onely to play withall but before a man comes to be wise he is half dead with gouts and consumptions with Catarrhes and aches with sore eyes and a worn out body so that if we must not reckon the life of a man but by the accounts of his reason he is long before his soul be dressed and he is not to be called a man without a wise and an adorned soul a soul at least furnished with what is necessary towards his well being but by that time his soul is thus furnished his body is decayed and then you can hardly reckon him to be alive when his body is possessed by so many degrees of death 3. But there is yet another arrest At first he wants strength of body and then he wants the use of reason and when that is come it is ten to one but he stops by the impediments of vice and wants the strengths of the spirit and we know that Body and Soul and Spirit are the constituent parts of every Christian man And now let us consider what that thing is which we call years of discretion The young man is passed his Tutors and arrived at the bondage of a caytive spirit he is run from discipline and is let loose to passion the man by this time hath wit enough to chuse his vice to act his lust to court his Mistresse to talk confidently and ignorantly and perpetually to despise his betters to deny nothing to his appetite to do things that when he is indeed a man he must for ever be ashamed of for this is all the discretion that most men show in the first stage of their Manhood they can discern good from evil and they prove their skill by leaving all that is good and wallowing in the evils of folly and an unbridled appetite And by this time the young man hath contracted vitious habits and is a beast in manners and therefore it will not be fitting to reckon the beginning of his life he is a fool in his understanding and that is a sad death and he is dead in trespasses and sins and that is a sadder so that he hath no life but a natural the life of a beast or a tree in all other capacities he is dead he neither hath the intellectual nor the spiritual life neither the life of a man nor of a Christian and this sad truth lasts too long For old age seizes upon most men while they still retain the minds of boyes and vitious youth doing actions from principles of great folly and a mighty ignorance admiring things uselesse and hurtfull and filling up all the dimensions of their abode with businesses of empty affairs being at leasure to attend no vertue they cannot pray because they are busie and because they are passionate they cannot communicate because they have quarrels and intrigues of perplexed causes complicated hostilities and things of the world and therefore they cannot attend to the things of God little considering that they must find a time to die in when death comes they must be at leisure for that Such men are like Sailers loosing from a port and tost immediatly with a perpetual tempest lasting till their cordage crack and either they sink or return back again to the same place they did not make a voyage though they were long at sea The businesse and impertinent affairs of most men steal all their time and they are restlesse in a foolish motion but this is not the progress of a man he is no further advanc'd in the course of a life though he reckon many years for still his soul is childish and trifling like an untaught boy If the parts of this sad complaint finde their remedy we have by the same instruments also cured the evils and the vanity of a short life Therefore 1. Be infinitely curious you doe not set back your life in the accounts of God by the intermingling of criminal actions or the contracting vitious habits There are some vices which carry a sword in their hand and cut a man off before his time There is a sword of the Lord and there is a sword of a Man and there is a sword of the Devil Every vice of our own managing in the matter of carnality of lust or rage ambition or revenge is a sword of Sathan put into the hands of a man These are the destroying Angels sin is the Apollyon the destroyer that is gone out not from the Lord but from the Tempter and we hug the poison and twist willingly with the vipers till they bring us into the Regions of an irrecoverable sorrow We use to reckon persons as good as dead if they have lost their limbs and their teeth and are confined to an Hospital and converse with none but Surgeons and Physicians Mourners and Divines those pollinctores the Dressers of bodies and souls to Funeral But it is worse when the soul the principle of life is imployed wholly in the offices of death and that man was worse then dead of whom Seneca tells that being a rich fool when he was lifted up from the baths and set into a soft couch asked his slaves An ego jam sedeo Do I now sit The beast was so drownd in sensuality and the death of his soul that whether he did sit or no he was to believe another Idlenesse and every vice is as much of death as a long disease is or the expence of ten years and she that lives in pleasures is dead while she liveth saith the Apostle and it is the stile of the Spirit concerning wicked persons They are dead in trespasses and sins For as every sensual pleasure and every day of idlenes and useless living lops off a little branch from our short life so every deadly sin and every habitual vice does quite destroy us but innocence leaves us in our natural portions and perfect period we lose nothing of our life if we lose nothing of our souls health and therefore he that would live a full age must avoid a sin as he would decline the Regions of death the dishonors of the grave 2. If we would have our life lengthened let us begin bâ—times to live in the accounts of reason and sober counsels of religion and the Spirit and then we shall have no reason to complain that our abode on earth is so short Many men finde it long enough and indeed it is so to all senses But when we spend in waste what God hath given us in plenty when we sacrifice our youth to folly our manhood to lust and rage our old age to covetousnesse and irreligion not beginning to live till we are to die designing that time to Vertue which indeed is infirm to every thing and profitâ—ble to nothing then we make our lives short and lust runs away with all the vigorous and healthful part of it and pride and animosity steal the manly portion and craftinesse and interest possesse old age velut ex pleno
God will give thee to exercise any vertue to do him any service or thy self any advantage be careful that thou losest not this for to eternal ages this never shall return again 9. Or if thou peradventure shalt be restored to health be carefull that in the day of thy thanksgiving thou mayest not be ashamed of thy self for having behaved thy self poorly and weakly upon thy bed it will be a sensible and excellent comfort to thee and double upon thy spirit if when thou shalt worship God for restoring thee thou shalt also remember that thou didst do him service in thy suffering and tell that God was hugely gracious to thee in giving thee the opportunity of a vertue at so easie a rate as a sicknesse from which thou didst recover 10. Few men are so sick but they believe that they may recover and we shal seldom see a man lie down with a perfect persuasion that it is his last hour for many men have been sicker and yet have recovered but whether thou doest or no thou hast a vertue to exerâ—ise which may be a handmaid to thy patience Epaphroditus was sick sick unto death and yet God had mercy upon him and he hath done so to thousands to whom he found it useful in the great order of things and the events of universal providence If therefore thou desirest to recover here is cause enough of hope and hope is designed in the arts of God and of the Spirit to support patience But if thou recoverest not yet there is something that is matter of joy naturally and very much Spiritually if thou belongest to God and joy is as certain a support to patience as hope and it is no small cause of being pleased when we remember that if we recover not our sicknesse shall the sooner sit down in rest and joy For recovery by death as it is easier and better then the recovery by a sickly health so it is not so long in doing it suffers not the tediousnesse of a creeping restitution nor the inconvenience of Surgeons and Physitians watchfulnesse and care keepings in and suffering trouble fears of relapse and the little reliques of a storm 11. While we hear or use or think of these remedies part of the sicknesse is gone away and all of it is passing And if by such instruments we stand armed and ready dressed before hand we shall avoid the mischiefs of amazements and surprize while the accidents of sicknesse are such as were expected and against which we stood in readinesse with our spirits contracted instructed and put upon the defensive 12 But our patience will be the better secured if we consider that it is not violently tempted by the usual arrests of sicknesse for patience is with reason demanded while the sicknesse is tolerable that is so long as the evil is not too great but if it be also eligible and have in it some degrees of good our patience will have in it the lesse difficulty and the greater necessity This therefore will be a new stock of consideration Sicknesse is in many degrees eligible to many men and to many purposes SECT VI. Advantages of Sicknesse 1. I Consider one of the great felicities of heaven consists in an immunity from sin then we shall love God without mixtures of malice then we shall enjoy without envy then we shall see fuller vessels running over with glory and crowned with bigger circles and this we shall behold without spilling from our eyes those vessels of joy and grief any signe of anger trouble or a repining spirit our passions shall be pure our charity without fear our desire without lust our possessions all our own and all in the inheritance of Jesus in the richest soil of Gods eternall kingdom Now half of this reason which makes heaven so happy by being innocent is also in the state of sicknesse making the furrows of old age smooth and the groans of a sick heart apt to be joyned to the musick of Angels and though they sound harsh to our untuned ears and discomposed Organs yet those accents must needs be in themselves excellent which God loves to hear and esteems them as prayers and arguments of pity instruments of mercie and grace and preparatives to glory In sicknesse the soul begins to dresse her self for immortality and first she unties the strings of vanity that made her upper garment cleave to the world and sit uneasily First she puts off the light and phantastic summer robe of lust and wanton appetite and as soon as that Cestus that lascivious girdle is thrown away then the reins chasten us and give us warning in the night then that which called us formerly to serve the manlinesse of the body and the childishnesse of the soul keeps us waking to divide the hours with the intervals of prayer and to number the minutes with our penitential groans Then the flesh sits uneasily and dwells in sorrow and then the spirit feels it self at ease freed from the petulant sollicitations of those passions which in health were as buisie and as restlesse as atomes in the sun alwayes dancing and alwayes busie and never sitting down till a sad night of grief and uneasinesse draws the vail and lets them dye alone in seâ—ret dishonour 2. Next to this the soul by the help of sicknesse knocks off the fetters of pride and vainer complacencies Then she drawes the curtains and stops the lights from coming in and takes the pictures down those phantastic images of self-love and gay remembrances of vain opinion and popular noises Then the Spirit stoops into the sobrieties of humble thoughts and feels corruption chiding the forwardnesse of fancy and allaying the vapours of conceit and factious opinions For humility is the souls grave into which he enters not to die but to meditate and iâ— terre some of its troublesome appendages There she sees the dust and feels the dishonours of the body and reads the Register of all its sad adherencies and then she layes by all her vain reflexions beating upon her Chrystall and pure mirrour from the fancies of strength and beauty little decayed prettinesses of the body And when in sicknesse we forget all our knotty discourses of Philosophy and a Syllogisme makes our head ake and we feel our many and loud talkings served no lasting end of the soul no purpose that now we must abide by and that the body is like to descend to the land where all things are forgotten then she layes aside all her remembrances of applauses all her ignorant confidences and cares onely to know Christ Iesus and him crucified to know him plainly and with much heartinesse and simplicity And I cannot think this to be a contemptible advantage for ever since man tempted himself by his impatient desires of knowing and being as God Man thinks it the finest thing in the world to know much and therefore is hugely apt to esteem himself better then his brethren if he knowes some
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
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
checked with the stiffnesse of a tower or the united strength of a wood it grew mighty and dwelt there and made the highest branches stoop and make a smooth path for it on the top of all its glories So is sicknesse and so is the grace of God When sicknesse hath made the difficulty then Gods grace hath made a triumph and by doubling its power hath created new proportions of a reward and then shews its biggest glory when it hath the greatest difficulty to Master the greatest weaknesses to support the most busie temptations to contest with For so God loves that his strength should be seen in our weaknesse and our danger Happy is that state of life in which our services to God are the dearest and the most expensive 5. Sicknesse hath some degrees of eligibility at least by an after-choice because to all persons which are within the possibilities and state of pardon it becomes a great instrument of pardon of sins For as God seldom rewards here and hereafter too So it is not very often that he punishes in both states In great and finall sins he doth so but we finde it expressed onely in the case of the sin against the Holy Ghost which shall never be forgiven in this world nor in the world to come that is it shall be punished in both worlds and the infelicities of this world shall but usher in the intollerable calamities of the next But this is in a case of extremity and in sins of an unpardonable malice In those lesser stages of death which are deviations from the rule and not a destruction and perfect antinomy to the whole institution God very often smites with his rod of sicknesse that he may not for ever be slaying the soul with eternall death I will visit their offences with the rod and their sin with scourges Neverthelesse my loving kindenesse will I not utterly take from him nor suffer my truth to fail And there is in the New Testament a delivering over to Satan and a consequent buffeting for the mortification of the flesh indeed but that the soul may be saved in the day of the Lord. And to some persons the utmost processe of Gods anger reaches but to a sharp sicknesse or at most but to a temporall death and then the little momentany anger is spent and expires in rest and a quiet grave Origen S. Austin and Cassian say concerning Ananias and Sapphira that they were slain with a sudden death that by such a judgement their sin might be punished and their guilt expiated and their persons reserved for mercy in the day of judgement And God cuts off many of his children from the land of the living and yet when they are numbred amongst our dead he findes them in the book of life written amongst those that shall live to him for ever and thus it happened to many new Christians in the Church of Corinth for their little undecencies and disorders in the circumstances of receiving the holy Sacrament S. Paul sayes that many amongst them were sick may were weak and some were fallen asleep He expresses the divine anger against those persons in no louder accents which according to the stile of the New Testament where all the great transactions of duty and reproof are generally made upon the stock of Heaven and Hell is plainly a reserve and a period set to the declaration of Gods wrath For God knowes that the torments of hell are so horrid so insupportable a calamity that he is not easy and apt to cast those souls which he hath taken so much care and hath been at so much expence to save into the eternal never dying flames of Hell lightly for smaller sins or after a fairly begun repentance and in the midst of holy desires to finish it But God takes such penalties and exacts such fines of us which we may pay salvo contenemento saving the main stake of all even our precious souls And therefore S. Augustine prayed to God in his penitential sorrowes Here O Lord burn and cut my flesh that thou mayest spare me for ever For so said our blessed Saviour Every sacrifice must be seasoned with salt and every sacrifice must be burnt with fire that is we must abide in the state of grace and if we have committed sins we must expect to be put into the state of affliction and yet the sacrifice will send up a right and unâ—roubled cloud and a sweet smell to joyn with the incense of the Altar where the eternal Priest offers a never ceasing sacrifice And now I have said a thing against which there can be no exceptions and of which no just reason can make abatement For when sicknesse which is the condition of our nature is called for with purposes of redemption when we are sent to death to secure eternal life when God strikes us that he may spare us it shewes that we have done things which he essentially hates and therefore we must be smitten with the rod of God but in the midst of judgement God remembers mercy and makes the rod to be medicinal and like the rod of God in the hand of Aaron to shoot forth buds and leaves and Almonds hopes and mercies and eternal recompences in the day of restitution This is so great a good to us if it be well conducted in all the chanels of its intention and designe that if we had put off the objections of the flesh with abstractions contempts and separations so as we ought to do were as earnestly to be prayed for as any gay blessing that crowns our cups with joy and our heads with garlands and forgetfulnesse But this was it which I said that this may nay that it ought to be chosen at least by an after-election for so said S. Paul If we judge our selves we shall not be condemned of the Lord that is if we judge our selves worthy of the sicknesse if we acknowledge and confesse Gods justice in smiting us if we take the rod of God in our own hands and are willing to imprint it in the flesh we are workers together with God in the infliction and then the sickness beginning and being managed in the vertue of repentance and patience and resignation and charity will end in peace and pardon and justification and consignation to glory That I have spoken truth I have brought Gods Spirit speaking in Scripture for a witnesse But if this be true there are not many states of life that have advantages which can out-weigh this great instrument of security to our final condition Moses dyed at the mouth of the Lord said the story he died with the kisses of the Lords mouth so the Chaldee Paraphrase it was the greatest act of kindesse that God did to his servant Moses he kissed him and he died But I have some things to observe for the better finishing this consideration 1. All these advantages and lessenings of evil in the
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
our passions turned into fear and the whole state into suffering God in complyance and mans infirmity hath also turned our religion into such a duty which a sick man can do most passionately and a sad man and a timorous can perform effectually and a dying man can do to many purposes of pardon and mercy and that is prayer For although a sick man is bound to do many acts of vertue of several kindes yet the most of them are to be done in the way of prayer Prayer is not onely the religion that is proper to a sick mans condition but it is the manner of doing other graces which is then left and in his power For thus the sick man is to do his repentance and his mortifications his temperance and his chastity by a fiction of imagination bringing the offers of the vertue to the spirit making an action of election and so our prayers are a direct act of chastity when they are made in the matter of that grace just as repentance for our cruelty is an act of the grace of mercie and repentance for uncleannesse is an act of chastity is a means of its purchase an act in order to the habit and though such acts of vertue which are onely in the way of prayer are ineffective to the intire purchase and of themselves cannot change the vice into vertue yet they are good renewings of the grace and proper exercise of a habit already gotten The purpose of this discourse is to represent the excellency of prayer and its proper advantages which it hath in the time of sicknesse For besides that it moves God to pity piercing the clouds making the Heavens like a pricked eye to weep over us and refresh us with showers of pity it also doth the work of the soul and expresses the vertue of his whole life in effigie in pictures and lively representments so preparing it for a never ceasing crown by renewing the actions in the continuation of a never ceasing a never hindred affection Prayer speaks to God when the tongue is stiffned with the approachings of death prayer can dwell in the heart and be signified by the hand or eye by a thought or a groan prayer of all the actions of religion is the last alive and it serves God without circumstances and exercises material graces by abstraction from matter and separation and makes them to be spiritual and therefore best dresses our bodies for funeral or recovery for the mercies of restitution or the mercies of the grave 5. In every sicknesse whether it will or will not be so in nature and in the event yet in thy spirit and preparations resolve upon it and treat thy self accordingly as if it were a sicknesse unto death For many men support their unequall courages by flattery and false hopes and because sicker men have recovered beleeve that they shall do so but therefore they neglect to adorn their souls or set their house in order besides the temporall inconveniences that often happen by such perswasions and putting off the evil day such as are dying Intestate leaving estates intangled and some Relatives unprovided for they suffer infinitely in the interest and affairs of their soul they die carelesly and surprized their burdens on and their scruples unremoved and their cases of conscience not determined and like a sheep without any care taken concerning their precious souls Some men will never beleeve that a villain will betray them though they receive often advices from suspicious persons and likely accidents till they are entered into the snare and then they beleeve it when they feel it and when they cannot return but so the treason entred and the man was betrayed by his own folly placing the snare in the regions and advantages of opportunity This evil looks like boldnesse and a confident spirit but it is the greatest timerousnesse and cowardize in the world They are so fearfull to die that they dare not look upon it as possible and think that the making of a Will is a mortall signe and sending for a spirituall man an irrecoverable disease and they are so afraid lest they should think and beleeve now they must die that they will not take care that it may not be evil in case they should So did the Eastern slaves drink wine and wrapt their heads in a vail that they might die without sense or sorrow and wink hard that they might sleep the easier In pursuance of this rule let a man consider that whatsoever must be done in sicknesse ought to be done in health onely let him observe that his sicknesse as a good monitor chastises his neglect of duty and forces him to live as he alwayes should and then all these solemnities and dressings for death are nothing else but the part of a religious life which he ought to have exercised all his dayes and if those circumstances can affright him let him please his fancy by this truth that then he does but begin to live But it will be a huge folly if he shall think that confession of his sins will kill him or receiving the holy Sacrament will hasten his agony or the Priest shall undo all the hopefull language and promises of his Physitian Assure thy self thou canst not die the sooner But by such addresses thou mayest die much the better 6. Let the sick person be infinitely carefull that he do not fall into a state of death upon a new account that is at no hand commit a deliberate sin or retain any affection to the old for in both cases he falls into the evils of a surprize and the horrors of a sudden death For a sudden death is but a sudden joy if it takes a man in the state and exercises of vertue and it is onely then an evil when it finds a man unready They were sad departures when Tegillinus Cornelius Gallus the Praetor Lewis the son of Gonzaga Duke of Mantua Ladislaus king of Naples Speusippus Giachettus of Geneva and one of the Popes died in the forbidden embraces of abused women or if Iob had cursed God and so died or when a man sits down in despair and in the accusation and calumny of the Divine mercy they make their night sad and stormy and eternall When Herod began to sink with the shamefull torment of his bowels and felt the grave open under him he imprisoned the Nobles of his Kingdom and commanded his Sister that they should be a sacrifice to his departing ghost This was an egresse fit onely for such persons who meant to dwell with Devils to eternall ages and that man is hugely in love with sin who cannot forbear in the week of the Assizes and when himself stood at the barre of scrutiny and prepared for his finall never to be reversed sentence He dies suddenly to the worst sense and event of sudden death who so manages his sicknesse that even that state shall not be innocent but that he is surprized in the
horror of it then by the last dash on the pavement and he that tells his groans and numbers his sighs and reckons one for every gripe of his belly or throb of his distempered pulse will make an artificiall sicknesse greater then the naturall and if thou beest ashamed that a childe should bear an evil better then thou then take his instrument and allay thy spirit with it reflect not upon thy evil but contrive as much as you can for duty and in all the rest inconsideration will ease your pain 4. If thou fearest thou shalt need observe and draw together all such things as are apt to charm thy spirit and ease thy fancy in the sufferance It is the counsell of Socrates It is said he a great danger and you must by discourse and arts of reasoning inchant it into slumber and some rest It may be thou wert moved much to see a person of honour to die untimely or thou didst love the religion of that death bed and it was dressed up in circumstances fitted to thy needs and hit thee on that part where thou wert most sensible or some little saying in a Sermon or passage of a book was chosen and singled out by a peculiar apprehension and made consent lodge a while in thy spirit even then when thou didst place death in thy meditation and didst view it in all its dresse of fancy whatsoever that was which at any time did please thee in thy most passionate and fantastic part let not that go but bring it home at that time especially because then thou art in thy weaknesse such little things will easier move thee then a more severe discourse and a better reason For a sick man is like a scrupulous his case is gone beyond the cure of arguments and it is a trouble that can onely be helped by chance or a lucky saying and Ludovico Corbinelli was moved at the death of Henry the second more then if he had read the saddest Elegy of all the unfortunate Princes in Christendom or all the sad sayings of Scripture or the threnes of the funerall prophets I deny not but this course is most proper to weak persons but it is a state of weaknesse for which we are now providing remedies and instruction a strong man will not need it But when our sicknesse hath rendred us weak in all senses it is not good to refuse a remedy because it supposes us to be sick But then if to the Catalogue of weak persons we adde all those who are ruled by fancy we shall find that many persons in their health and more in their sicknesse are under the dominion of fancy and apt to be helped by those little things which themselves have found fitted to their apprehension and which no other man can minister to their needs unlesse by chance or in a heap of other things But therefore every man should remember by what instruments he was at any time much moved and try them upon his spirit in the day of his calamity 5. Do not choose the kind of thy sicknesse or the manner of thy death but let it be what God please so it be no greater then thy spirit or thy patience and for that you are to rely upon the promise of God and to secure thy self by prayer and industry but in all things else let God be thy chooser and let it be thy work to submit indifferently and attend thy duty It is lawfull to beg of God that thy sicknesse may not be sharp or noysome infectious or unusuall because these are circumstances of evil which are also proper instruments of temptation and though it may well concern the prudence of thy religion to fear thy self and keep thee from violent temptations who hast so often fallen in little ones yet even in these things be sure to keep some degrees of indifferency that is if God will not be intreated to ease thee or to change thy triall then be importunate that thy spirit and its interest be secured and let him do what seemeth good in his eyes but as in the degrees of sicknesse thou art to submit to God so in the kind of it supposing equall degrees thou art to be altogether incurious whether God call thee by a consumption or an asthma by a dropsey or a palsey by a feaver in thy humours or a feaver in thy spirits because all such nicety of choice is nothing but a colour to legitimate impatience and to make an excuse to murmure privately and for circumstances when in the summe of affairs we durst not owne impatience I have known some persons vehemently wish that they might die of a consumption and some of these had a plot upon heaven and hoped by that means to secure it after a carelesse life as thinking a lingring sicknesse would certainly infer a lingring and a protracted repentance and by that means they thought they should be safest others of them dreamed it would be an easier death and have found themselves deceived and their patience hath been tired with a weary spirit and a uselesse body by often conversing with healthfull persons and vigorous neighbours by uneasinesse of the flesh and the sharpnesse of his bones by want of spirits and a dying life and in conclusion have been directly debauched by peevishnesse and a fretfull sicknesse and these men had better have left it to the wisdom and goodnesse of God for they both are infinite 6. Be patient in the desires of religion and take care that the forwardnesse of exteriour actions do not discompose thy spirit while thou fearest that by lesse serving God in thy disability thou runnest backward in the accounts of pardon and the favour of God Be content that the time which was formerly spent in prayer be now spent in vomiting and carefulnesse and attendances since God hath pleased it should be so it does not become us to think hard thoughts concerning it Do not think that God is onely to be found in a great prayer or a solemn office he is moved by a sigh by a groan by an act of love and therefore when your pain is great and pungent lay all your strength upon it to bear it patiently when the evil is something more tolerable let your mind think some pious though short meditation let it not be very busie and full of attention for that will be but a new temptation to your patience and render your religion tedious and hatefull But record your desires and present your self to God by generall acts of will and understanding and by habituall remembrances of your former vigorousnesse and by verification of the same grace rather then proper exercises if you can do more do it but if you cannot let it not become a scruple to thee we must not think man is tyed to the forms of health or that he who swoons and faints is obliged to his usual forms and hours of prayer if we cannot labour yet let us love Nothing can hinder
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
They that deny to worship God with lowly reverence of their bodies according as the Church expresses her reverence to God externally 4. They that invent or practise superstitious worshippings invented by man against Gods word or without reason or besides the publike customes or formes of worshipping either foolishly or ridiculously without the purpose of order decency proportion to a wise or a religious end in prosecution of some vertue or duty III. Comm. Thou shalt not take Gods Name in vain The duties of this Comm. are 1. To honour and revere the most holy Name of God 2. To invocate his Name directly or by consequence in all solemn and permitted adjurations or publike oaths 3. To use all things and persons upon whom his Name is called or any wayes imprinted with a regardfull and separate manner of usage different from common and far from contempt and scorn 4. To swear in truth and judgement They sin against this Commandment 1. Who swear vainly and customarily without just cause without competent authority 2. They that blasphem or curse God 3. They that speak of God without grave cause or solemn occasion 4. They that forswear themselves that is they that do not perform their vows to God or that swear or call God to witnesse to a lie 5. They that swear rashly or maliciously to commit a sin or an act of revenge 6. They that swear by any creature falsely or any way but as it relates to God and consequently invokes his testimony 7. All curious inquiries into the secrets and intruders into the mysteries and hidden things of God 8. They that curse God or curse a creature by God 9. They that prophane Churches holy Utensils holy persons holy customes holy Sacraments 10 They that provoke others to swear voluntarily and by designe or incuriously or negligently when they might avoid it 11 They that swear to things uncertain and unknown IV. Comm. Remember that thou keep holy the S. day The duties of this Comm. are 1. To set apart some portions of our time for the immediate offices of religion and glorification of God 2. This to be done according as God or his holy Church hath appointed 3. One day in seven is to be set apart 4. The Christian day is to be subrogated into the place of the Jewes day the resurrection of Christ and redemption of man was a greater blessing then then to create him 5. God on that day to be worshipped and acknowledged as our Creator and as our Saviour 6. The day to be spent in holy offices in hearing Divine service publike prayers frequenting the Congregations hearing the word of God read or expounded reading good books meditations alms reconciling enmities remission of burdens and of offences of debts and of work friendly offices neighbourhood and provoking one another to good-works and to this end all servile works must be omitted excepting necessary and charitable offices to men or beasts to our selves or others They sin against this Comm. 1. That do or compell or intice others to do servile works without the cases of necessity or charity to be estimated according to common and prudent accounts 2. They that refuse or neglect to come to the publike assemblies of the Church to hear and assist at the divine offices intirely 3. They that spend the day in idlenesse forbidden or vain recreations or the actions of sin and folly 4. They that buy and sell without the cases of permission 5. They that travell unnecessary journeys 6 They that act or assist in contenâ—ions or law-suites markets fairs c. 7. They that on that day omit their private devotion unlesse the whole day be spent in publike 8. They that by any crosse or contradictory actions against the customes of the Church do purposely desecrate or unhallow and make the day common as they that in despite and contempt fast upon the Lords day lest they may celebrate the festivall after the manner of the Christians V. Com. Honour thy father and thy mother The duties are 1. To do honour and reverence and to love our natural parents 2. To obey all their domestic commands for in them the scene of their authority lies 3. To give them maintenance and support in their needs 4. To obey Kings and all that are in authority 5. To pay tribute and honours custome and reverence 6. To do reverence to the aged and all our betters 7. To obey our Masters spiritual governours and Guides in those things which concern their several respective interest and authority They sin against this commandment 1. That despise their parents age or infirmity 2. That are ashamed of their poverty and extraction 3. That publish their vices errours and infirmities to shame them 4. That refuse and reject all or any of their lawful commands 5. Children that marry without or against their consent when it may be reasonably obtained 6. That curse them from whom they receive so many blessings 7 That grieve the souls of their parents by not complying in their desires and observing their circumstances 8. That hate their persons that mock them or use uncomely jestings 9. That discover their nakednesse voluntarily 10. That murmure against their injunctions and obey them involuntarily 11. All Rebels against their Kings or the supream power in which it is legally and justly invested 12. That refuse to pay tributes and impositions imposed legally 13. They that disobey their Masters murmure or repine against their commands abuse or deride their persons talk rudely c. 14. They that curse the king in their heart or speak evil of the ruler of their people 15. All that are uncivil and rude towards aged persons mockers and scorners of them VI. Com. Thou shalt do no murder The duties are 1. To preserve our own lives the lives of our relatives and all with whom we converse or who can need us and we assist by prudent reasonable and wary defences advocations discoveries of snares c. 2. To preserve our health and the integrity of our bodies and mindes and of others 3. To preserve and follow peace with all men They sin against this Commandment 1. That destroy the life of a man or woman himself or any other 2. That do violence or dismember or hurt any part of the body with evil intent 3. That fight duels or commence unjust wars 4. They that willingly hasten their own or others death 5. That by oppression or violence imbitter the spirits of any so as to make their life sad and their death hasty 6. They that conceal the dangers of their neighbor which they can safely discover 7. They that sow strife and contention among neighbours 8. They that refuse to rescue or preserve those whom they can and are obliged to preserve 9. They that procure abortion 10 They that threaten or keep men in fears or hate them VII Com. Thou shalt not commit adultery The duties are 1. To preserve our bodies in the chastity of a single life or
pasport in the article of his death and calls thâ—s the ancient and canonicall law of the Church and to minister it onely supposes the man in the communion of the Church not alwayes in the state but ever in the possibilities of sanctification They who in the article and danger of death were admitted to the communion and tied to penance if they recovered which was ever the custome of the ancient Church unlesse in very few cases were but in the threshold of repentance in the commencement and first introductions to a devout life and indeed then it is a fit ministery that it be given in all the periods of time in which the pardon of sins is working since it is the Sacrament of that great mystery the exhibition of that blood which is shed for the remission of sins 9. The Minister of religion ought not to give the Communion to a sick person if he retains the affection to any sin and refuses to disavow it or professe repentance of all sins whatsoever if he be required to do it The reason is because it is a certain death to him and an increase of his misery if he shall so prophane the body and blood of Christ as to take it into so unholy a breast where Sathan reignes and sin is principall and the Spirit is extinguished and Christ loves not to enter because he is not suffered to inhabite But when he professes repentance and does such acts of it as his present condition permits he is to be presumed to intend heartily what he professes solemnly and the Minister is onely the Judge of outward act and by that onely he is to take information concerning the inward But whether he be so or no or if he be whether that be timely and effectuall and sufficient toward the pardon of sins before God is another consideration of which we may conjecture here but we shall know it at doomsday The spirituall man is to do his ministery by the rules of Christ and as the customs of the Church appoint him and after the manner of men the event is in the hands of God and is to be expected not directly and wholly according to his ministery but to the former life or the timely internall repentance and amendment of which I have already given accounts These ministeries are acts of order and great assistances but the sum of affairs does not relie upon them And if any man puts his whole repentance upon this time or all his hopes upon these ministeries he will find them and himself to fail 10. It is the Ministers office to invite sick and dying persons to the Holy Sacrament such whose lives were fair and laudable and yet their sicknesse sad and violent making them list-lesse and of slow desires and flower apprehensions that such persons who are in the state of grace may lose no accidentall advantages of spirituall improvement but may receive into their dying bodies the symboles and great consignations of the resurrection and into their soules the pledges of immortality and may appear before God their Father in the union and with the impresses and likenesse of their elder Brother But if the persons be of ill report and have lived wickedly they are not to be invited because their case is hugely suspicious though they then repent and call for mercy but if they demand it they are not to be denied onely let the Minister in generall represent the evil consequents of an unworthy participation and if the penitent will judge himself unworthy let him stand candidate for pardon at the hands of God and stand or fall by that unerring and mercifull sentence to which his severity of condemning himself before men will make the easier and more hopefull addresse And the strictest among the Christians who denied to reconcile lapsed persons after baptisme yet acknowledged that there were hopes reserved in the court of heaven for them though not here since we who are easily deceived by the pretences of a reall return are tied to dispense Gods graces as he hath given us commission with fear and trembling and without too forward confidences and God hath mercies which we know not of and therefore because we know them not such persons were referred to Gods Tribunal where he would finde them if they were to be had at all 11. When the holy Sacrament is to be administred let the exhortation be made proper to the mystery but fitted to the man that is that it be used for the advantages of faith or love or contrition let all the circumstances and parts of the Divine love be represented all the mysterious advantages of the blessed Sacrament be declared * That it is the bread which came from heaven * That it is the representation of Christs death to all the purposes and capacities of faith * and the real exhibition of Christs body and blood to all the puposes of the Spirit * That it is the earnest of the resurrection * and the seed of a glorious immortality * That as by our cognation to the body of the first Adam we took in death so by our union with the body of the second Adam we shall have the inheritance of life for as by Adam came death so by Christ cometh the resurrection of the dead * That if we being worthy Communicants of these sacred pledges be presented to God with Christ within us our being accepted of God is certain even for the sake of his well beloved that dwells within us * That this is the Sacrament of the body which was broken for our sinnes of that blood which purifies our souls by which we are presented to God pure and holy in the beloved * That now we may ascertain our hopes and make our faith confident for he that hath given us his Son how should not he with him give us all things else Upon these or the like considerations the sick man may be assisted in his addresse and his faith strengthened and his hope confirmed and his charity be enlarged 12. The manner of the sick mans reception of the holy Sacrament hath in it nothing differing from the ordinary solemnities of the Sacrament save onely that abatement is to be made of such accidentall circumstances as by the lawes or customes of the Church healthfull persons are obliged to such as fasting kneeling c. though I remember that it was noted for great devotion in the Legate that died at Trent that he caused himself to be sustained upon his knees when he received the viaticum or the holy Sacrament before his death and it was greater in Hunniades that he caused himself to be carried to the Church that there he might receive his Lord in his Lords house and it was recorded for honour that William the pious Arch-Bishop of Bourges a small time before his last agony sprang out of his bed at the presence of the holy Sacrament and upon