infelicity. Change or feparation of foul and body is but accidental to Death, Death may be with or without either: but the formality, the curfe and the fting of Death, that is, mifery, forrow, fear, diminution, detect, anguifh, difhonour, and whatfoever is miferable and afflictive in nature, that is Death. Death is not an action, but a whole ftate and condition; and this was firft brought in upon us by the offence of one man.

But this went no farther than thus to fubject us to temporal infelicity. If it had proceeded to as was fuppofed, Man had been much more miferable; for Man had more than one original fin in this fence: and though this death entred firft upon us by Adam's fault, yet it came nearer unto us and increafed upon us by the fins of more of our forefathers. For Adam's fin left us in ftrength enough to contend with humane calamities for almoft a thousand years together: But the fins of his children, our forefathers, took off from us half the ftrength about the time of the Flood; and then from 500 to 250, and from thence to 120, and from thence to threefcore and ten; fo often halfing it, till it is almoft come to nothing. But by the fins of men in the feveral generations of the World, Death, that is, mifery and disease, is haftned fo upon us, that we are of a contemptible age: and because we are to die by fuffering evils, and by the daily leffening of our strength and health, this death is fo long a doing, that it makes fo great a part of our fhort life ufelefs and unferviceable, that we have not time enough to get the perfection of a fingle manufacture, but ten or twelve generations of the world must go to the making up of one wife Man, or one excellent Art: and in the fucceffion of thofe ages there happen fo many changes and interruptions, fo many wars and violences, that feven years fighting fets a whole Kingdom back in learning and vertue, to which they were creeping it may be a whole age.

And thus alfo we do evil to our pofterity, as Adam did to his, and Cham did to his, and Eli to his, and

all

all they to theirs who by fins caufed God to shorten the life and multiply the evils of Mankind. And for this reafon it is the world grows worfe and worse, because so many original fins are multiplied, and fo many evils from Parents defcend upon the fucceeding generations of men, that they derive nothing from us but original mifery.

But he who reftored the Law of Nature, did alfo reftore us to the condition of Nature; which, being violated by the introduction of Death, Chrift then repaired when he fuffered and overcame Death for us: that is, he hath taken away the unhappiness of Sickness, and the fting of Death, and the difhonours of the Grave, of diffolution and weakness, of decay and change, and hath turned them into acts of favour, into inftances of comfort, into opportunities of vertue. Chrift hath now knit them into Rofaries and Coronets, he hath put them into promises and rewards, he hath made them part of the portion of his elect they are inftruments, and earnefts, and fecurities and paffages to the greateft perfection of humane nature, and the Divine promiles. So that it is poffible for us now to be reconciled to sickness ; it came in by fin, and therefore is cured when it is turned into vertue and although it may have in it the uneafinefs of labour; yet it will not be uneafie as fin, or the restlefsness of a difcompofed Confcience. If therefore we can well manage our state of fickness, that we may not fall by pain, as we ufually do by pleasure, we need not fear; for no evil fhall happen to us.

SECT. II.

Of the first Temptation proper to the state of Sickness, Impatience.

MEN that are in health are fevere exactours of

Patience at the hands of them that are fick; and they ufually judge it not by terms of relation between God and the fuffering man, but between him

and

and the friends that ftand by the bed-fide. It will be therefore neceffary that we truly understand to what duties and actions the patience of a fick man ought to extend.

ftu, gemitu,

voces refert.

1. Sighs and groans, forrows and prayers, humble Ejulatu, que complaints and dolorous expreffions, are the fad ac- fremitibus,recents of la fick man's language. For it is not to be fonando mulexpected that a fick man should act a part of Patience tum flebiles with a countenance like an Oratour, or grave like a Cic. Tufc. Dramatick perfon: it were well if all men could bear an exteriour decency in their fickness, and regulate their voice, their face, their difcourfe, and all their circumftances, by the measures and proportions of comeliness and fatisfaction to all the ftanders by. But this would better please them than affift them; the fick man would do more good to others than he would receive to himself.

2. Therefore filence, and ftill compofures, and not complaining are no parts of a fick man's duty, they are not neceffary parts of Patience. We find that Da- Conceden vid roared for the very difquietness of his fickness; and dum eft gehe lay chattering like a fwallow, and his throat was dry menti. with calling for help upon his God. That's the proper voice of fickness: and certain it is that the proper voices of ficknets are exprefly vocal and petitory in the cars of God, and call for pity in the fame accent as the cries and oppreffions of Widows and Orphans do for vengeance upon their perfecutors, though they fay no Collect against them. For there is the voice of a man, and there is the voice of the difeafe, and God hears both; and the louder the difeafe fpeaks, there is the greater need of mercy and pity, and therefore God will the fooner hear it. Abel's blood had a voice, and cried to God; and humility hath a voice, and cries fo loud to God that it pierces the clouds; and fo hath every forrow and every sickness: and when a man cries out, and complains but according to the forrows of his pain, it cannot be any part of a culpable Impatience, but an argument for pity.

Flagrantior quo Non debet dolor effe viri, nec Vulnere major.

Juven, Sat, 12.

3. Some mens fenfes are fo fubtile, and their per

ceptions

rum,

Sect. 2. ceptions fo quick and full of relish, and their spirits fo active, that the fame load is double upon them to what it is to another perfon, and therefore comparing the expreffions of the one to the filence of the other, a different Judgment cannot be made concerning their patience. Some natures are querulous, and melancholick, and foft, and nice, and tender, and weeping, and expreffive; others are fullen, dull, without apprehenfion, apt to tolerate and carry burthens: and the Crucifixion of our Blefied Saviour falling upon a delicate and virgin Body, of curious temper, and ftrict, equal compofition, was naturally more full of torment than that of the ruder thieves, whofe proportions were courfer and uneven.

4. In this cafe it was no imprudent advice which Omnino fi quicquam cft deco- Cicero gave: nothing in the world is nihil eft profectò magis more amiable than an even temper in quam æquabilitas univerfæ vitæ, our whole life, and in every action: tum fingularum actionum: quam autem confervâre non poffis fi abut this evennefs cannot be kept, unliorum naturam imitans omittas lefs every man follows his own na

tuam.

dendâ voce

omne corpus

ture, without ftriving to imitate the circumftances of another. And what is fo in the thing it felf, ought to be fo in our Judgments concerning the things. We muft not call any one impatient if he be not filent in a fever, as if he were afleep, as if he were dull, as Herod's fon of Athens.

5. Nature in fome cafes hath made cryings out and exclamations to be an entertainment of the fpirit, and an abatement or diverfion of the pain. For fo did the old champions, when they threw their fatal nets that they might load their enemy with Quia profun- the fnares and weights of death, they groaned aloud, and fent forth the anguifh of their fpirit into the intenditur, eyes and heart of the man that ftood against them. venitque pla-So it is in the endurance of fome fharp pains, the tor.Cic. Tufc. Complaints and fhriekings, the fharp groans and the tender accents fend forth the afflicted spirits, and force a way, that they may eate their oppreffion and their load, that when they have spent fome of their forrows by a fally forth, they may return better able to fortifie the heart. Nothing of this

ga vehemen

is a certain fign, much less an action or part of Impatience; and when our bleffed Saviour fuffered his laft and fharpeft pang of forrow, he cried out with a loud voice, and refolved to die, and did so.

SECT. III.

Conftituent or integral parts of Patience.

1. THat

Hat we may fecure our Patience, we must take care that our complaints be without Defpair. Defpair fins against the reputation of God's Goodness, and the efficacy of all our old experience. By Defpair we destroy the greatest comfort of our forrows, and turn our fickness into the state of Devils and perifhing Souls. No affliction is greater than Defpair: for that it is which makes hell-fire, and turns a natural evil into an intolerable; it hinders prayers, and fills up the intervals of fickness with a worse torture; it makes all fpiritual arts ufelefs, and the office of fpiritual comforters and guides to be impertinent.

Against this, Hope is to be oppofed: and its proper acts, as it relates to the vertue and exercife of Patience are, 1. Praying to God for help and remedy: 2. Sending for the guides of fouls: 3. Ufing all holy exercises and acts of grace proper to that ftate: which whofo does hath not the Impatience of Defpair; every man that is patient hath hope in God in the day of his forrows.

2. Our complaints in fickness must be without murmur. Murmur fins against God's Providence and Government: by it we grow rude, and, like the falling Angels, difpleafed at God's fupremacy; and nothing is more unreasonable: It talks against God, for whofe Glory all Speech was made; it is proud and phantaftick, hath better opinions of a finner than of the Divine Juftice, and would rather accufe God than himself.

Against this is opposed that part of Patience which refigns the man into the hands of God, faying with old Eli, It is the Lord, let him do what he will; and,

F

[Thy