Jesus and the conduct of thy blessed Spirit and the ministery of Angels passe into those mansions where Holy souls rest and weep no more Lord pity me Lord sanctifie this my sicknesse Lord strengthen me Holy Jesus save me and deliver me thou knowest how shamefully I have fallen with pleasure in thy mercy and very pity let me not fall with pain too O let me never charge God foolishly nor offend thee by my impatience and uneasie spirit nor weaken the hands and hearts of those that charitably minister to my needs but let me passe through the valley of tears and the valley of the shadow of death with safety and peace with a meek spirit and a sense of the divine mercies and though thou breakest me in pieces my hope is thou wilt gather me up in the gatherings of eternity Grant this eternall God Gracious Father for the merits and intercession of our mercifull high Priest who once suffered for me and for ever intercedes for me our most gracious and ever Blessed Saviour Jesus A Prayer to be said when the sick man takes Physick O Most blessed and eternall Jesus thou who art the great Physician of our souls and the Sun of righteousnesse arising with healing in thy wings to thee is given by thy heavenly Father the Government of all the world and thou disposest every great and little accident to thy Fathers honour and to the good and comfort of them that love and serve thee Be pleased to blesse the ministery of thy servant in order to my ease and health direct his judgement prosper the medicines and dispose the chances of my sicknesse fortunately that I may feel the blessing and loving kindnesse of the Lord in the ease of my pain and the restitution of my health that I being restored to the society of the living and to thy solemn Assemblies may praise thee and thy goodnesse secretly among the faithfull and in the Congregation of thy redeemed ones here in the outer-courts of the Lord and hereafter in thy eternall temple for ever and ever Amen SECT III. Of the practise of the grace of Faith in the time of sicknesse NOw is the time in which faith appears most necessary and most difficult It is the foundation of a good life and the foundation of all our hopes it is that without which we cannot live well and without which we cannot die well it is a grace that then we shall need to support our spirits to sustain our hopes to alleviate our sickesse to resist temptations to prevent despair upon the belief of the articles of our
he is to do is to secure his hold which he can do no way but by prayer and by his interest And by this Argument or instrument it was that Socrates refreshed the evil of his condition when he was to drink his aconite If the soul be immortall and perpetuall rewards be laid up for wise souls then I lose nothing by my death but if there be not then I lose nothing by my opinion for it supports my spirit in my passage and the evil of being deceived cannot overtake me when I have no being So it is with all that are tempted in their faith If those Articles be not true then the men are nothing if they be true then they are happy and if the Article fails there can be no punishment for beleeving but if they be true my not beleeving destroyes all my portion in them and possibility to receive the excellent things which they contain By faith we quench the fiery darts of the Devil but if our faith be quenched wherewithall shall we be able to endure the assault therefore seiz upon the Article and secure the great object and the great instrument that is the hopes of pardon and eternall life through Iesus Christ and do this by all means and by any instrument artificiall or inartificiall by argument or by stratagem by perfect resolution or by discourse by the hand and ears of premisses or the foot of the conclusion by right or by wrong because we understand it or because we love it super totam materiam because I will and because I ought because it is safe to do so and because it is not safe to do otherwise because if I do I may receive a good and because if I do not I am miserable either for that I shall have a portion of sorrows or that I can have no portion of good things SECT IV. Acts of faith by way of prayer and ejaculation to be said by sick men in the dayes of their temptation LOrd whither shall I go thou hast the words of eternall life I beleeve in God the Father Almighty and in Jesus Christ his onely Son our Lord c. And I beleeve in the Holy Ghost c. Lord I beleeve help thou mine unbelief I know and am perswaded by the Lord Jesus that none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself For whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we die we die unto the Lord whether we live therefore or die we are the Lords If God be for us who can be against us He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things Who shall lay any thing to the charge of Gods elect It is God that justifieth who is he that condemneth It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous and he is the propitiation for our sins This is a faithfull saying and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners O grant that I may obtain mercy that in me Jesus Christ may shew forth all long-suffering that I may beleeve in him to life everlasting I am bound to give thanks unto God alway because God hath from the beginning chosen me to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth whereunto he called me by the Gospel to the obtaining of the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God even our Father which hath loved us and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace Comfort my heart and stablish me in every good word and work The Lord direct my heart into the love of God and into the patient waiting for Christ. O that our God would count me worthy of this calling and fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodnesse and the work of faith with power That the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in me and I in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us who are of the day be sober putting on the brest-plate of faith and love and for an helmet the hope of salvation For God hath not appointed us to wrath but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who died for us that whether we wake or sleep we should live together with him Wherefore comfort your selves together and edifie one another There is no name under heaven whereby we can be saved but onely the Name of the Lord Jesus And every soul which will not hear that Prophet shall be destroyed from among the people God forbid that I should glory save in the Crosse of Jesus Christ. I desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils for wherein is he to be accounted of But the just shall live by faith Lord I beleeve that thou art the Christ the Son of God the Saviour of the world the resurrection and the life and he that beleeveth in thee though he were dead yet shall he live Jesus said unto her Said I not to thee that if thou wouldest beleeve thou shouldst see the glory of God O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory the sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the Law But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Lord make me stedfast and unmoveable alwayes abounding in the work of the Lord For I know that my labour is not in vain in the Lord. The Prayer for the grace and strengths of faith O Holy and eternall Jesus who didst die for me and for all mankind abolishing our sin reconciling us to God adopting us into the portion of thine heritage and establishing with us a covenant of faith and obedience making our souls to rely upon spirituall strengths by the supports of a holy belief and the expectation of rare promises and the infallible truths of God O let me for ever dwell upon the rock leaning upon thy arm beleeving thy word trusting in thy promises waiting for thy mercies and doing thy commandements that the Devil may not prevail upon me and my own weaknesses may not abuse or unsettle my perswasions nor my sins discompose my just confidence in thee and thy eternall mercies Let me alwayes be thy servant and thy disciple and die in the communion of thy Church of all faithfull people Lord I renounce whatsoever is against thy truth and if secretly I have or do beleeve any false proposition I do it in the simplicity of my heart and great weaknesse and if I could
of marriage 2. To keep all the parts of our bodies in the care and severities of chastity so that we be restrained in our eyes as well as in our feet They sin against this Commandment 1. Who are adulterous incestuous Sodomitical or commit fornication 2. They that commit folly alone dishonouring their own bodies with softnesse and wantonnesse 3. They that immoderately let loose the reins of their bolder appetite though within the protection of marriage 4 They that by wanton gestures wandring eyes lascivious dressings discovery of the nakednesse of themselves or others filthy discourse high diet amorous songs balls and revellings tempt and betray themselves or others to folly 5. They that marry a woman divorced for adultery 6. They that divorce their wives except for adultery and marry another VIII Com. Thou shalt not steal The duties are 1. To give every man his due 2. To permit every man to enjoy his own goods and estate quietly They sin against this Commandment 1. That injure any mans estate by open violence or by secret robbery by stealth or cousenage by arts of bargaining or vexatious law-suits 2. That refuse or neglect to pay their debts when they are able 3 That are forward to run into debt knowingly beyond their power without hopes or purposes of repaiment 4. Oppressors of the poor 5. That exact usury of necessitous persons or of any beyond the permissions of equity as determined by the laws 6. All sacrilegious persons people that rob God of his dues or of his possessions 7. All that game viz. at Cards and Dice c. to the prejudice and detriment of other mens estates 8. They that imbase coyn and mettals and obtrude them for perfect and natural 9. That break their promises to the detriment of a third person 10 They that refuse to stand to their bargains 11. They that by negligence imbecil other mens estates spoiling or letting any thing perish which is intrusted to them 12. That refuse to restore the pledge IX Com. Thou shalt not bear false witnesse The duties are 1. To give testimony to truth when we are called to it by competent authority 2. To preserve the good name of our neighbours 3. To speak well of them that deserve it They sin against this commandment 1. That speak false things in judgement accusing their neighbors unjustly or denying his crime publickly when we are asked and can be commanded lawfully to tell it 2. Flatterers and 3. slanderers 4. backbiters 5. and detracters 6. They that secretly raise jealousies and suspition of their neighbours causelesly X. Thou shalt not covet The duties are 1. To be content with the portion God hath given us 2. Not to be covetous of other mens goods They sin against this commandment 1. That envy the prosperities of other men 2. They that desire passionately to be possessed of what is their neighbours 3. They that with greedinesse pursue riches honours pleasures and curiosities 4. They that are too careful troubled distracted or amazed affrighted and afflicted with being sollicitous in the conduct of temporal blessings These are the general lines of duty by which we may discover our failings and be humbled and confesse accordingly onely the penitent person is to remember that although these are the kindes of sins described after the sense of the Jewish Church which consisted principally in the external action or the deed done and had no restraints upon the thoughts of men save onely in the tenth commandment which was mixt and did relate as much to action as to thought as appears in the instances yet upon us Christians there are many circumstances and degrees of obligation which endear our duty with greater severity and observation and the penitent is to account of himself and enumerate his sins not onely by external actions or the deed done but by words by thoughts and so to reckon if he have done it directly or indirectly if he have caused others to do it by tempting or incouraging by assisting or counselling by not disswading when he could and ought by fortifying their hands or hearts or not weakning their evil purposes if he have designed or contrived its action desired it or loved it delighted in the thought remembred the past sin with pleasure or without sorrow these are the by-wayes of sins and the crooked lanes in which a man may wander and be lost as certainly as in the broad high wayes of iniquity But besides this our blessed Lord and his Apostles have added divers other precepts some of which have been with some violence reduc'd to the Decalogue and others have not bin noted at all in the catalogues of confession I shall therefore describe them entirely that the sick man discover his failings that by the mercies of God in Jesus Christ and by the instrument of repentance he may be presented pure and spotlesse before the throne of God The special precepts of the Gospel 1. PRayer frequent servent holy and persevering 2. Faith 3. Repentance 4. Poverty of spirit as opposed to ambition high designes 5. and in it is humility or sitting down in the lowest place and in giving honour to go before another 6. meeknesse as it is opposed to waywardnesse fretfulnesse immoderate grieving disdain and scorn 7. contempt of the world 8. prudence or the advantagious conduct of religion 9. simplicity or sincerity in words and actions pretences and substances 10. hope 11. hearing the word 12. Reading 13. Assembling together 14. obeying them that have the rule over us in spiritual affairs 15. Refusing to communicate with persons excommunicate whither also may be reduced To reject Hereticks 16 Charity viz. love to God above all things brotherly kindnesse or profitable love to our neighbours as our selves to be expressed in almes forgivenesse and to dye for our brethren 17 To pluck out the right eye or violently to rescind all occasions of sin though dear to us as an eye 18 To reprove our erring brother 19 To be patient in afflictions and longanimity is referred hither or long sufferance which is the perfection and perseverance of patience and is opposed to hastinesse and wearinesse of spirit 20 To be thankful to our benefactors but above all in all things to give thanks to God 21. To rejoyce in the Lord alwayes 22. Not to quench not to grieve not to resist the Spirit 23 To love our wives as Christ loved his Church and to reverence our husbands 24. To provide for our families 25 Not to be bitter to our children 26. To bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord 27. Not to despise prophesying 28. To be gentle and easie to be intreated 29. To give no scandal or offence 30. To follow after peace with all men and to make peace 31. Not to go to law before the
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 suprized 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 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 ministery for seven dayes together The want of this makes the visitations fruitlesse 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 ministery 3. S. Iames 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 Physitians they ministred spiritual remedies and sent up prayers like a quire 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 unlesse 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 judgement that knowes us best and with whom we formerly did converse either by choice or by law by private election or publike constitution It concerns us then to make severe and profitable judgements and not to conspire against our selves or procure such assistances which may handle us softly or comply with our weaknesses more then 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 sicknesse is come to its crisis or period Let him discourse concerning the causes of sicknesse 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 dresse 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 weaknesse 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 shortnesse and small number of his own acts is to be supplied by the act of the Ministers and standers by who are in such cases to speak more to God for him then to talk to him For the prayer of the righteous when it is servent 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 joyns 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 mans necessities When he hath made this general addresse and preparatory entrance to the work of many dayes and periods he may descend to particulars by the following instruments and discourses SECT III. Of ministring in the sick mans 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 unlesse 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 Ionathans arrows may shoot short or shoot over 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 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 confesse our sins God is righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousnesse That confession of sins is a proper act and introduction to repentance * That when the Jews being warned by the sermons of the Baptist repented of their sins they confessed their sins to Iohn in the susception of Baptism * That the converts in the dayes 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 * That confession is an act of many vertues together * It is the gate of repentance * an instrument of shame and condemnation of our sins * a glorification of God so called by Ioshuah particularly in the case of Achan * an acknowledgement that God is just in punishing for by confessing of our sins we also confesse his justice and are assessors with God in this condemnation of our selves * That by such an act of judging our selves we escape the more angry judgement of God S. Paul expresly exhorting us to it upon that very inducement * 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 mâ—kes up the whole duty of the Gospel * That in all ages of the Gospel it hath been taught and practised respectively that all the penitent made confessions proportionable to their repentance that is
2 That God delights not in the confusion and death of sinners 3. That in heaven there is great joy at the conversion of a sinner 4. That Christ is a perpetual advocate daily interceding with his Father for our pardon 5. That God uses infinite arts instruments and devices to reconcile us to himself 6. That he prayes us to be in charity with him and to be forgiven 7. That he sends Angels to keep us from violence and evil company from temptations and surprizes and his holy Spirit to guide us in holy wayes and his servants to warn us and reminde us perpetually and therefore since certainly he is so desirous to save us as appears by his word by his oaths by his very nature and his daily artifices of mercy it is not likely that he will condemn us without great provocations of his Majesty and perseverance in them 8. That the covenant of the Gospel is a covenant of grace and of repentance and being established with so many great solemnities and miracles from heaven must signifie a huge favour and a mighty change of things and therefore that repentance which is the great condition of it is a grace that does not expire in little accents and minutes but hath a great latitude of signification and a large extension of parts under the protection of all which persons are safe even when they fear exceedingly 9. That there are great degrees and differences of glory in heaven and therefore if we estimate our piety by proportions to the more eminent persons and devouter people we are not to conclude we shall not enter into the same state of glory but that we shall not go into the same degrees 9 That although forgivenesse of sins is consigned to us in Baptism and that this Baptism is but once and cannot be repeated yet forgivenesse of sins is the grace of the gospel which is perpetually remanent upon us and secured unto us so long as we have not renounced our Baptisme For then we enter into the condition of repentance and repentance is not an indivisible grace or a thing performed at once but is working all our lives and therefore so is our pardon which ebbes and flowes according as we discompose or renew the decency of our Baptismall promises and therefore it ought to be certain that no man despair of pardon but he that hath voluntarily renounced his Baptism or willingly estranged himself from that covenant He that sticks to it and still professes the religion and approves the faith and endeavours to obey and to do his duty this man hath all the veracity of God to assure him and give him confidence that he is not in an impossible state of salvation unlesse God cuts him off before he can work or that he begins to work when he can no longer choose 10. And then let him consider the more he fears the more he hates his sin that is the cause of it and the lesse he can be tempted to it and the more desirous he is of heaven and therefore such fears are good instruments of grace and good signes of a future pardon 11. That God in the old law although he made a Covenant of perfect obedience and did not promise pardon at all after great sins yet he did give pardon and declared it so to them for their own and for our sakes too So he did to David to Manasses to the whole Nation of the Israelies ten times in the wildernesse even after their Apostacies and Idolatries and in the Prophets the mercies of God and his remissions of sins were largely preached though in the Law God put on the robes of an angry Judge and a severe Lord but therefore in the Gospel where he hath established the whole summe of affairs upon faith and repentance if God should not pardon great sinners that repent after baptisme with a free dispensation the Gospel were far harder then the intolerable Covenant of the Law 12. That if a Proselyte went into the Jewish communion and were circumcised and baptized he entred into all the hopes of good things which God had promised or would give to his people and yet that was but the Covenant of works If then the Gentile Proselytes by their circumcision and legall baptisme were admitted to a state of pardon to last so long as they were in the Covenant even after their admission for sins committed against Moses law which they then undertook to observe exactly In the Gospel which is the Covenant of Faith it must needs be certain that there is a great grace given and an easier conditon entred into then was that of the Jewish law and that is nothing else but that abatement is made for our infirmities and our single evils and our timely repented and forsaken habits of sin and our violent passions when they are contested withall and fought with and under discipline and in the beginnings and progresses of mortification 13. That God hath erected in his Church a whole order of men the main part and dignity of whose work it is to remit and retain sins by a perpetuall and daily ministery and this they do not onely in baptisme but in all their offices to be administered afterwards in the Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist which exhibits the Symbols of that blood which was shed for pardon of our sins and therefore by its continued ministery and repetition declares that all that while we are within the ordinary powers and usuall dispensations of pardon even so long as we are in any probable dispositions to receive that Holy Sacrament And the same effect is also signified and exhibited in the whole power of the Keyes which if it extends to private sins sins done in secret it is certain it does also to publike but this is a greater testimony of the certainty of the remissibility of our greatest sins for publike sins as they alwayes have a sting and a superadded formality of scandall and ill example so they are most commonly the greatest such as murder sacriledge and others of unconcealed nature and unprivate action and if God for these worst of evils hath appointed an office of ease and pardon which is and may daily be administred that will be an uneasie pusillanimity and fond suspicion of Gods goodnesse to fear that our repentance shall be rejected even although we have not committed the greatest or the most of evils 14. And it was concerning baptized Christians that Saint Iohn said If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father and he is the propitiation for our sins and concerning lapsed Christians S. Paul gave instruction that if any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a man in the spirit of meeknesse considering lest ye also be temted the Corinthian Christian committed incest and was pardoned and ‑ Simon Magus after he was baptized offered to commit his own sin of Simony and yet Saint Peter bid him pray
of the Divine mercy in pardoning sinners If it be thought a great matter that I am charged with originall sin I confesse I feel the weight of it in loads of temporall infelicities and proclivities to sin But I fear not the guilt of it since I am baptized and it cannot do honour to the reputation of Gods mercy that it should be all spent in remissions of what I never chose never acted never knew of could not help concerning which I received no commandement no prohibition But blessed be God it is ordered in just measures that that originall evil which I contracted without my will should be taken away without my knowledge and what I suffered before I had a being was cleansed before I had an usefull understanding But I am taught to beleeve Gods mercies to be infinite not onely in himself but to us for mercy is a relative terme and we are its correspondent of all the creatures which God made we onely in a proper sense are the subjects of mercy and remission Angels have more of Gods bounty then we have but not so much of his mercy and beasts have little rayes of his kindnesse and effects of his wisdom and graciousnesse in petty donatives but nothing of mercy for they have no lawes and therefore no sins and need no mercy nor are capable of any Since therefore man alone is the correlative or proper object and vessell of reception of an infinite mercy and that mercy is in giving and forgiving I have reason to hope that he will so forgive me that my sins shall not hinder me of heaven or because it is a gift I may also upon the stock of the same infinite mercy hope he will give heaven to me and if I have it either upon the title of giving or forgiving it is alike to me and will alike magnifie the glories of the Divine mercy And because eternall life is the gift of God I have lesse reason to despair for if my sins were fewer and my disproportions towards such a glory were lesse and my evennesse more yet it is still a gift and I could not receive it but as a free and a gracious donative and so I may still God can still give it me and it is not an impossible expectation to wait and look for such a gift at the hands of the God of mercy the best men deserve it not and I who am the worst may have it given me * And I consider that God hath set no measures of his mercy but that we be within the Covenant that is repenting persons endeavouring to serve him with an honest single heart and that within this Covenant there is a very great latitude and variety of persons and degrees and capacities and therefore that it cannot stand with the proportions of so infinite a mercy that obedience be exacted to such a point which he never expressed unlesse it should be the least and that to which all capacities though otherwise unequall are fitted and sufficiently enabled * But however I finde that the Spirit of God taught the writers of the New Testament to apply to us all in general and to every single person in particular some gracious words which God in the Old Testament spake to one man upon a special occasion in a single and temporal instance such are the words which God spake to Ioshuah I will never fail thee nor forsake thee and upon the stock of that promise S. Paul forbids covetousnesse and perswades contentednesse because those words were spoken by God to Ioshuah in another case If the gracious words of God have so great extension of parts and intension of kinde purposes then how many comforts have we upon the stock of all the excellent words which are spoken in the Prophets and in the Psalms and I will never more question whether they be spoken concerning me having such an authentic precedent so to expound the excellent words of God all the treasures of God which are in the Psalms are my own riches and the wealth of my hope there will I look and whatsoever I can need that I will depend upon for certainly if we could understand it that which is infinite as God is must needs be some such kinde of thing it must go whither it was never sent and signifie what was not first intended and it must warm with its light and shine with its heat and refresh when it strikes and heal when it wounds and ascertain where it makes afraid and intend all when it warms one and mean a great deal in a small word and as the Sun passing to its Southern Tropic looks with an open eye upon his sun-burnt Aethiopians but at the same time sends light from its posterns and collateral influences from the backside of his beams and sees the corners of the East when his face tends towards the West because he is a round body of fire and hath some little images and resemblances of the infinite so is Gods mercy when it looked upon Moses it relieved S. Paul and it pardoned David and gave hope to Manasses and might have restored Iudas if he would have had hope and used himself accordingly * But as to my own case I have sinned grievously and frequently But I have repented it but I have begged pardon I have confessed it and forsaken it I cannot undo what was done and I perish if God hath appointed no remedie if there be no remission but then my religion falls together with my hope and Gods word fails as well as I but I believe the article of forgivenesse of sins and if there be any such thing I may do well for I have and do and will do that which all good men call repentance that is I will be humbled before God and mourn for my sin and for ever ask forgivenesse and judge my self and leave it with haste and mortifie it with diligence and watch against it carefully and this I can do but in the manner of a man I can but mourn for my sins as I apprehend grief in other instances but I will rather choose to suffer all evils then to do one deliberate act of sin I know my sins are greater then my sorrow and too many for my memory too insinuating to be prevented by all my care but I know also that God knowes and pities my infirmities and how far that will extend I know not but that it will reach so far as to satisfie my needs is the matter of my hope * But this I am sure of that I have in my great necessity prayed humbly and with great desire and sometimes I have been heard in kinde and sometimes have had a bigger mercy instead of it and I have the hope of prayers and the hope of my confession and the hope of my endeavour and the hope of many promises and of Gods essential goodnesse and I am sure that God hath heard my prayers and verified his promises
heart is infinitely deceitful unknown to it self not certain in his own acts praying one way and desiring another wandring and imperfect loose and various worshipping God and entertaining sin following what it hates and running from what it flatters loving to be tempted and betrayed petulant like a wanton girle running from that it might invite the fondnesse and enrage the appetite of the foolish young man or the evil temptation that followes it cold and indifferent one while and presently zealous and passionate furious and indiscreet not understood of it self or any one else and deceitful beyond all the arts and numbers of observation 8. That it is certain we have highly sinned against God but we are not so certain that our repentance is reall and effective integral and sufficient 9. That it is not revealed to us whether or no the time of our repentance be not past or if it be not yet how far God will give us pardon and upon what condition or after what sufferings or duties is still under a cloud 10. That vertue and vice are oftentimes so neer neighbours that we passe into each others borders without observation and think we do justice when we are cruel or call our selves liberal when we are loose and foolish in expences and are amorous when we commend our own civilities and good nature 11. That we allow to our selves so many little irregularities that insensibly they swell to so great a heap that from thence we have reason to fear an evil for an army of frogs and flies may destroy all the hopes of our harvest 12. That when we do that which is lawful and do all that we can in those bounds we commonly and easily run out of our proportions 13. That it is not easie to distinguish the vertues of our nature from the vertues of our choice and we may expect the reward of temperance when it is against our nature to be drunk or we hope to have the coronet of virgins for our morose disposition or our abstinence from marriage upon secular ends 14. That it may be we call every little sigh or the keeping a fish-day the dutie of repentance or have entertained false principles in the estimate and measures of vertues and contrarie to the Steward in that Gospel we write down fourscore when we should set downe but fifty 15. That it is better to trust the goodnesse and justice of God with our accounts then to offer him large bits 16. That we are commanded by Christ to sit down in the lowest place till the Master of the house bids us sit up higher 17. That when we have done all that we can we are unprofitable servants and yet no man does all that he can do and therefore is more to be despised and undervalued 18. That the self-accusing Publican was justified rather then the thanksgiving and confident Pharisee 19. That if Adam in Paradise and David in his house and Solomon in the Temple and Peter in Christs family and Iudas in the College of Apostles and Nicholas among the Deacons and the Angels in heaven it self did fall so foully and dishonestly then it is prudent advice that we be not high minded but fear and when we stand most confidently take heed lest we fall and yet there is nothing so likely to make us fall as pride and great opinions which ruined the Angels which God resists which all men despise and which betrayes us into carelesnesse and a wretchlesse undiscerning and an unwary spirit 4. Now the main parts of the Ecclesiastical ministery are done and that which remains is that the Minister pray over him and reminde him to do good actions as he is capable * to call upon God for pardon * to put his whole trust in him * to resigne himself to Gods disposing * to be patient and even * to renounce every ill word or thought or undecent action which the violence of his sicknesse may cause in him * to beg of God to give him his holy Spirit to guide him in his agony and * his holy Angels to guard him in his passage 5. Whatsoever is besides this concerns the standers by that they do all their ministeries diligently and temperately * that they joyn with much charity and devotion in the prayer of the Minister * that they make no outcries or exclamations in the departure of the soul * and that they make no judgement concerning the dying person by his dying quietly or violently with comfort or without with great fears or a cheerful confidence with sense or without like a lamb or like a lyon with convulsions or semblances of great pain or like an expiring and a spent candle for these happen to all men without rule without any known reason but according as God pleases to dispense the grace or the punishment for reasons onely known to himself Let us lay our hands upon our mouth and adore the mysteries of the divine wisdome and providence and pray to God to give the dying man rest and pardon and to our selves grace to live well and the blessing of a holy and a happy death SECT VII Offices to be said by the Minister in his visitation of the sick IN the Name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Our Father which art in Heaven c. Let the Priest say this prayer secretly O Eternal Jesus thou great lover of souls who hast constituted a ministery in the Church to glorifie thy Name and to serve in the assistance of those that come to thee professing thy discipline and service give grace to me the unworthiest of thy servants that I in this my ministery may purely and zealously intend thy glory and effectually may minister comfort and advantages to this sick person whom God assoil from all his offences and grant that nothing of thy grace may perish to him by the unworthinesse of the Minister but let thy Spirit speak by me and give me prudence and charity wisdom and diligence good observation and apt discourses a certain judgement and merciful dispensation that the soul of thy servant may passe from this state of imperfection to the perfections of the state of glory thorough thy mercies O Eternal Jesus Amen The Psalm OUt of the depths have I cryed unto thee O Lord Lord hear my voice let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications If thou Lord should mark iniquities O Lord who shall stand but there is forgivenesse with thee that thou mayest be feared I wait for the Lord my soul doth wait and in his word do I hope my soul waiteth for the Lord more then they that watch for the morning Let Israel hope in the Lord for with the Lord there is mercy and with him is plenteous redemption and he shall redeem his servants from all their iniquities Wherefore should I fear in the dayes of evil when the wickednesse of my heels shall compasse me about No man can by any means redeem
the world a longing desire after heaven patience in our sorrows comfort in our sicknesses joy in God a holy life and a blessed death that our souls may rest in hope and my body may rise in glory and both may be beatified in the communion of Saints in the kingdom of God and the glories of the Lord Jesus Amen The blessing Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great shepherd of the sheep thorough the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is pleasing in his sight to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen The doxology To the blessed and onely Potentate the King of kings and the Lord of Lords who only hath immortality dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto whom no man hath seen nor can see be honour and power everlasting Amen After the sick man is departed the Minister if he be present or the Major dome or any other fit person may use the following prayers in behalf of themselves I. ALmighty God with whom do live the spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord we adore thy Majesty and submit to thy providence and revere thy justice and magnifie thy mercies thy infinite mercies that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world Thy counsels are secret and thy wisdom is infinite with the same hand thou hast crowned him and smitten us thou hast taken him into regions of felicity and placed him among Saints and Angels and left us to mourn for our sins and thy displeasure which thou hast signified to us by removing him from us to a better a far better place Lord turn thy anger into mercie thy chastisements into vertues thy rod into comforts and do thou give to all his neerest relatives comforts from heaven and a restitution of blessings equall to those which thou hast taken from them And we humbly beseech thee of thy gracious goodnesse shortly to satisfie the longing desires of those Holy souls who pray and wait and long for thy second coming Accomplish thou the number of thine elect and fill up the Mansions in heaven which are prepared for all them that love the coming of the Lord Jesus that we with this our Brother and all other departed this life in the obedience and faith of the Lord Jesus may have our perfect consummation and blisse in thy eternall glory which never shall have ending Grant this for Jesus Christ his sake our Lord and onely Saviour Amen II. O Mercifull God Father of our Lord Jesus who is the first fruits of the resurrection and by entring into glory hath opened the kingdom of heaven to all the beleevers we humbly beseech thee to raise us from the death of sin to the life of righteousnesse that being partakers of the death of Christ and followers of his Holy life we may be partakers of his Spirit and of his promises that when we shall depart this life we may rest in his arms and lie in his bosom as our hope is this our brother doth O suffer us not for any temptation of the world or any snares of the Devil or any pains of death to fall from thee Lord let thy H. Spirit enable us with his grace to fight a good fight with perseverance to finish our course with holiness and to keep the faith with constancie unto the end that at the day of judgement we may stand at the right hand of the throne of God and hear the blessed sentence of Come ye blessed children of my Father receive the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world O blessed Jesus thou art our Judge and thou art our Advocate even because thou art good and gracious never suffer us to fall into the intolerable pains of hell never to lye down in sin and never to have our portion in the everlasting burning Mercy sweet Jesu Mercy Amen A prayer to be said in the case of a sudden surprise by death as by a mortal wound or evil accidents in childebirth when the forms and solemnities of preparation cannot be used O Most gracious Father Lord of heaven and earth Judge of the living and the dead behold thy servants running to thee for pity and mercy in behalf of our selves and this thy servant whom thou hast smitten with thy hasty rod and a swift Angel if it be thy will preserve his life that there may be place for his repentance and restitution O spare him a little that he may recover his strength before he go hence and be no more seen but if thou hast otherwise decreed let the miracles of thy compassion and thy wonderfull mercy supply to him the want of the usual measures of time and the periods of repentance and the trimming of his lamp and let the greatnesse of the calamity be accepted by thee as an instrument to procure pardon for those defects and degrees of unreadiness which may have caused this accident upon thy servant Lord stirre up in him a great and effectual contrition that the greatnesse of the sorrow and hatred against sin and the zeal of his love to thee may in a short time do the work of many dayes and thou who regardest the heart and the measures of the minde more then the delay and the measures of time let it be thy pleasure to rescue the soul of thy servant from all the evils he hath deserved and all the evils that he fears that in the glorifications of eternity and the songs which to eternal ages thy Saints and holy Angels shall sing to the honour of thy mighty Name and invaluable mercies it may be reckoned among thy glories that thou hast redeemed this soul from the dangers of an eternall death and made him partaker of the gift of God eternall life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen If there be time the prayers in the foregoing offices may be added according as they can be fitted to the present circumstances SECT VIII A peroration concerning the contingencies and treatings of our departed friends after death in order to their buriall c. WHen we have received the last breath of our friend and closed his eyes and composed his body for the grave then seasonable is the counsell of the son of Syrach Weep bitterly and make great moan and use lamentation as he is worthy and that a day or two lest thou be evil spoken of and then comfort thy self for thy heavinesse But take no grief to heart for there is no turning again thou shalâ— not do him good but hurt tâ—y self Solemn and appointed mournings are good expressions of our dearnesse to the departed soul and of his worth and our value of him and it hath its praise in nature and in manners and publike customs but the praise of it is not in the Gospel that is it hath
communication from an Angel or the sâ—ock of acquired notices here below it may the rather endear us to our charities or duties to them respectively since our vertues use not to live upon abstractions and Metaphysical perfections or inducements but then thrive when they have materiall arguments such which are not too far from sense However it be it is certain they are not dead and though we no more see the souls of our dead friends then we did when they were alive yet we have reason to beleeve them to know more things and better And if our sleep be an image of death we may also observe concerning it that it is a state of life so separate from communications with the body that it is one of the wayes of Oracle and prophecy by which the soul best declares her immortality and the noblenesse of her actions and powers if she could get free from the body as in the state of separation or a clear dominion over it as in the resurrection To which also this consideration may be added that men long time lived the life of sence before they use their reason and till they have sumished their head with experiments and notices of many things they cannot at all discourse of any thing but when they come to use their reason all their knowledge is nothing but remembrance and we know by proportions by similitudes and dissimilitudes by relations and oppositions by causes and effects by comparing things with things all which are nothing but operations of understanding upon the stock of former notices of something we knew before nothing but remembrances all the heads of Topicks which are the stock of all arguments and sciences in the world are a certain demonstration of this And he is the wisest man that remembers most and joyns those remembrances together to the best purposes of discourse From whence it may not be improbably gathered that in the state of separation if there be any act of understanding that is if the understanding be alive it must be relative to the notices it had in this world and therefore the acts of it must he discourses upon all the parts and persons of their conversation and relation excepting onely such new revelations which may be communicated to it concerning which we know nothing But if by seeing Sacrates I think upon Plato and by seeing a picture I remember a Man and by beholding two friends I remember my own and my friends need and he is wisest that drawes most lines from the same Centre and most discourses from the same Notices it cannot but be very probable to beleeve since the separate souls understand better if they understand at all that from the Notices they carried from hence and what they find there equall or unequall to those Notices they can better discover the things of their friends then we can here by our conjectures and craftiest imaginations and yet many men here can guesse shrewdly at the thoughts and designes of such men with whom they discourse or of whom they have heard or whose characters they prudently have perceived I have no other end in this discourse but that we may be ingaged to do our duty to our Dead lest peradventure they should perceive our neglect and be witnesses of our transient affections and forgetfulnesse Dead persons have religion passed upon them and a solemn reverence and if we think a Ghost beholds us it may be we may have upon us the impressions likely to be made by love and fear and religion However we are sure that God sees us and the world sees us and if it be matter of duty towards our Dead God will exact it if it be matter of kindnesse the world will and as Religion is the band of that so fame and reputation is the endearment of this It remains that we who are alive should so live and by the actions of Religion attend the coming of the day of the Lord that we neither be surprized nor leave our duties imperfect nor our sins uncanceld nor our persons unreconciled nor God unappeased but that when we descend to our graves we may rest in the bosome of the Lord till the mansions be prepared where we shall sing and feast eternally Amen Te Deum laudamus THE END BEsides this Rule of Holy Dying the Author hath in Print 1. The Rule of Holy Living 2. The Liberty of Prophesying 3. Episcopacie asserted 4 o 4. The History of the Life and Death of the ever blessed Iesus Christ. 4 o 5. An Apologie for Authorized and â—et forms of Lyturgie 4 o 6. A Sermon Preached at Oxon. on the Anniversary of the fifth of November 4 o 7. Together with 28. Sermons Preached at Golden grove fol. Lately published viz. SErmon 1.2 Of the Spirit of Grace Rom. 8. ver 9.10 Sermon 3.4 The descending and entailed curse cut off Exodus 20. part of the 5. verse Sermon 5.6 The invalidity of a late or death-bed repentance Ier. 13.6 Sermon 7.8 The deceitfulnesse of the heart Ierem. 17.9 Sermon 9.10.11 The faith and patience of the Saints Or the righteous cause oppressed 1 Pet. 4.17 Sermon 12.13 The mercy of the Divine judgements or Gods method in curing sinners Rom. 2.4 Sermon 14.15 Of groweth in grace with its proper instruments and signes 2 Pet. 3.18 Sermon 16.17 Of groweth in sin or the severall states and degrees of sinners with the manner how they are to be treated Iude Epist. ver 22 23. Sermon 18.19 The foolish exchange Matth. 16. ver 26. Sermon 20.21.22 The Serpent and the Dove or a Discourse of Christian Prudence Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. Sermon 23.24 Of Christian simplicitie Matt. 10. latter part of ver 16. Sermon 25.26.27 The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Psal. 86.5 A Funerall Sermon Preached at the Obsequies of the right Honourable the Countesse of Carbery 2 Sam. 14.14 A Discourse of the Divine Institution necessity sacrednesse and separation of the Office Ministeriall Printed for Richard Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane * Vel quia nil rectum nisi quod placuit â—ibi ducunt Vel quia turpe putant parere minoâ—ibus quae Imberbes didicere senes perdenda fateri * Tenellis adhuc infantiae suae persuasionibus in senectute puerascunt Mamertus Concil Trid. hist lib 4. * Tertul de Monog S. Cyprian l. 1. ep 9 Sa. Athan q. 33. S. Cyril myst cat 5. Epiphan Haeres 75. Aug. de haeres c. 33. Concil Carth. 3. c. 29 * Dii majorum umbris tenuem sine pondere terram Spirantesque crocos in urna perpetuum yer Pers. Sat. 7. Otia das nobis sed qualia forat ulioâ— Meccenas Placco Virgilio que m◠〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4 James 14. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nihil sibi quisquam de futuro debet promittere Id quoque quod teâ—etur per 〈◊〉 anus exit
in the abolition of all my sins so shall I praise thy glories with a tongue not defiled with evil language and a heart purged by thy grace quitted by thy mercy and absolved by thy sentence from generation to generation Amen An act of holy resolution of amendment of life in case of recovery O Most just and most mercifull Lord God who hast sent evil diseases sorrow fear trouble and uneasinesse briars and thorns into the world and planted them in our houses and round about our dwellings to keep sin from our souls or to drive it thence I humbly beg of thee that this my sicknesse may serve the ends of the Spirit and be a messenger of spirituall life an instrument of reducing me to more religious and sober courses I know O Lord that I am unready and unprepared in my accounts having thrown away great portions of my time in vanity and set my self hugely back in the accounts of eternity and I had need live my life over again and live it better but thy counsels are in the great deep and thy footsteps in the water and I know not what thou wilt determine of me If I die I throw my self into the arms of the Holy Jesus whom I love above all things and if I perish I know I have deserved it but thou wilt not reject him that loves thee But if I recover I will live by thy grace and help to do the work of God and passionately pursue my interest of Heaven and serve thee in the labour of love with the charities of a holy zeal and the diligence of a firm and humble obedience Lord I will dwell in thy temple and in thy service religion shall be my imployment and alms shall be my recreation and patience shall be my rest and to do thy will shall be my meat and drink and to live shall be Christ and then to die shall be gain O spare me a little that I may recover my strength before I go hence and be no more seen Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Amen SECT VIII An Analysis or resolution of the Decalogue and the speciall precepts of the Gospel describing the duties injoyned and the sins forbidden respectiuely for the assistance of sick men in making their confessions to God and his Ministers and the rendring their repentance more particular and perfect I THou shalt have none other Gods but me Duties commanded are 1. To love God above all things 2. To obey him and fear him 3. To worship him with prayers vows thanksgivings presenting to him our souls and bodies and all such actions and expressions which the consent of Nations or the Lawes and Customs of the place where we live have appropriated to God 4. To designe all to Gods glory 5. To enquire after his will 6. To beleeve all his word 7. To submit to his providence 8. To proceed toward all our lawfull ends by such means as himself hath appointed 9. To speak and think honourably of God and recite his praises and confesse his Attributes and perfections They sin against this Commandement 1. Who love themselves or any of the creatures inordinately and intemperately 2. They that despise or neglect any of the Divine precepts 3. They that pray to unknown or false gods 4. They that disbeleeve or deny there is a God 5. They that make vows to creatures 6. Or say prayers to the honour of men or women or Angels as Pater nosters to the honour of the Virgin Mary or S. Peter which is a taking a part of that honour which is due to God and giving it to the creature it is a religion paid to men and women out of Gods proper portion out of prayers directed to God immediately and it is an act contrary to that religion which makes God the last end of all things for this thâ—ough our addresses to God passes something to the creatures as if they stood beyond him for by the intermediall worship paid to God they ultimately do honour to the man or Angel 7. They that make consumptive oblations to the creatures as the Collyridians who offered cakes and those that burn incense or candles to the Virgin Mary 8. They that give themselves to the Devil or make contracts with him and use phantastic conversation with him 9 They that consult Witches and Fortune-tellers 10. They that rely upon dreams and superstitious observances 11 That use charmes spels superstitious words and characters verses of Psalms the consecrated elements to cure diseases to be shot free to recover stolne goods or inquire into secrets 12. That are wilfully ignorant of the lawes of God or love to be deceived in their perswasions that they may sin with confidence 13. They that neglect to pray to God 14. They that arrogate to themselves the glory of any action or power and do not give the glory to God as Herod 15. They that doubt of or disbeleeve any article of the Creed or any proposition of Scripture or put false glosses to serve saecular or vitious ends against their conscience or with violence any way done to their reason 16. They that violently or passionately pursue any temporall end with an eagernesse greater then the thing is in prudent account 17 They that make religion to serve ill ends or do good to exil purposes or evil to good purposes 18. They that accuse God of injustice or unmercifulnesse remissenesse or cruelty such as are the presumptuous and the desperate 19. All hypocrites and pretenders to religion walking in forms and shadows but denying the power of godlinesse 20. All impatient persons all that repine or murmur against the prosperities of the wicked or the calamities of the godly or their own afflictions 21. All that blaspheme God or speak dishonourable things of so Sacred a Majesty 22. They that tempt God or rely upon his protection against his rules and without his promise and besides reason entring into danger from which without a miracle they cannot be rescued 23. They that are bold in the midst of judgement and fearlesse in the midst of the Divine vengeance and the accents of his anger II. Comm. Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven image nor worship it The morall duties of this commandement are 1. To worship God with all bodily worship and externall forms of addresse according to the custom of the Church we live in 2. To beleeve God to be a spirituall and pure substance without any visible form of shape 3. To worship God in wayes of his own appointing or by his proportions or measures of nature and right reason or publike and holy customes They sin against this Commandement 1. That make any image or pictures of the Godhead or fancy any likenesse to him 2. They that use images in their religion designing or addressing any religious worship to them For if this thing could be naturally tolerable yet it is too neer an intolerable for a jealous God to suffer 3.