 Dedication from Devotions Upon Emergence Occasions Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Dedication to the Most Excellent Prince, Prince Charles Most Excellent Prince I have had three births, one natural when I came into the world, one supernatural when I entered into the ministry, and now a preternatural birth in returning to life from this sickness. In my second birth, your highness royal father vouchsafed me his hand not only to sustain me in it, but to lead me to it. In this last birth, I myself am born a father. This child of mine, this book, comes into the world from me and with me. And therefore I presume, as I did the father to the father, to present the son to the son, this image of my humiliation, to the lively image of his majesty, your highness. It might be enough that God has seen my devotions, but examples of good kings are commandments, and Hezekiah ripped the meditations of his sickness after his sickness. Besides, as I have lived to see, not as a witness only, but as a partaker, the happiness of a part of your royal father's time, so shall I live in my way to see the happiness of the times of your highness too, if this child of mine, inanimated by your gracious acceptation, may so long preserve alive the memory of your highness' humblest and devotedest, John Dunn. These recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org, recording by Father Zeile of Detroit. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn. Insultus Morbiprimus The first alteration, the first grudging of the sickness. One, meditation, variable, and therefore miserable condition of man. This minute I was well, and am ill this minute. I am surprised with a sudden change in alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and air, and exercises, and we hew, and we polish every stone that goes to that building. And so our health is a long and irregular work, but in a minute a cannon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all. A sickness unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity, nay undeserved if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us, possesses us, destroys us in an instant. O miserable condition of man, which was not imprinted by God, who, as he is immortal himself, had put a coal, a beam of immortality into us, which we might have blown into a flame, but blew it out by our first sin. We beggared ourselves by harkening after false riches, and infatuated ourselves by harkening after false knowledge, so that now we do not only die, but die upon the rack, die by the torment of sickness, nor that only, but are pre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these jealousies and suspicions and apprehensions of sickness before we can call it a sickness. We are not sure we are ill. One hand asks the other by the pulse, and our eyes ask our own urine how we do. O multiplied misery, we die and cannot enjoy death, because we die in this torment of sickness. We are tormented with sickness, and cannot stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehensions and presages prophesy these torments, which induce that death before either come, and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes, quickened in the sickness itself, and born in death, which bears date from these first changes. Is this the honor which man hath by being a little world? That he hath these earthquakes in himself, sudden shakings, these lightnings, sudden flashes, these thunders, sudden noises, these eclipses, sudden obfuscations and darkening of his senses, these blazing stars, sudden fiery exaltations, these rivers of blood, sudden red waters. Is he a world to himself, only therefore, that he hath enough in himself, not only to destroy and execute himself, but to presage that execution upon himself, to assist the sickness, to endodate the sickness, to make the sickness the more irremedial by sad apprehensions, and as if he would make a fire more vehement by sprinkling water upon the coals, so to wrap a hot fever in cold melancholy, lest the fever alone should not destroy fast enough without his contribution, nor perfect the work which is destruction, except we joined an artificial sickness of our own melancholy to our natural or unnatural fever. O perplexed discomposition! O riddling distemper! O miserable condition of man! One, expostulation! If I were but mere dust and ashes, I might speak unto the Lord. For the Lord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lord's hand shall recollect these ashes. The Lord's hand was the wheel upon which this vessel of clay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the urn in which these ashes shall be preserved. I am the dust and the ashes of the temple of the Holy Ghost, and what marble is so precious, but I am more than dust and ashes. I am my best part. I am my soul. And being so the breath of God, I may breathe back these pious expostulations to my God. My God, my God, why is not my soul as sensible as my body? Why hath not my soul these apprehensions, these presages, these changes, these antedates, these jealousies, these suspicions of a sin, as well as my body of a sickness? Why is there not always a pulse in my soul to beat at the approach of a temptation to sin? Why are there not always waters in my eyes to testify my spiritual sickness? I stand in the way of temptations naturally, necessarily all men do so, for there is a snake in every path, temptations in every vocation, but I go, I run, I fly into the ways of temptation which I might shun. Nay, I break into houses where the plague is. I press into places of temptation, and tempt the devil himself, and solicit and importune them who hath rather be left unsolicited by me. I fall sick of sin, and embedded and berid, buried and putrefied in the practice of sin. And all this while have no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sickness. O height, O depth of misery where the first symptom of the sickness is hell, and where I never see the fever of lust, of envy, of ambition, by any other light than the darkness and horror of hell itself, and where the first messenger that speaks to me doth not say, Thou mayest die, no, nor thou must die, but thou art dead, and where the first notice that my soul hath of her sickness is irrecoverableness, irremediableness. But, oh my God, Job did not charge thee foolishly in his temporal afflictions, nor may I in my spiritual. Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our soul, but we do not examine it, a voice in our conscience, but we do not hearken unto it. We talk it out, we jest it out, we drink it out, we sleep it out, and when we wake we do not say with Jacob, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not, but though we might know it, we do not, we will not. But will God pretend to make a watch and leave out the spring, to make so many various wheels in the faculties of the soul and in the organs of the body and leave out grace that should move them? Or will God make a spring and not wind it up, infuse his first grace and not second it with more, without which we can no more use his first grace when we have it, than we could dispose ourselves by nature to have it? But alas, that is not our case. We are all prodigal sons and not disinherited. We have received our portion and misspent it, not been denied it. We are God's tenants here, and yet here he, our landlord, pays us rents. Not yearly nor quarterly, but hourly and quarterly. Every minute he renews his mercy, but we will not understand lest we should be converted and he should heal us. Matthew 13, verse 15 One prayer, O eternal and most gracious God, who considered in thyself, art a circle, first and last and altogether, but considered in thy working upon us art a direct line and leadest us from our beginning through all our ways to our end. Enable me by thy grace to look forward to mine end and to look backward too to the considerations of thy mercies afforded me from the beginning, that so by that practice of considering thy mercy in my beginning in this world when thou plantest me in the Christian church and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world when thou rightest me in the book of life in my election I may come to a holy consideration of thy mercy in the beginning of all my actions here, that in all the beginnings, in all the accesses and approaches of spiritual sickness of sin, I may hear and hearken to that voice O thou man of God, there is death in the pot 2 Kings 4, verse 40 and so refrain from that which I was so hungrily, so greedily flying to A faithful ambassador is health Proverbs 13, verse 17 says thy wise servant Solomon thy voice received in the beginning of a sickness of a sin is true health if I can see that light betimes and hear that voice early then shall my light break forth as the morning and my health shall spring forth speedily Isaiah 58, 8 deliver me therefore, O my God, from these vain imaginations that it is an over-curious thing, a dangerous thing to come to that tenderness, that rawness, that scrupulousness to fear every concupiscence, every offer of sin that this suspicious and jealous diligence will turn to an inordinate dejection of spirit and a diffidence in thy care and providence but keep me still established, both in a constant assurance that thou wilt speak to me at the beginning of every such sickness at the approach of every such sin and that if I take knowledge of that voice then and fly to thee thou wilt preserve me from falling or raise me again when by natural infirmity I am fallen do this, O Lord, for his sake who knows our natural infirmities for he had them and knows the weight of our sins for he paid a dear price for them thy Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ Amen End of Devotion 1 Recording by Father Zeile, Detroit, Michigan d-r-z-e-i-l-e dot net Recorded April 2009 Devotion 2 From Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Read by David Barnes Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Devotion 2 Post-Actio Liza The Strength and the Function of the Senses and Other Faculties Change and Fail Meditation The heavens are not the less constant because they move continually because they move continually one and the same way. The earth is not the more constant because it lies still continually because continually it changes and melts in all the parts thereof. Man, who is the noblest part of the earth melts so away as if he were a statue not of earth but of snow. We see his own envy melts him. He grows lean with that. He will say another's beauty melts him. But he feels that a fever does not melt him like snow but pour him out like lead, like iron, like brass melted in a furnace. It does not only melt him but calcine him, reduce him to atoms and to ashes, not to water but to lime. And how quickly? Sooner than thou canst receive an answer sooner than thou canst conceive the question. Earth is the centre of my body heaven is the centre of my soul. These two are the natural places of these two. But those go not to these two in an equal pace. My body falls down without pushing. My soul does not go up without pulling. Ascension is my soul's pace and measure but precipitation my body's. And even angels whose home is heaven and who are winged too yet had a ladder to go to heaven by steps. The sun which goes so many miles in a minute the stars of the firmament which go so very many more go not so fast as my body to the earth. In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease I feel the victory. In the twinkling of an eye I can scarce see. Instantly the taste is insipid and fatuous. Instantly the appetite is dull and desireless. Instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless and in an instant sleep which is the picture the copy of death is taken away that the original death itself may succeed and that so I might have death to the life. It was part of Adam's punishment in the sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread. It is multiplied to me I have earned bread in the sweat of my brows in the labour of my calling and I have it and I sweat again and again from the brow to the sole of the foot but I eat no bread I taste no sustenance miserable distribution of mankind where one half lacks meat and the other stomach expostulation David professes himself a dead dog to his king Saul 1 Samuel 24 verse 15 and so doth Mephibosheth to his king David 2 Samuel 9 verse 8 and yet David speaks to Saul and Mephibosheth to David No man is so little in respect of the greatest man as the greatest in respect of God for here in that we have not so much as a measure to try it by proportion is no measure for infinity he that hath no more of this world but a grave he that hath his grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buried in the same grave he that hath no grave but a dung hill he that hath no more earth but that which he carries but that which he is he that hath not that earth which he is but even in that is another's slave hath as much proportion to God as if all David's worth is and all the world's monarchs and all imaginations giants were needed and incorporated into one and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons of men to whom God had given the world and therefore how little so ever I be as God calls things that are not as though they were I who am as though I were not may call upon God and say my God, my God why comes thine anger so fast upon me why dost thou melt me, scatter me pour me like water upon the ground so instantly thou staidst for the first world in Noah's time, 120 years thou staidst for a rebellious generation in the wilderness forty years wilt thou stay no minute for me wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thy citation and thy judgment but one act thy summons, thy battle, thy victory, thy triumph all but one act and lead me captive nay, deliver me captive to death as soon as thou declarest me to be enemy and so cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard and for that question how long was he sick leave no other answer but that the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute my God, my God thou wast not want to come in whirlwinds but in soft and gentle air thy first breath breathed a soul into me and shall thy breath now blow it out thy breath in the congregation thy word in the church breathes communion and consolation here and consummation hereafter shall thy breath in this chamber breath dissolution and destruction divorce and separation surely it is not thou it is not thy hand the devouring sword, the consuming fire the winds from the wilderness the diseases of the body all that afflicted Job were from the hands of Satan it is not thou it is thou, thou my God who has led me so continually with thy hand from the hand of my nurse as that I know thou wilt not correct me but with thine own hand my parents would not give me over to a servant's correction nor my God to Satan's I am fallen into the hands of God with David and with David I see that his mercies are great to Samuel 24 verse 14 for by that mercy I consider in my present state not the haste and the dispatch of the disease in dissolving this body so much as the much more haste and dispatch which my God shall use in recollecting and reuniting this dust again at the resurrection then I shall hear his angels proclaim the Surgite mortui rise ye dead though I be dead I shall hear the voice the sounding of the voice and the working of the voice shall be all one and all shall rise there in a less minute than any one dies here prayer O most gracious God who pursuest and perfectest thine own purposes and does not only remember me by the first accesses of this sickness that I must die but inform me by this further proceeding therein that I may die now who has not only waked me with the first but called me up by casting me further down and clothed me with thyself by stripping me of myself and by dulling my bodily senses to the meats and eases of this world has wet and sharpened my spiritual senses to the apprehension of thee by what steps and degrees so ever it shall please thee to go in the dissolution of this body hasten, O Lord, that pace and multiply, O my God, those degrees in the exaltation of my soul toward thee now and to thee then my taste is not gone away but gone up to sit at David's table to taste and see that the Lord is good Psalm 34 verse 8 my stomach is not gone but gone up so far upwards toward the supper of the Lamb with thy saints in heaven as to the table to the communion of thy saints here on earth my knees are weak but weak therefore that I should easily fall to and fix myself long upon my devotions to thee a sound heart is the life of the flesh Proverbs 14 verse 30 and a heart visited by thee and directed by thee by that visitation is a sound heart there is no soundness in my flesh because of thine anger Psalm 38 verse 3 interpret thine own work and call this sickness correction and not anger and there is soundness in my flesh there is no rest in my bones because of my sin Psalm 38 verse 3 transfer my sins with which thou art so displeased upon him with whom thou art so well pleased Christ Jesus and there will be rest in my bones and oh my God who madeest thyself a light in a bush in the midst of these brambles and thorns of a sharp sickness appear unto me so that I may see thee and know thee to be my God applying thyself to me even in these sharp and thorny passages do this oh Lord for his sake who was not the less the king of heaven for thy suffering him to be crowned with thorns in this world End of devotion 2 Devotion 3 from devotions upon emergent occasions this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Andrew Coleman Devotions upon emergent occasions by John Dunn Devotion 3 Decupertus' secretary tandem The patient takes his bed Meditation a tribute but one privilege and advantage to man's body above other moving creatures that he is not as others groveling but of an erect of an upright form naturally built and disposed to the contemplation of heaven Indeed it is a thankful form and recompenses that soul which gives it with carrying that soul higher towards heaven other creatures look to the earth and even that is no unfit object no unfit contemplation for man for thither he must come but because man is not to stay there as other creatures are man in his natural form is carried to the contemplation of that place which is his home heaven this is man's prerogative but what state hath he in this dignity a fever can fillip him down a fever can depose him a fever can bring that head which yesterday carried a crown of gold five feet towards a crown of glory as low as his own foot today when God came to breathe into man the breath of life he found him flat upon the ground when he comes to withdraw that breath from him again he prepares him to it by laying him flat upon his bed scarce any prison so close that affords not the prisoner two or three steps the anchorites that barked themselves up in hollow trees and emuled themselves in hollow walls that perverse man that barrelled himself in a tub all could stand or sit and enjoy some change of posture a sick bed is a grave and all that the patient says there is but a varying of his own epitaph every night's bed is a type of the grave at night we tell our servants at what hour we will rise here we cannot tell ourselves at what day what week what month here the head lies as low as the foot the head of the people as low as they whom those feet trod upon and that hand that signed pardons is too weak to beg his own if he might have it for lifting up that hand strange fetters to the feet strange manacles to the hands when the feet and hands are bound so much the faster by how much the cords are slacker so much the less able to do their offices by how much more the sinews and ligaments are the looser in the grave I may speak through the stones in the voice of my friends and in the accents of those words which their love may afford my memory here I am my own ghost and rather affright my beholders than instruct them they conceive the worst of me now and yet fear worse they give me for dead now and yet wonder how I do when they wake at midnight and ask how I do tomorrow miserable and though common to all in human posture where I must practise my lying in the grave by lying still and not practise my resurrection by rising any more expostulation my God and my Jesus my Lord and my Christ my strength and my salvation I hear thee and I hearken to thee when thou rebukest thy disciples for rebuking them who brought children to thee suffer little children to come to me says thou Matthew 19 verse 13 is there a very a child than I am now I cannot say with thy servant Jeremy Lord I am a child and cannot speak but oh Lord I am a sucking child and cannot eat a creeping child and cannot go how shall I come to thee wither shall I come to thee to this bed I have this weak and childish forwardness too I cannot sit up and yet am loath to go to bed shall I find thee in bed oh have I always done so the bed is not ordinarily thy scene thy climate Lord does thou not accuse me does thou not reproach to me my former sins when thou layest me upon this bed is not this to hang a man at his own door to lay him sick in his own bed of wantonness when thou chidest us by thy prophet for lying in beds of ivory Amos 6 verse 4 is not thine anger vented not till thou changest our beds of ivory into beds of ebony David swears unto thee that he will not go up into his bed till he had built thee a house Psalm 132 verse 3 do go up into the bed denote strength and promise his ease but when thou sayest that thou wilt cast Jezebel into a bed thou makest thine own comment upon that thou callest the bed tribulation great tribulation Revelation 2 verse 22 how shall they come to thee whom thou hast nailed to their bed thou art in the congregation and I in a solitude when the Centurion's servant lay sick at home Matthew 8 verse 6 his master was feigned to come to Christ the sick man could not their friendly sick of the palsy and the four charitable men were feigned to bring him to Christ he could not come Matthew 8 verse 4 Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever and Christ came to her she could not come to him Matthew 8 verse 14 my friends may carry me home to thee in their prayers in the congregation thou must come home to me in the visitation of thy spirit and in the seal of thy sacrament but when I am cast into this bed my slack sinews are iron fetters and those thin sheets iron doors upon me and Lord I have loved the habitation of thine house and the place where thine honour dwelleth Psalm 26 verse 8 I lie here and say blessed are they that dwell in thy house Psalm 84 verse 4 but I cannot say I will come into thy house I may say in thy fear will I worship towards thy holy temple Psalm 5 verse 7 but I cannot say in thy holy temple and Lord the zeal of thy house eats me up Psalm 69 verse 9 as fast as my fever it is not a recusancy for I would come but it is annex communication I must not but Lord, thou art Lord of hosts and lovest action why callest thou me from my calling? in the grave no man shall praise thee in the door of the grave this sick bed no man shall hear me praise thee thou hast not opened my lips that my mouth might show thee thy praise but that my mouth might show forth thy praise but thine apostles fear takes hold of me that when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway 1 Corinthians 9 verse 27 and therefore am I cast down that I might not be cast away thou couldst take me by the head as thou didst Habakkuk and carry me so by a chariot as thou didst Elijah 2 Kings 2 verse 11 and carry me so but thou carest me thine own private way the way by which thou carest thy son who first lay upon the earth and prayed and then had his exultation as himself calls his crucifying and first descended into hell and then had his ascension there is another station indeed neither are stations but prostrations lower than this bed tomorrow I may be laid one story lower upon the floor the face of the earth and next day another story in the grave the womb of the earth as yet God suspends me between heaven and earth as a meteor I am not in heaven because an earthly body clogs me and I am not in the earth because a heavenly soul sustains me and it is thine own law oh God that if a man be smitten so by another as that he keep his bed though he die not he that hurt him must take care of his healing and recompense him Exodus 21 verse 18 thy hand strikes me into this bed and therefore if I rise again thou wilt be my recompense all the days of my life in making the memory of this sickness beneficial to me and if my body fall yet lower thou wilt take my soul out of this bath and present it to thy father washed again and again and again in thine own tears in thine own sweat in thine own blood prayer oh most mighty and most merciful God who though thou have taken me off of my feet has not taken me off of my foundation which is thyself who though thou have removed me from that upright form in which I could stand and see thy throne the heavens yet has not removed from me that light by which I can lie and see thyself who though thou have weakened my bodily knees that they cannot bow to thee has yet left me the knees of my heart which are bowed unto thee evermore as thou hast made this bed thine altar make me thy sacrifice and as thou makest thy son Christ Jesus the priest so make me his deacon to minister to him in a cheerful surrender of my body and soul to thy pleasure by his hands I come unto thee oh God my God I come unto thee so as I can come I come to thee by embracing thy coming to me I come in the confidence and in the application of thy servant David's promise that thou wilt make all my bed in my sickness Psalm 41 verse 3 all my bed that which waysoever I turn I may turn to thee and as I feel thy hand upon all my body so I may find it upon all my bed and see all my corrections and all my refreshings to flow from one and the same and all from thy hand as thou hast made these feathers thorns in the sharpness of this sickness so Lord make these thorns feathers again feathers of thy dove in the peace of conscience at in a holy recourse to thine ark to the instruments of true comfort in thy institutions in the ordinances of thy church forget my bed oh Lord as it has been a bed of sloth and worse than sloth take me not oh Lord at this advantage to terrify my soul with saying now I have met thee there where thou hast so often departed from me but having burnt up that bed by these vehement heats and washed that bed in these abundant sweats make my bed again oh Lord and enable me according to thy command to commune with mine own heart upon my bed and be still Psalm 4 verse 4 to provide a bed for all my former sins whilst I lie upon this bed and a grave for my sins before I come to my grave and when I have deposited them in the wounds of thy son to rest in that assurance that my conscience is discharged from further anxiety and my soul from further danger and my memory from further calamity do this oh Lord for his sake who did and suffered so much that thou mightest as well in thy justice as in thy mercy do it from me thy son our saviour Christ Jesus end of devotion 3 devotion 4 from devotions upon emergent occasions this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Andrew Coleman devotions upon emergent occasions by John Dunn devotion 4 MedeCosque Vocato the physician is sent for 4 meditation it is too little to call man a little world except God man is a diminutive to nothing man consists of more pieces more parts than the world than the world doth nay than the world is and if those pieces were extended and stretched out in man as they are in the world man would be the giant and the world the dwarf the world but the map and the man the world if all the veins in our bodies were extended to rivers and all the sinews to veins of mines and all the muscles that lie upon one another to hills and all the bones to quarries of stones and all the other pieces to the proportion of those which correspond to them in the world the air would be too little for this orb of man to move in the firmament would be but enough for this star 4 as the whole world hath nothing to which something in man doth not answer so hath man many pieces of which the whole world hath no representation enlarge this meditation upon this great world man so far as to consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces our creatures are our thoughts creatures that are born giants that reach from east to west from earth to heaven that do not only bestride all the sea and land but span the sun and firmament at once my thoughts reach all comprehend all inexplicable mystery I there creator am in a close prison in a sick bed anywhere and any one of my creatures my thoughts is with the sun and beyond the sun overtakes the sun and over goes the sun in one pace one step everywhere and then as the other world produces serpents and vipers malignant and venomous creatures and worms and caterpillars that endeavor to devour that world which produces them and monsters compiled and complicated of diverse parents and kinds so this world ourselves produces all these in us in producing diseases and sicknesses of all those sorts venomous and infectious diseases feeding and consuming diseases and manifold and entangled diseases made up of many several ones and can the other world name so many venomous so many consuming so many monstrous creatures as we can diseases of all these kinds oh miserable abundance oh beggarly riches how much do we lack of having remedies for every disease when as yet we have not names for them but we have a hercules against these giants these monsters that is the physician he musters up all the forces of the other world to suck at this all nature to relieve man we have the physician but we are not the physician here we shrink in our proportion sink in our dignity in respect of very mean creatures who are physicians to themselves the heart that is pursued and wounded they say nose and herb which being eaten throws off the arrow a strange kind of vomit the dog that pursues it though he be subject to sickness even proverbially knows his glass that recovers him and it may be true that the drugger is as near to man as to other creatures it may be that obvious and present symbols easy to be had would cure him but the apothecary is not so near him nor the physicians so near him as they too are to other creatures man has not that innate instinct to apply those natural medicines to his present danger as those inferior creatures have he is not his own apothecary his own physician as they are call back therefore thy meditation again and bring it down what's become of man's great extent and proportion when himself shrinks himself and consumes himself to a handful of dust what's become of his soaring thoughts his compassing thoughts when himself brings himself to the ignorance to the thoughtlessness of the grave his diseases are his own but the physician is not he has them at home but he must send for the physician for expostulation I have not the righteousness of Job but I have the desire of Job I would speak to the Almighty and I would reason with God Job 13.3 my God my God how soon wouldst thou have me go to the physician and how far wouldst thou have me go with the physician I know thou hast made the matter and the man and the art and I go not from thee when I go to the physician thou dost not make clothes before there was a shame of the nakedness of the body but thou dost make physic before there was any grudging of any sickness for thou dost imprint a medicinal virtue in many symbols even from the beginning dost thou mean that we should be sick when thou didst so when thou madest them no more than thou dost mean that we should sin when thou madest us thou forsoorst both but causest neither thou Lord promisest here trees whose fruit shall be from meat and their leaves for medicine Ezekiel 47.12 it is the voice of thy son wilt thou be made whole John 5.6 that draws from the patient a confession that he was ill and not make himself well and it is thine own voice is there no physician Jeremiah 8.22 that inclines us disposes us to accept thine ordinance and it is the voice of the wise man both for the matter physic itself the Lord hath created medicines out of the earth and he that is wise shall not abhor them Sirach 38.4 for the art and the person the physician cuteth off a long disease in all these voices thou sendest us to those helps which thou hast afforded us in that but wilt not thou avow that voice too he that hath sinned against his maker let him fall into the hands of the physician Sirach 38.15 and wilt not thou afford me an understanding of those words thou who sendest us for a blessing to the physician dost not make it a curse to us to go when thou sendest is not the curse rather in this that only he falls into the hands of the physician that casts himself wholly entirely upon the physician confides in him relies upon him attends all from him that spiritual physic which thou also hast instituted in thy church so to fall into the hands of the physician is a sin and a punishment of former sins so as Asa fell who in his disease sought not the lord but the physician 1 Chronicles 16.12 reveal therefore to me thy method oh lord see whether I have followed it that thou mayest have glory if I have and I pardon if I have not and help that I may thy method is in time of thy sickness be not negligent wherein wilt thou have my diligence expressed pray unto the lord and he will make the whole Sirach 38.9 oh lord I do I pray and pray thy servant David's prayer have mercy upon me oh lord for I am weak heal me oh lord for my bones are vexed Psalm 6.2 I know that even my weakness is a reason a motive to induce thy mercy and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health when art thou so ready when is it so seasonable to thee to commiserate as in misery but his prayer for health in season as soon as I am sick thy method goes further leave off from sin and order thy hands a right and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness Sirach 38.10 have I oh lord done so oh lord I have by thy grace I am come to a holy detestation of my former sin is there any more in thy method there is more give a sweet savor and a memorial of fine flower and make a fat offering as not being Sirach 38.11 and lord by thy grace I have done that sacrificed a little of that little which thou lentest me to them for whom thou lentest it and now in thy method and by thy steps I am come to that then give place to the physician for the lord hath created him let him not go from thee for thou has need of him Sirach 38.12 I send for the physician but I will hear him enter with those words of Peter Jesus Christ maketh thee hold Acts 9.34 I long for his presence but I look that the power of the lord should be present to heal me Luke 5.17 4. prayer oh most mighty and most merciful God who art so the God of health and strength as that without thee all health is but the fuel and all strength but the bellows of sin behold me under the vehemence of two diseases and under the necessity of two physicians authorised by thee the bodily and the spiritual physician I come to both as to thine ordinance and that in both cases thou hast afforded helped man by the ministry of man even in the new Jerusalem in heaven itself it has pleased thee to discover a tree which is a tree of life there but the leaves thereof are for the healing of the nations Revelation 22 2 life itself is with thee there for thou art life and all kinds of health wrought upon us here by thine instruments descend from thence thou woest have healed Babylon but she is not healed Jeremiah 51.9 take from me oh lord her perverseness her wilfulness her refactoriness and heal thy spirit sag in my soul heal me oh lord for I would be healed Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah his wound then went Ephraim to the Assyrian and sent to King Jerob yet could not he heal you nor cure you of your wound Hosea 5.13 keep me back oh lord from them who misprofess arts of healing the soul or of the body by means not imprinted by thee in the church for the soul not in nature for the body there is no spiritual health to be had by superstition nor bodily by witchcraft thou lord and only thou art lord of both thou in thyself art lord of both and thou in thy son art the physician the applyer of both with his stripes we are healed Isaiah 53.5 says the prophet there there before he was scourged we were healed with his stripes how much more shall I be healed now now when that which he has already suffered actually is actually and affictually applied to me is there anything incurable upon which that balm drops any veins so empty as that that blood cannot fill it thou promised to heal the earth to chronicles 7.14 but it is when the inhabitants of the earth pray that thou wouldst heal it thou promised to heal their waters but their Maori places and standing waters thou sayest there thou wilt not heal Ezekiel 47.11 my returning to any sin if I should return to the ability of sinning over all my sins again thou wouldst not pardon heal this earth oh my god by repentant tears and heal these waters these tears Luke 6.19 all the multitude no person incurable he healed them from all bitterness from all diffidence from all dejection by establishing my irremovable assurance in thee thy son went about healing all manner of sickness Matthew 4.23 no disease incurable none difficult he healed them in passing virtue went out of him and he healed all every whit John 7.23 as himself speaks he left no relics of the disease and will this universal physician pass by this hospital and not visit me not heal me not heal me wholly Lord I look not that thou should say by thy messenger to me as to Ezekiel behold I will heal thee and on the third day thou should go up to the house of the Lord 2 Kings 20 verse 5 I look not that thou should say to me as to Moses in Miriam's behalf when Moses would have had her healed recently if her father had but spit in her face should she not have been ashamed seven days let her be shut up seven days and then return Numbers 12 14 but if thou be pleased to multiply seven days and seven is infinite by the number of my sins and that is more infinite if this day must remove me till days shall be no more to seal to me my spiritual health in affording me the seals of thy church and for my temporal health prosper thine ordinance in their hands who shall assist in this sickness in that manner and in that measure as may most glorify thee and most edify those who observe the issues of thy servants to their own spiritual benefit End of Devotion 4 Devotion 5 from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions This is a LibriVox Recording All LibriVox Recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Elana Jordan Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Devotion 5 Solace A Dest A Dest The Physician Comes 5. Meditation As sickness is the greatest misery so the greatest misery of sickness is solitude when the affectiousness of the disease deters them who should assist from coming even the physician dares scarce come Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself mere vacuity the first agent God the first instrument of God nature will not admit nothing can be utterly empty but so near a degree towards vacuity as solitude to be but one they love not When I am dead and my body might infect they have a remedy they may bury me but when I am but sick and might infect they have no remedy but their absence in my solitude it is an excuse to them that are great and pretend and yet are loathe to come it is an inhibition to those who would truly come because they may be made instruments and pest-addux to the infection of others by their coming it is an outlawry an excommunication upon the patient and separates him from all offices not only of civility but of working charity a long sickness will weary friends at last but a pestilential sickness averts them from the beginning God himself would admit a figure of society as there is a plurality of persons and God though there be but one God and all his external actions testify a love of society and communion in heaven there are orders of angels and armies of martyrs and in that house many mansions in earth families, cities, churches, colleges all plural things unless either of these should not be company enough alone there is an association of both a communion of saints which makes the militant and triumphant church one parish so that Christ was not out of his dioces when he was upon the earth nor out of his temple when he was in our flesh God who saw that all he made was good came not so near seeing a defect in any of his works as when he saw that it was not good for man to be alone therefore he made him a helper and one that should help him so as to increase the number and give him her own more society angels who do not propagate nor multiply were made at first in an abundant number and so were the stars but for the things of this world their blessing was increase for I think I need not ask leave to think that there is no phoenix nothing singular nothing alone men that in here upon nature only are so far from thinking that there is anything singular in this world as that they will scarce think that this world itself is singular but that every planet and every star is another world like this they find reason to conceive not only a plurality in every species in the world but a plurality of worlds so that the abhorrors of solitude are not solitary for God and nature and reason concur against it now a man may counterfeit the plague in a vow and mistake a disease for religion by such a retiring and recluting of himself from all men as to do good to no man to converse with no man God hath two testaments two wills but this is a schedule and not of his a codicell and not of his not in the body of his testaments but interlined and post-scribed by others that the way to the communion of saints should be by such a solitude as excludes all doing of good here that is a disease of the mind as the height of an infectious disease of the body is solitude to be left alone for this makes an infectious bed equal nay worse than a grave that though in both I be equally alone in my bed I know it and feel it and shall not in my grave and this too that in my bed my soul is still in an infectious body and shall not in my grave be so five expostulation oh God my God thy son took it not ill at Martha's hands that when he said unto her thy brother Lazarus shall rise again John 1123 she expostulated it so far with him as to reply I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day for she was miserable by wanting him then take it not ill oh my God from me that though thou have ordained it for a blessing and for a dignity to thy people that they should dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations Numbers 23 9 because they should be above them and that they should dwell in safety alone Deuteronomy 33 8 free from the infestation of enemies yet I take thy leave to remember thee that thou has said two two are better than one and woe be unto him that is alone when he falleth Ecclesiastes 4 10 and so when he has fallen and laid in the bed of sickness too righteousness is immortal Wisdom 115 I know thy wisdom hath said so but no man though covered with the righteousness of thy son is immortal so as not to die for he who was righteousness itself to die I know that the son of righteousness thy son refused not may affected solitariness loneliness Matthew 1423 but at all times he was able to command more than the 12 legions of angels Matthew 2613 to his service and when he did not so he was far from being alone for I am not alone says he but I and the father that sent me John 816 I cannot fear but that I shall always be with thee and him but whether this disease may not alien and remove my friends so that they stand aloof from my sore and my kinsmen stand far off Psalm 3811 I cannot tell I cannot fear but thou wilt reckon with me from this minute in which be thy grace I see whether this understanding and this will and this memory may not decay to the discouragement and the ill interpretation of them that see that heavy change in me I cannot tell it was for thy blessed thy powerful son alone to tread the wine press alone and none of the people with him Isaiah 63 3 I am not able to pass the agony alone not alone without thee thou art thy spirit not alone without thine spiritual and temporal physicians are thine not alone without mine those whom the bands of blood or friendship have made mine are mine and if thou or thine or mine abandon me I am alone Elias himself fainted under that apprehension lo I am left alone First Kings 1414 and Martha murmured at that said to Christ Lord does not thou care that my sister hath left me to serve alone Luke 1040 neither could Jeremiah enter into his lamentations from a higher ground than to say how doth the city sit solitary that was full of people Lamentations 1 1 Oh my God it is the leper that thou has condemned to live alone Leviticus 13 46 have I such a leprosy in my soul alone alone without thee shall this come to such a leprosy in my body that I must die alone alone without them that should assist that should comfort me but comes not this expotulation to near a murmuring must I be concluded with that that Moses was commanded to come near the Lord alone Exodus 14 2 that solitariness and dereliction and abandoning of others disposes us best for God who accompanies us most alone may I not remember and apply to that though God came not to Jacob till he found him alone yet when he found him alone he wrestled with him and blamed him Genesis 32 24 and 25 that when in the dereliction and forsaking of friends and physicians a man is left alone to God God may so wrestle with this Jacob with this conscience as to put it out of joint and so appear to him as that he dares not look upon him face to face when as by way of reflection in the consolation of his temporal or spiritual servants and ordinances he durst if he were there but a faithful friend is the physic of life and they that fear the Lord shall find him Sirach 6 16 therefore have the Lord afforded me both in one person that physician who is my faithful friend 5 prayer O eternal and most gracious God who call us down fire from heaven upon the sinful cities but once and opened us the earth to swallow the murmurers but once and threw us down the taller of him upon sinners but once but for thy works of mercy repeat us them often and still work us by thine own patterns as thou broadest man into this world by giving him a helper fit for him here so whether it be thy will to continue me long thus or to dismiss me by death afford me the helps fit for both conditions either for my week stay here or my final transmigration from hence and if thou mayest receive glory by that way and by always thou mayest receive glory glorify thyself in preserving this body from such infections as might withhold those who would come or endanger them who do come and preserve this soul in the faculties thereof from all such distempers as might shake the assurance which myself and others have had that because thou hast loved me thou wouldst love me to my end and at my end open none of my doors not of my heart not of my ears not of my house to any supplanter that would enter to undermine me in my religion to thee in the time of my weakness or to defame me and magnify himself with false rumors of such a victory and surprise of me after I am dead be my salvation and plead my salvation and as thy triumphant shall be so let the militant church be assured that thou wast my God and I thy servant too and in my consummation bless thou the learning and the labors of this man whom thou sendest to assist me and since thou takest me by the hand and putest me into his hands for I come to him in thy name who in thy name comes to me since I clog not my hopes in him no nor my prayers to thee with any limited conditions but in wrap all in those two petitions thy kingdom come thy will be done prosper him and relieve me in thy way in thy time and in thy measure End of Devotion 5 Recording by Alana Jordan in St. Louis, Missouri Devotion 6 from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions This is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Alana Jordan Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Devotion 6 Med to it The Physician is Afraid 6. Meditation I observe the Physician with the same diligence as he the disease I see he fears and I fear with him I overtake him I overrun him in his fear and I go the faster because he makes his pace slow I fear the more he realizes his fear and I see it with the more sharpness because he would not have me see it he knows that his fear shall not disorder the practice and exercise of his art but he knows that my fear may disorder the effect and working of his practice as the ill affections of the spleen complicate and mingle themselves with every infirmity of the body and self in every action or passion of the mind and as wind in the body will counterfeit any disease and seem the stone and seem the gout so fear will counterfeit any disease of the mind it shall seem love a love of having and it is but a fear a jealous and suspicious fear of losing it shall seem valor but fear in an overvaluing of opinion and estimation and a fear of losing that a man that is not afraid of a lion is afraid of a cat not afraid of starving and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table presented to feed him not afraid of the sound of drums and trumpets and shot and those which they seek to drown the last cries of men and is afraid of some particular harmonious instrument so much afraid that as with any of these the enemy might drive this man otherwise valiant enough out of the field I know not what fear is nor I know not what it is I fear now I fear not the hastening of my death and yet I do fear the increase of the disease I should belie nature if I should deny that I fear this and if I should say that I fear death I should belie God my weakness is from nature who hath but her measure my strength is from God who possesses and distributes infinitely as then every cold air is not a damp every shivering is not a stupefication so every fear is not a fearfulness every declination is not a running away every debating is not a resolving every wish or not thus is not a murmuring nor a dejection though it be thus but as my physicians fear puts not him from his practice neither doth mine put me from receiving from God and man and myself spiritual and civil and moral assistances and consolations six expostulation my God my God I find in the book that fear is a stifling spirit a spirit of suffocation that ishbo sheth could not speak nor apply in his own defense to Abner because he was afraid second Samuel 311 it was thy servant Job's case too who before he could say anything to thee says of thee let him take his rod away from me and let not his fear find me then I would speak with him and not fear him but it is not so with me Job 934 shall a fear of thee take away my devotion to thee does thou command me to speak to thee and command me to fear thee and do these destroy one another there is no perplexity in thee my God no inextricableness in my clearness my son and my moon that directest me as well as in the night of adversity and fear as in my day of prosperity and confidence I must then speak to thee at all times but when must I fear thee at all times too when didst thou rebuke any petitioner with the name of important it thou has proposed to us a parable of a judge 18.1 that did justice at last because the client was important and troubled him but thou has told us plainly that thy use in that parable was not that thou was troubled with our importunities but as thou sayest there that we should always pray and to the same purpose thou proposes another Luke 11.5 that if I press my friend at midnight to lend me bread though he will not rise because I am his friend yet because of my importunity he will God will do this whensoever thou askest and never call it importunity pray in thy bed at midnight and God will not say I will hear thee tomorrow upon thy knees at thy bedside pray upon thy knees there then and God will not say I will hear thee on Sunday at church God is no dillatory God no fro-word God prayer is never unseasonable God is never asleep nor absent but oh my God can I do this and fear thee come to thee and speak to thee in all places at all hours and fear thee dare I ask this question there is more boldness let me do it though I fear thee I cannot do it except I fear thee so well has thou provided that we should always fear thee as that thou hast provided that we should fear no person but thee nothing but thee no men no whom the Lord is my help and my salvation whom shall I fear Psalm 27.1 great enemies not great enemies no enemies are great to them that fear thee fear not the people of this land for they are bread to you Numbers 14.9 they shall not only not eat us not eat our bread but they shall be our bread why should we fear them but for all this metaphorical bread victory over enemies that thought to devour us may we not fear literally and fear famine though we fear not enemies young lions do lack and suffer hunger but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing Psalm 34.10 never though it be well with them at one time may they not fear that it may be worse wherefore should I fear in the days of evil servant David though his own sin had made them evil he feared them not no not if this evil determine in death not though in a death not though in a death inflicted by violence by malice by our own desert fear not the sentence of death Syrac 41.3 if thou fear God thou art oh my God so far from admitting us that fear thee to fear others as that thou makest others to fear us as Herod feared John because he was a holy and a just man and observed him Mark 6.20 how fully then oh my abundant God how gently oh my sweet my easy God thus thou entangle me in any scruple arising out of the consideration of thy fear it is not this that which thou intendest when thou sayest the secret of the Lord is with them that fear him Psalm 2514 the secret the mystery of the right use of fear thus thou not mean this when thou sayest we shall understand the fear of the Lord Proverbs 2.5 have it and have benefit by it and stand under it be directed by it and not be dejected with it and thus thou not propose the church for our example when thou sayest the church of Judea walked in the fear of God Acts 9.31 they had it but did not sit down lazily nor fall down weakly nor sink under it there is a fear which weakens the faith because he was naked Genesis 3.10 they who have put off thee are a prey to all they may fear for thou will laugh when their fear comes upon them as thou has told them more than once Proverbs 1.26 and 10.24 and thou will make them fear where no cause of fear is as thou has told them more than once to Psalm 14.5 and 53.5 there is a fear that is a punishment of former wickednesses and induces more though some said of thy son Jesus Christ that he was a good man yet no man spake openly for fear of the Jews Joseph was his disciple but secretly for fear of the Jews John 7.13 19.38 and 29.19 the disciples kept some meetings but with doors shut for fear of the Jews oh my God thou give us fear for ballast to carry us steadily in all weathers but thou wouldest ballast us with such sand as should have gold in it with that fear which is thy fear for the fear of the Lord is his treasure Isaiah 33.6 the path lacks nothing that man can have nothing that God does give timorous men thou rebuke us why are ye fearful oh ye of little faith Matthew 8.26 such thou dismissed from thy service with scorn though of them there went from Gideon's army 22.000 3 such thou sendest farther than so thither from whence they never return the fearful and the unbelieving into that burning lake which is the second death Revelation 21.8 there is a fear and there is a hope which are equal abominations to thee for they were confounded because they hoped Job 6.20 says thy servant Job because they had misplaced miscentered their hopes they hoped and not in thee and such shall fear and not fear thee but in thy fear my God and my fear my God and my hope is hope and love and confidence and peace and every limb an ingredient of happiness and rapt for joy includes all and fear and joy consist together nay constitute one another the women departed from the sepulchre Matthew 28.8 the women who were made supernumerary apostles apostles to the apostles mothers of the church and of the fathers grandfathers of the church the apostles themselves the women angels of the resurrection went from the sepulcher with fear and joy they ran says the text and they ran upon those two legs with fear and joy and both was the right leg they joy in thee O Lord that fear thee and fear thee only who feel this joy in thee nay thy fear and thy love are inseparable still we are called upon in infinite places to fear God yet the commandment which is the root of all is thou shalt love the Lord thy God he doeth neither both he omits neither that does one therefore when thy servant David had said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom Psalm 111 10 and his son had repeated it again Proverbs 1.7 he that collects both calls this fear the root of wisdom and that it may embrace all he calls it wisdom 20 and 27 a wise man therefore is never without it never without the exercise of it therefore thou sentest Moses to thy people that they might learn to fear thee all the days of their lives Deuteronomy 4.10 not in heavy and calamitous but in good and cheerful days too for Noah who had the assurance of his deliverance prepared an ark for the saving of his house Hebrews 11.7 a wise man will fear in everything Sarac 18.27 and therefore though I pretend to no other degree of wisdom I am abundantly rich in this that I lie here possessed with that fear which is thy fear both that this sickness is thy immediate correction merely a natural accident and therefore fearful because it is a fearful thing to fall into thy hands and that this fear preserves me from all inordinate fear arising out of the infirmity of nature because thy hand being upon me thou will never let me fall out of thy hand 6. Prayer almost mighty God and merciful God the God of all true sorrow and true joy too of all fear and of all hope too as thou hast given me a repentance not to be repented of so give me O Lord a fear of which I may not be afraid give me tender and supple conformable affections that as I joy with them that joy and mourn with them that mourn so I may fear with them that fear and since thou hast felt safe to discover to me in his fear whom thou hast admitted to be my assistance in this sickness that there is danger therein let me not O Lord go about to overcome the sense of that fear so far as per pretermit the fitting and preparing of myself for the worst that may be feared thy blessed martyrs have passed out of this life without any show of fear but thy most blessed son himself did not so thy martyrs were known to be but men and therefore it pleased thee to fill them with thy spirit and thy power in that they did more than men thy son was declared by thee and by himself to be God and it was requisite to bear himself to be man also in the weaknesses of man let me not therefore O my God be ashamed of these fears but let me feel them to determine where his fear did in a presence submitting of all to thy will and when thou shalt have inflamed and thawed my former coldnesses and in devotions with these heats and quenched my former heats with these sweats and in donations I rectified my former presumptions and negligences with these fears be pleased O Lord as one made so by thee to think me fit for thee and whether it be thy pleasure to dispose of this body this garment so as to put it in a farther wearing in this world or to lay it up in the common wardrobe the grave for the next glorify thyself in thy choice now glorify it then with that glory which thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ hath purchased for them whom thou makest partakers of his resurrection. Amen. End of Devotion 6 Recording by Elena Jordan in St. Louis, Missouri Devotion 7 From Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Father Zeile of Detroit Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Devotion 7 Socio Sibi Jungier in St. The physician desires to have others joined with him. Meditation 7 There is more fear therefore more cause. If the physician desire help the burden grows great. There is a growth of the disease then but there must be an autumn too. But whether an autumn of the disease or me it is not my part to choose. But if it be of me it is of both. My disease cannot survive me. I may overlive it. How so ever his desiring of others argues his candor and his ingenuity. If the danger be great he justifies his proceedings and he disguises nothing that calls in witnesses. And if the danger be not great he is not ambitious that is so ready to divide the thanks and the honor of that work which he begun alone with others. It diminishes not the dignity of a monarch that he derived part of his care upon others. God hath not made many sons but he hath made many bodies that receive and give light. The Romans began with one king they came to two consuls they returned in extremities to one dictator whether in one or many the sovereignty is the same in all states and the danger is not the more and the providence is the more where there are more physicians as the state is the happier where businesses are carried by more councils than can be in one breast how large so ever diseases themselves hold consultations and conspire how they may multiply and join with one another and exalt one another's force so and shall we not call physicians to consultations? Death is in an old man's door he appears and tells him so and death is at a young man's back nothing age is a sickness and youth is an ambush and we need so many physicians as may make up a watch and spy every inconvenience there is scarce anything that hath not killed somebody a hare a feather hath done it nay that which is our best antidote against it hath done it the best cordial hath been deadly poisoned men hath died of joy and almost forbidden their friends to weep for them when they have seen them die laughing even that tyrant Dionysius I think the same that suffered so much after who could not die of that sorrow of that high fall from a king to a wretched and so poor a joy as to be declared by the people at a theater that he was a good poet we say often that a man may live of a little but alas of how much less may a man die and therefore the more assistance the better who comes to a day of hearing in a cause of any importance with one advocate in our funerals we ourselves have no interest there we cannot advise we cannot direct and those some nations the Egyptians in particular built themselves better tombs than houses because they were to dwell longer in them yet amongst ourselves the greatest man of style whom we have had the conqueror was left as soon without persons to assist at his grave but without a grave who will keep us then we know not as long as we can let us admit as much help as we can another and another physician is not another and another indication and symptom of death but another and another assistant and proctor of life nor do they so much imagination with apprehension of danger as the understanding with comfort let not one bring learning another diligence another religion but every one bring all and as many ingredients enter into a receipt so may many men make the receipt but why do I exercise my meditation so long than this of having plentiful help in time of need is not my meditation rather to be inclined another way to condole and commiserate their distress who have none how many are sicker perchance than I and laid in their woeful straw at home if that corner be a home and have no more hope though they die than of preferment though they live nor do more expect to see a physician then to be an officer after of whom the first that takes knowledge is the sexton that buries them who buries them in oblivion too for they do but fill up the number of the dead in the bill but we shall never hear their names till we read them in the book of life with our own how many are sicker perchance than I and thrown into hospitals where as a fish left upon the sand must stay the tide they must stay the physicians our visiting and then can be but visited how many are sicker perchance than all we and have not this hospital to cover them not this straw to lie in to die in but have their gravestone under them and breathe out their souls in the ears and in the eyes of passengers harder than their bed the flint of the street that taste of no part of our physic but a sparing diet to whom ordinary porridge would be julep enough the refuse of our servants bizarre enough and the off scouring of our kitchen tables cordial enough oh my soul when thou art not enough awake to bless thy God enough for his plentiful mercy and affording thee many helpers remember how many lack them and help them to them or to those other things which they lack as much as them seventh expostulation my God, my God thy blessed servant Augustine begged of thee that Moses might come and tell him what he meant by some places of Genesis may I have leave to ask of that spirit that writ that book why when David expected news from Joab's army 2 Samuel 18 verse 25 and that the watchman told him that he saw a man running alone David concluded out of that circumstance that if he came alone he brought good news footnote so all but our translation takes it even Bookstore and Schindler end footnote I see the grammar the word signifies so it is so ever accepted good news but I see not the logic nor the rhetoric how David would prove or persuade that his news was good because he was alone except a greater company might have made great impressions of danger by imploring an importuning present supplies how so ever that be I am sure that that which thy apostle only Luke is with me 2 Timothy 4 verse 11 Luke and nobody but Luke hath a taste of complaint and sorrow in it though Luke want no testimony of ability of forwardness of constancy and perseverance in assisting that great building which Saint Paul labored in yet Saint Paul is affected with that that there was none but Luke to assist we take Saint Luke to have been a physician and it admits the application the better that in the presence of one good physician we may be glad of more it was not only a civil spirit of policy or order that moved Moses father-in-law to persuade him to divide the burden of government and judicature with others and take others to his assistance Exodus 18 verse 13 but it was also thy immediate spirit oh my God that moved Moses to present unto thee 70 of the elders of Israel Numbers 11 verse 16 to receive of that spirit which was upon Moses only before such a portion as might ease him in the government of that people though Moses alone had endowments above all thou gavest him other assistance I consider thy plentiful goodness oh my God in employing angels more than one in so many of thy remarkable works of thy son thou sayest let all the angels of God worship him Hebrews 1 verse 6 if that be in heaven upon earth he says that he could command 12 legions Matthew 26 verse 53 and when heaven and earth shall be all one at the last day thy son oh God the son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him Matthew 25 verse 31 the angels that celebrated his birth to the shepherds Luke 2 verses 13 and 14 the angels that celebrated his second birth his resurrection to the Mary's John 20 verse 12 were in the plural angels associated with angels in Jacob's Ladder Genesis 28 verse 12 they who ascended and descended and maintained the trade between heaven and earth between thee and us they who have the commission and charge to guide us Matthew 11 they who hastened lot Genesis 19 verse 15 and in him us from places of danger and temptation they who are appointed to instruct and govern us in the churches here Revelation 120 they who are sent to punish the disobedient and refractory Revelation 8 verse 2 that they are to be mowers and harvestmen Revelation 13 verse 39 after we are grown up in one field the church at the day of judgment they that are to carry our souls wither they carried Lazarus Luke 16 verse 22 they who attended at the several gates of the New Jerusalem Revelation 21 verse 12 to admit us there all these who administer to thy servants from to their last are angels angels in the plural in every service angels associated with angels the power of a single angel we see in that one who in one night destroyed almost 200,000 in Sennacherib's army 2 Kings 19 verse 35 yet thou often employest many as we know the power of salvation is abundantly in any one evangelist and yet thou hast afforded us for thy son proclaims of himself that the spirit hath anointed him to preach the gospel Luke 4 verse 18 yet he hath given others for the perfecting of the saints in the work of the ministry Ephesians 4 verse 12 thou hast made him bishop of our souls 1 Peter 2 verse 25 but there are others bishops too he gave the Holy Ghost John 20 verse 22 and others gave it also thy way oh my God and oh my God thou lovest to walk in thine own ways for they are large thy way from the beginning is multiplication of thy helps and therefore it were a degree of ingratitude not to accept this mercy of affording me many helps for my bodily health as a type and earnest of thy gracious purpose now and ever to afford me the same assistances that for thy great help thy word I may seek that not from comers nor conventicals nor schismatical singularities but from the association and communion of thy Catholic Church and those persons whom thou hast always furnished that church with all and that I may associate thy word with thy sacrament thy seal with thy patent and in that sacrament associate the sign with the thing signified the bread with the body of thy son so as I may be sure to have received both and to be made thereby as thy blessed servant Augustine says the ark and the monument and the tomb of thy most blessed son that he and all the merits of his death may by that receiving be buried in me to my quickening in this world and my immortal establishing in the next seventh prayer O eternal and most gracious God who gave us to thy servants in the wilderness thy manna bread so conditioned qualified so as that to every man manna tasted like that which man liked best I humbly beseech thee to make this correction which I acknowledge to be part of the bread to taste so to me not as I would but as thou wouldest have it taste and to conform my taste and make it agreeable to thy will thou wouldst have thy corrections taste of humiliation but thou wouldst have them taste of consolation too taste of danger but taste of assurance too and as therefore thou hast imprinted in all thine elements of which our bodies consist to manifest qualities so that as thy fire dries so it heats too and as thy water moists so it cools too so O Lord in these corrections which are the elements of our regeneration by which our souls are made thine thy two qualities those two operations that as they scourge us they may scourge us into the way to thee that when they have showed us that we are nothing in ourselves they may also show us that thou art all things unto us when therefore in this particular circumstance O Lord that none of thy judgments are circumstances they are all of all substance of thy good purpose upon us when in this particular that he whom thou hast sent to assist me desires assistance to him thou hast let me see in how few hours thou canst throw me beyond the help of man let me by the same light no vehemence of sickness no temptation of Satan no guiltiness of sin no prison of death not this first this sick bed not the other prison the close and dark grave can remove me from the determined and good purpose which thou hast sealed concerning me let me think no degree of this thy correction casual or without signification but yet when I have read it in that language as a correction let me translate it into another and read it as a mercy and which of these is the original and which is the translation whether thy mercy or thy correction were thy primary and original intention in this sickness I cannot conclude my death or as it must necessarily appear to be a correction so I can have no greater argument of thy mercy than to die in thee and by that death to be united to him who died for me end of devotion 7 recording by father xyle holy week 2009