 Devotion 8 from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn. Devotion 8 at Rex Ipsesul Mithit. The king sends his own physician. The Eighth Meditation Still when we return to that meditation that man is a world we find new discoveries. Let him be a world and himself will be the land and misery the sea. His misery for misery is his, his own, of the happiness even of this world he is but tenant, but of misery the freeholder, of happiness he is but the farmer, but the use of fructury, but of misery the lord, the proprietary. His misery as the sea swells above all the hills and reaches to the remotest parts of this earth man, who of himself is but dust and coagulated and needed into earth by tears. His matter is earth, his form misery. In this world that is mankind the highest ground, the eminentest hills are kings and have they line and lead enough to fathom this sea and say my misery is but this deep? Scarce any misery equal to sickness and they are subject to that equally with their lowest subject. A glass is not the less brittle because a king's face is represented in it nor a king the less brittle because God is represented in him. They have physicians continually about them and therefore sickness or the worst of sickness continual fear of it. Are they gods? He that called them so cannot flatter. They are gods but sick gods. And God is presented to us under many human affections as far as infirmities. God is called angry and sorry and weary and heavy but never a sick God. But then he might die like men as our gods do. The worst that they could say and reproach and scorn of the gods of the heathen was that perchance they were asleep. But gods that are so sick as that they cannot sleep are in an infirmar condition. A god and need of physician, a Jupiter and need an Escalapius that must have rhubarb to purge his collar lest he be too angry and agaric to purge his phlegm lest he be too drowsy that as Tertullian says of the Egyptian gods plants and herbs that God was beholden to man for growing in his garden. So we must say of these gods their eternity and eternity of three score and ten years is in the apothecary shop and not in the metaphorical deity. But their deity is better expressed in their humility than in their height. When abounding and overflowing as God in means of doing good they descend as God to a communication of their abundances with men according to their necessities, then they are gods. No man is well that understands not, that values not his being well, that hath not a cheerfulness and a joy in it. And whosoever hath this joy hath a desire to communicate to propagate that which occasions his happiness and his joy to others. For every man loves witnesses of his happiness and the best witnesses are experimental witnesses, they who have tasted of that in themselves which makes us happy. It consumates therefore, it perfects the happiness of kings to confer, to transfer honors and riches and as they can, health upon those who need them. Eighth Expostulation My God, my God, I have a warning from the wise man that when a rich man speaketh every man holdeth his tongue and look what he sayeth they extol it to the clouds. But if a poor man speak they say, What fellow is this? And if he stumble they will help to overthrow him. Sirach 13, verse 23 Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errors aggravated if I offer to speak of kings. But not by thee, oh my God, because I speak of them as they are in thee and of thee as thou art in them. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently or irreverently of thee that give themselves that liberty in speaking of thy vice-regents kings. For thou who gaveest Augustus the empire gaveest it to Nero too. And as Vespasian had it from thee, so had Julian. Though kings deface in themselves thy first image in their own soul, thou giveest no man leave to deface thy second image, imprinted indelibly in their power. But thou knowest, oh God, that if I should be slack in celebrating thy mercies to me, exhibited by that royal instrument my sovereign, to many other faults that touch upon allegiance, I should add the worst of all in gratitude, which constitutes an ill man, and faults which are defects in any particular function are not so great as those that destroy our humanity. It is not so ill to be an ill subject as to be an ill man, for he hath an universal illness, ready to flow and pour out itself into any mold, any form, and to spend itself in any function. As therefore thy Son did upon the coin, I look upon the king, and I ask whose image and whose inscription he hath, and he hath thine. And I give unto thee that which is thine. I recommend his happiness to thee in all my sacrifices of thanks, for that which he enjoys, and in all my prayers for the continuance and enlargement of them. But let me stop, my God, and consider, will not this look like a piece of art and cunning to convey into the world an opinion that I were more particular in his care than other men, and that herein, in a show of humility and thankfulness, I magnify myself more than there is cause. But let not that jealousy stop me, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thy mercy exhibited by him. This which he doth now, in assisting so my bodily health, I know is common to me with many. Many, many have tasted of that expression of his graciousness, where he can give health by his own hands, he doth, and to more than any of his predecessors have done. Therefore hath God reserved one disease for him that he only might cure it, though perchance not only by one title and interest, nor only as one king. To those that need it not, in that kind, and so cannot have it by his own hand, he sends a donative of health in sending his physician. The Holy King St. Louis in France, and our Maude, is celebrated for that, that personally they visited hospitals and assisted in the cure even of loathsome diseases. And when that religious empress, Placilla, the wife of Theodosius, was told that she diminished herself too much in those personal assistances and might do enough in sending relief, she said she would send in that capacity as a Christian, as a fellow member of the body of thy son with them. So thy servant David applies himself to his people, so he incorporates himself in his people by calling them his brethren, his bones, his flesh. 2 Samuel 19 verse 12 And when they fell under thy hand even to the preter meeting of himself, he presses upon thee by prayer for them, I have sinned, but these sheep, what have they done? Let thine hand I pray thee be against me and against my father's house. 2 Samuel 24 verse 17 It is kingly to give when Arana gave that great and free present to David, that place, those instruments for sacrifice and the sacrifices themselves, it is said there by thy spirit all these things did Arana give as a king to the king. 2 Samuel 24 verses 22 and 23 To give is an approaching to the condition of kings but to give health an approaching to the king of kings, to thee. But this his assisting to my bodily health, thou knowest, O God, and so do some others of thine honorable servants know, is but the twilight of that day wherein thou, through him, hast shined upon me before. But the echo of that voice whereby thou, through him, hast spoke to me before, then when he, first of any man, conceived a hope that I might be of some use in thy church, and descended to an intimation, to a persuasion, almost to a solicitation, that I would embrace that calling. And thou, who hath put that desire into his heart, didst also put into mine an obedience to it. And I, who was sick before of a vertiginous skittiness and irresolution, and almost spent all my time in consulting how I should spend it, was by this man of God, and God of men, put into the pool and recovered. When I asked perchance a stone, he gave me bread. When I asked perchance a scorpion, he gave me a fish. When I asked a temporal office, he denied not, refused not that, but let me see that he had rather I took this. These things thou, O God, who forgettest nothing, hast not forgot, though perchance he, because they were benefits hath. But I am not only a witness, but an instance, that our Jehoshaphat hath a care to ordain priests, as well as judges. 2 Chronicles 19, verse 8. And not only to send physicians for temporal, but to be the physician for spiritual health. The 8th Prayer O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou have reserved thy treasure of perfect joy and perfect glory, to be given by thine own hands, then, when, by seeing thee as thou art in thyself, and knowing thee as we are known, we shall possess in an instant, and possess for ever all that can anyway conduce to our happiness. Yet here also in this world giveest us such earnests of that full payment, as by the value of the earnest we may give some estimate of the treasure. Humbly and thankfully I acknowledge that thy blessed spirit instructs me to make a difference of thy blessings in this world by that difference of the instruments by which it hath pleased thee to derive them unto me. As we see thee here in a glass, so we receive from thee here by reflection and by instruments. Even casual things come from thee, and that which we call fortune here hath another name above. Nature reaches out her hand and gives us corn and wine and oil and milk. But thou fillest her hand before and thou openest her hand that she may rain down her showers upon us. Industry reaches out her hand to us and gives us fruits of our labor for ourselves and our posterity. But thy hand guides that hand when it sows and when it waters, and the increase is from thee. Friends reach out their hands and prefer us, but thy hand supports that hand that supports us. Of all these thy instruments have I received thy blessing, O God, but bless thy name most for the greatest, that as a member of the public and as a partaker of private favors too by thy right hand, thy powerful hand set over us, I have had my portion not only in the hearing but in the preaching of thy gospel. Humbly beseeching thee, that as thou continuous thy wanted goodness upon the whole world by the wanted means and instruments, the same sun and moon, the same nature and industry, so to continue the same blessings upon this state and this church by the same hand. So long as that thy son, when he comes in the clouds, may find him or his son, or his son's sons ready to give an account and able to stand in that judgment for their faithful stewardship and dispensation of thy talents so abundantly committed to them. And be to him, O God, in all distempers of his body, in all anxieties of spirit, in all holy sadnesses of soul, such a physician in thy proportion, who are the greatest in heaven, as he hath been in soul and body to me, in his proportion, who is the greatest upon earth. Love, Devotion 8 Recording by Father Ziley on Holy Saturday, 2009. Devotion 9 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 Ziley of Detroit. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn. Devotion 9 Medi Kamina Scribhunt Upon their consultation they prescribe. Ninth Meditation They have seen me and heard me, arraigned me in these fetters and received the evidence. I have cut up my own anatomy, dissected myself, and they are gone to read upon me. O how manifold and perplexed a thing, nay how wanton and various a thing is ruin and destruction. God presented to David three kinds, war, famine and pestilence. Satan left out these and brought in fires from heaven and winds from the wilderness. If there were no ruin but sickness, we see the masters of that art can scarce number not name all sicknesses. Everything that disorders a faculty and the function of that is a sickness. The names will not serve them which are given from the place affected. The plurisy is so, nor from the effect which it works. The falling sickness is so. They cannot have names enough from what it does nor where it is. But they must extort names from what it is like, what it resembles, but in some one thing or else they would lack names. For the wolf and the canker and the polypus are so. And that question, whether there be more names or things, is as perplexed in sicknesses as in anything else, except it be easily resolved upon that side for sicknesses than names. If ruin were reduced to that one way that man could perish, no way but by sickness, yet his danger were infinite. And if sickness were reduced to that one way that there were no sickness but a fever, yet the way were infinite still. For it would overload and oppress any natural disorder and discompose any artificial memory to deliver the names of several fevers. How intricate a work, then, have they who are gone to consult which of these sicknesses mine is and then which of these fevers and then what it would do and then how it may be countermined. But even in ill it is a degree of good when the evil will admit consultation. In many diseases that which is but an accident but a symptom of the main disease is so violent that the physician must attend the cure of that though he preterm it so far as to intermittent the cure of the disease itself. Is it not so in states too? Sometimes the insolency of those that are great puts the people into commotions. The great disease and the greatest danger to the head is the insolency of the great ones and yet they execute martial law. They come to present executions upon the people whose commotion was indeed but a symptom but an accident of the main disease. But this symptom, grown so violent, would allow no time for a consultation. Is it not so in the accidents of the diseases of our minds too? Is it not evidently so in our affections, in our passions? If a choleric man be ready to strike must I go about to purge his collar or to break the blow? But where there is room for consultation things are not desperate. They consult so there is nothing rashly inconsiderately done and then they prescribe. They write so there is nothing covertly disguisedly, unavowedly done. In bodily diseases it is not always so. Sometimes as soon as the physician's foot is in the chamber his knife is in the patient's arm. The disease would not allow a minutes for bearing of blood nor prescribing of other remedies. In states and matter of government it is so too. They are sometimes surprised with such accidents as that the magistrate asks not what may be done by law but does that which must necessarily be done in the case. But it is a degree of good and evil, a degree that carries hope and comfort in it when we may have recourse to that which is written and that the proceedings may be appart and ingenuous and candid and avowable for that gives satisfaction and acquiescence. They who have received my anatomy of myself and end their consultation in prescribing and in prescribing physics proper and convenient remedy for if they should come in again and chide me for some disorder that had occasioned and induced or that had hastened and exalted this sickness or if they should begin to write now rules for my diet and exercise when I were well this were to antidate or to post-date their consultation not to give physics. It were rather a vexation than a relief to tell a condemned prisoner you might have lived if you had done this and if you can get your pardon you shall do well to take this or this course hereafter. I am glad they know I have hid nothing from them glad they consult they hid nothing from one another glad they write they hide nothing from the world glad that they write and prescribe physics that there are remedies for the present case ninth expostulation my God, my God allow me a just indignation a holy detestation of the insolency of that man who because he was of that high rank of whom thou hast said they are gods thought himself more than equal to thee that king of Aragon Alphonsus so perfect in the motions of the heavenly bodies as that he had ventured to say that if he had been of counsel with thee in the making of the heavens the heavens should have been disposed in a better order than they are the king Amaziah would not endure thy prophet to reprehend him but asked him in anger art thou made of the king's counsel 2 Chronicles 25 verse 16 when thy prophet Isaiah asked that question who hath directed the spirit of the Lord or being his counselor hath taught him Isaiah 42 13 it is after he had settled and determined that office upon thy son and him only when he joins with those great titles the mighty God and the Prince of Peace also the counselor Isaiah 9 verse 6 and after he had settled upon him the spirit of might and of counsel Isaiah 11 verse 2 so that then thou, O God though thou have no counsel from man yet thus nothing upon man without counsel in the making of man there was a consultation let us make man Genesis 1 verse 26 in the preserving of man O thou great preserver of men Job 7 verse 20 thou proceedest by counsel for all thy external works are the works of the whole trinity and their hand is to every action how much more must I apprehend that all you blessed and glorious persons of the trinity are in consultation now what you will do with this infirm body with this leprous soul that attends guiltily but yet comfortably your determination upon it I offer not to counsel them who meet in consultation for my body now but I open my infirmities I anatomize my body to them so I do my soul to thee O my God in an humble confession that there is no vain in me that is not full of the blood of thy Son whom I have crucified and crucified again by multiplying many and often repeating the same sins that there is no archery in me that hath not the spirit of error the spirit of lust the spirit of giddiness in it 1 Timothy 4 verse 1 Hosea 4 verse 12 Isaiah 19 verse 14 no bone in me that is not hardened with the custom of sin and nourished and suppled with the marrow of sin no sinews, no ligaments that do not tie and chain sin and sin together yet O blessed and glorious trinity thou holy and whole college and yet but one physician if you take this confession into a consultation my case is not desperate my destruction is not decreed if your consultation determine in writing if you refer me to that which is written you intend my recovery for all the way O my God ever constant to thine own ways thou hast proceeded openly intelligibly manifestly by the book from thy first book the book of life never shut to thee but never thoroughly open to us from thy second book the book of nature where though sub-obscurely and in shadows thou hast expressed thine own image from thy third book the scriptures where thou hast written all in the old and then lighted us a candle to read it by in the New Testament to these thou hast added the book of just and useful laws established by them to whom thou hast submitted thy people to those the manuals the pocket the bosom books of our own consciences to those thy particular books of all our particular sins and to those the books with seven seals which only the Lamb which was slain was found worthy to open Revelation 7 verse 1 which I hope it shall not disagree with the meaning of thy blessed spirit but separate the promulgation of their pardon and righteousness who are washed in the blood of that Lamb and if thou refer me to these books to a new reading a new trial by these books this fever may be but a burning in the hand that I may be saved though not by my book my own conscience nor by thy other books be for my election and by thy last the book of the Lamb and the shedding of his blood upon me if I be still under consultation I am not condemned yet if I be sent to these books I shall not be condemned at all for though there be something written in some of those books particularly in the scriptures which some men turn to poison yet upon these consultations these confessions these takings of our particular cases into thy consideration thou intendest all for physic and even from those sentences from which a too late repenter will suck desperation he that seeks the early shall receive thy morning do thy seasonable mercy thy forward consolation the ninth prayer O eternal and most gracious God who art of so pure eyes as that thou canst not look upon sin and we of so unpure constitutions as that we can present no object but sin and therefore might justly fear that thou wouldst turn thine eyes forever from us as though we cannot endure afflictions in ourselves yet in thee we can so though thou canst not endure sin in us yet in thy son thou canst and he hath taken upon himself and presented to thee all those sins which might displease thee in us there is an eye in nature that kills as soon as it sees the eye of a serpent no eye in nature that nourishes us by looking upon us but thine eye O Lord does so look therefore upon me O Lord in this distress and that will recall me from the borders of this bodily death look upon me and that will raise me again from that spiritual death in which my parents buried me when they begot me in sin and in which I have pierced even to the jaws of hell by multiplying such heaps of actual sins upon that foundation that root of original sin yet take me again into your consultation O blessed and glorious trinity and though the Father know that I have defaced his image received in my creation though the Son know I have neglected my interest in the redemption yet O blessed spirit far to my conscience so be to them a witness that at this minute I accept that which I have so often so rebelliously refused thy blessed inspirations be thou my witness to them that at more pores than this slack body sweats tears this sad soul weeps blood and more for the displeasure of my God and the curse of his displeasure take me then O blessed and glorious trinity into a re-consultation and prescribe me any physic if it be a long and painful holding of this soul in sickness it is physic if I may discern thy hand to give it and it is physic if it be a speedy departing of this soul if I may discern thy hand to receive it end of devotion nine recording by Father Zeile of Detroit Easter week 2009 by John Dunn 10 this is nature's nest of boxes the heavens contain the earth the earth cities cities men and all these are concentric the common center to them all is decay ruin only that is eccentric which was never made only that place or garment rather which we can imagine but not demonstrate that light which is the very emanation of the light of God in which the saints shall dwell with which the saints shall be apparelled by ruin that which was not made of nothing is not threatened with this annihilation all other things are even angels even our souls they move upon the same poles they bend to the same center and if they were not made immortal by preservation their nature could not keep them from sinking to this center annihilation in all these earth and men in them comprehend all those are the greatest mischiefs which are least discerned the most insensible in their ways come to be the most sensible in their ends the heavens have had their dropsy they drowned the world and they shall have their fever and burn the world of the dropsy the flood of fires before it came and so some made provision against it and were saved the fever shall break out in an instant and consume all the dropsy did no harm to the heavens from whence it fell it did not put out those lights it did not quench those heats but the fever the fire shall burn the furnace itself annihilate those heavens shall have a pestilent breath an infectious exhalation yet because we know when it will rise we clothe ourselves and we diet ourselves and we shadow ourselves to a sufficient prevention but comets and blazing stars whose effects or significations no man can interrupt or frustrate no man foresaw no almanac tells us the fire will break out the matter is carried up in secret no astrologer tells us when the effects will be accomplished for that is a secret of a higher sphere than the other and that which is most secret is most dangerous it is so also here in the societies of men in states and commonwealths twenty rebellious drums make not so dangerous a noise to the mourners the cannon does not so much hurt against a wall as a mine under the wall nor a thousand enemies that threaten so much as a few that take an oath to say nothing God knew many heavy sins of the people in the wilderness and after but still he charges them with that one with murmuring murmuring in their hearts these secret repugnances against his declared will and these are the most deadly the most pernicious and it is so too with the diseases of the body and that is my case the pulse the urine, the sweat all have sworn to say nothing to give no indication of any dangerous sickness my forces are not enfeebled I find no decay in my strength my provisions are not cut off I find no abhorring in my appetite my councils are not corrupted nor infatuated I find no false apprehensions to work upon my understanding and yet they see that invisibly and I feel that insensibly the disease prevails the disease has established a kingdom an empire in me will have certain arcana imperii secrets of state by which it will proceed and not be bound to declare them but yet against those secret conspiracies in the state the magistrate has the rack and against these insensible diseases physicians have their examiners and those these employ now ten expostulation my god, my god I have been told and told by relation by her own brother that did it by thy servant that his sister in the vehemence of her prayer did use to threaten thee with a holy impotunity with a pious impurancy I dare not do so, oh god but as thy servant Augustine wished that Adam had not sinned therefore that Christ might not have died may I not to this one purpose wish that if the serpent before the temptation of Eve did go upright and speak that he did so still because I should the sooner hear him if he spoke the sooner see him if he went upright in his curse I am cursed too his creeping undoes me for how so ever he begin at the heel and do but bruise that yet he and death in him is come into our windows Jeremiah 9, 21 into our eyes and ears the entrances and inlets of our soul he works upon us in secret and we do not discern him and one great work of his upon us is to make us so like himself as to sin in secret as to see us but his masterpiece is to make us sin in secret so as that we may not see ourselves sin for the first the hiding of our sins from other men he have induced that which was his offspring from the beginning a lie John 844 for man is in nature yet in possession of some such sparks of ingenuity and nobleness as that but to disguise evil not lie the body the sin is the serpents and the garment that covers it the lie is his too these are his but the hiding of sin from ourselves is he himself when we have the sting of the serpent in us and do not sting ourselves the venom of sin and no remorse for sin then as thy blessed son said of Judas he is a devil John 670 not that he had one but was one so we are become devils to ourselves and we have not only a serpent in our bosom but we ourselves are to ourselves that serpent how far did thy servant David press upon thy pardon in that petition cleanse thou me from secret sins Psalm 1912 can any sin be secret great part of our sins though says the prophet we conceive them in the dark upon our bed yet says he we do them in the light there are many sins which we glory in doing and would not do if nobody should know them thy blessed servant Augustine confesses that he was ashamed of his shame-facedness and tenderness of conscience and that he often belied himself with sins which he never did lest he should be unacceptable to his conscience but if we would conceal them thy prophet find such a desire and such a practice in some when he said thou hast trusted in thy wickedness and thou hast said none shall see me Isaiah 4710 yet can we conceal them thou, O God, canst hear of them by others the voice of Abel's blood will tell thee of Cain's murder Genesis 410 yourselves will tell thee heaven shall reveal his iniquity a small creature alone shall do it a bird of the air shall carry the voice and tell the matter Ecclesiastes 10 20 thou wilt trouble no informer thou thyself revealest Adam's sin to thyself Genesis 3 8 and the manifestation of sin is so full to thee as that thou shalt reveal all to all thou wilt bring every work to judgment with every secret thing Ecclesiastes 12 14 and there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed Matthew 10 26 but, O my God, there is another way of knowing my sins which thou lovest better than any of these to know them by my confession as physics works so it draws the peck and humour to itself that when it is gathered together the weight of itself may carry that humour away so thy spirit returns to my memory my former sins that being so recollected they may pour out themselves by confession when I kept silence says thy servant David day and night thy hand was heavy upon me but when I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord I will leavest the iniquity of my sin Psalm 32 3 through 5 thou interpretest the very purpose of confession so well as that thou scarce leavest any new mercy for the action itself this mercy thou leavest that thou armestest thereupon against relapses into the sins which we have confessed and that mercy which thy servant Augustine apprehends when he says to thee thou hast forgiven me those sins which I have done and those sins which only by thy grace I have not done they were done in our inclination to them and even that inclination needs thy mercy and that mercy he calls a pardon and these are most truly secret sins because they were never done and because no other man nor I myself but only thou knowest how many and how great sins I have escaped by thy grace which without that I should have multiplied against thee 10. Prayer O eternal and most gracious God who as thy son Christ Jesus though he knew all things yet said he knew not the day of judgment because he knew it not so as that he might tell us so though thou knowest all my sins yet thou knowest them not to my comfort except thou know them by my telling them to thee how shall I bring to thy knowledge by that way those sins which I myself know not if I accuse myself of original sin wilt thou ask me if I know what original sin is I know not enough of it to satisfy others but I know enough to condemn myself and to solicit thee if I confess to thee the sins of my youth wilt thou ask me if I know what those sins were I know them not so well as to name them all nor I am sure to live hours enough to name them all for I did them faster than I can speak them now when everything that I did conduced to some sin but I know them so well as to know that nothing but thy mercy is so infinite as they if the naming of thought, word and deed of sins of omission and of action of sins against thee against my neighbour and against myself of sins unrepented and sins relapsed into after repentance of sins of ignorance and sins against the testimony of my conscience of sins against thy commandments sins against thy son's prayer and sins against our own creed of sins against the law of that church and sins against the laws of that state in which thou hast given me my station if the naming of these sins reach not home to all mine I know what will O Lord pardon me me all those sins which thy son Jesus Christ suffered for who suffered for all the sins of all the world there is no sin amongst all those which had not been my sin if thou had not been my God and antedated me a pardon in thy preventing grace and since sin in the nature of it retains still so much of the author of it that it is a serpent insensibly insinuating itself into my soul let thy brazen serpent the contemplation of thy son who has crucified for me be ever more present to me for my recovery against the sting of the first serpent that so as I have a lion against a lion the lion of the tribe of Judah against that lion that seeks whom he may devour so I may have a serpent against a serpent the wisdom of the serpent against the malice of the serpent and both against that lion and serpent forcible and subtle temptations thy dove with thy olive in thy arc humility and peace and reconciliation to thee by the ordinances of thy church Amen End of Devotion 10 Please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Kevin Laven Devotions upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Devotion 11 Nubilebusche Trahund Assinto Cordae Veninom Succus Edhemus Edchei Henerosa Ministrant Ars Ednatura Instillante They use cordials to keep the venom and malinity of the disease from the heart 11. Meditation Whence can we take a better argument a clearer demonstration that all the greatness of this world is built upon opinion of others and hath in itself no real being no power of subsistence than from the heart of man It is always in action and motion still busy still pretending to do all to furnish all the powers and faculties with all that they have but if an enemy dare eyes up against it it is the soonest endangered just defeated of any part the brain will hold out longer than it and the liver longer than that they will endure a siege but an unnatural heat a rebellious heat will blow up the heart like a mine in a minute but how so ever since the heart hath the birthright and primogenitor and that it is nature's eldest son in us the part which is first born in man and that the other parts as younger brethren and servants in his family have a dependence upon it it is reason that the principal care be had of it though it be not the strongest part as the eldest is often times not the strongest of the family and since the brain and liver and heart hold not a triumvirate in man a sovereignty equally shed upon them all for his well being as the four elements do for his very being but the heart alone is in the principality and in the throne as king the rest as subjects though in eminent place and office must contribute to that as children to their parents as all persons to all kinds of superiors though often times those parents or those superiors may not be of stronger parts than themselves that serve and obey them that are weaker neither doth this obligation fall upon us by second dictates of nature by consequences and conclusions arising out of nature or derived from nature by discourse as many things bind us even by the law of nature yet not by the primary law of nature as all laws of propriety in that which we possess are of the law of nature which law is to give everyone his own and yet in the primary law of nature there was no propriety no mayum et tuum but a universal community overall so that the obedience of superiors is of the law of nature and yet in the primary law of nature there was no superiority no magistracy but this contribution of assistance of all to the sovereign of all parts to the heart is from the very first dictates of nature which is in the first place to have care of our own preservation to look first to ourselves for therefore doth the physician intermit the present care of brain or liver because there is a possibility that they may subsist though there be not a present and a particular care had of them but there is no possibility that they can subsist if the heart perish and so when we seem to begin with others in such assistances indeed we do begin with ourselves and we ourselves are principally in our contemplation and so all these officious and mutual assistances are but compliments towards others and our true end is ourselves and this is the reward of the pains of kings sometimes they need the power of law to be obeyed and when they seem to be obeyed voluntarily they who do it do it for their own sakes oh how little a thing is all the greatness of man and through how false glasses doth he make shift to multiply it and magnify it to himself and yet this is also another misery of this king of man the heart which is also applicable to the kings of the world great men that the venom and poison of every pestilential disease directs itself to the heart affects that pernicious affection and the malignity of ill men is also directed upon the greatest and the best and not only greatness but goodness loses the vigor of being an antidote or cordial against it and as the noblest and most generous cordials that nature or can prepare if they be often taken and made familiar become no cordials nor have any extraordinary operation so the greatest cordial of the heart patience, if it be much exercised exalts the venom and the malignity of the enemy and the more we suffer the more we are insulted upon when God had made this earth of nothing it was but a little help that he had but other things of this earth nothing can be nearer nothing than this earth and yet how little of this earth is the greatest man he thinks he treads upon the earth that all is under his feet and the brain that thinks so is but earth is highest region the flesh that covers that is but earth and even the top of that that wherein so many is but a bush growing upon that turf of earth how little of the world is the earth and yet that is all that man hath or is how little of a man is the heart and yet it is all by which he is and this continually subject not only to foreign poisons conveyed by others but to intestine poisons bred in ourselves by pestilential sickness who if before he had a being he could have sense of this misery would by a being hear upon these conditions eleven expostulation my god my god all that thou asketh of me is my heart my son give me thy heart Proverbs 23 26 am I thy son as long as I have but my heart will thou give me an inheritance affiliation anything for my heart oh thou who said to Satan hast thou considered my servant Job that there is none like him upon the earth Job 1 8 shall my fear shall my zeal shall my jealousy have leave to say to thee hast thou considered my heart that there is not so perverse a heart upon earth and would thou have that and shall I be thy son thy eternal son's co-air forgiving that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Jeremiah 17 9 he that asks that question makes the answer I the Lord search the heart didst thou search mine does thou think to find it as thou madest it in Adam thou hast searched since and found all these gradations in the ill of our hearts that every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts is only evil continually Genesis 4 5 does thou remember this and wouldst thou have my heart oh God of all light knowest all and it is thou Amos 413 that declarest unto man what is his heart without thee oh sovereign goodness I could not know how ill my heart were thou hast declared unto me in thy word that for all this deluge of evil that hath surrounded all hearts yet thou soughtest and foundest a man after thine own heart 1 Samuel 1314 that thou couldst and wouldst give thy people pastors according to thine own heart Jeremiah 315 and I can gather out of thy word so good testimony of the hearts of men as to find single hearts docile and apprehensive hearts hearts that can hearts that have learned wise hearts in one place and in another in a great degree wise perfect hearts straight hearts no perverseness without and clean hearts no foulness within such hearts I can find in thy word and if my heart were such a heart I would give thee my heart but I find stony hearts too Ezekiel 1119 and I have made mine such I have found hearts that are snares Ecclesiastes 726 and I have conversed with such hearts that burn like ovens Hosea 726 and the fuel of lust and envy and ambition hath inflamed mine hearts in which their masters trust and he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool Proverbs 2826 his confidence in his own moral constancy and civil fortitude will betray him when thou shalt cast a spiritual damp a heaviness and dejection of spirit upon him I have found these hearts and a worse than these a heart into that which the devil himself has entered Judas' heart John 132 the first kind of heart alas my God I have not the last are not hearts to be given to thee what shall I do without that present I cannot be thy son and I have it not to those of the first kind thou givest joyfulness of heart Sirach 5023 and I have not that to those of the other kind that faintness of heart Leviticus 2636 and blessed be thou O God for that forbearance I have not that yet there is then a middle kind of hearts not so perfect as to be given but that the very giving men's them not so desperate as not to be accepted but that the very accepting dignifies them this is a melting heart Joshua 211 and a troubled heart and a wounded heart and a broken heart and a contrite heart and by the powerful working of thy piercing spirit such a heart I have thy Samuel spake unto all the house of thy Israel and said if you return to the Lord with all your hearts prepare your hearts unto the Lord 1 Samuel 7 3 if my heart be prepared it is a returning heart and if thou see it upon the way thou wilt carry at home nay the preparation is thine too this melting this wounding this breaking this contrition which I have now is thy way to thy end and those discomforts are for all that the earnest of thy spirit in my heart 2 Corinthians 1 22 and where thou givest earnest thou wilt perform the bargain Nabal was confident upon his wine but in the morning his heart died within him 1 Samuel 25 37 thou, O Lord, hast given me wormwood confidence upon that and thou hast cleared a morning to me again and my heart is alive David's heart smote him when he cut off the skirt from Saul 1 Samuel 24 5 and his heart smote him when he had numbered his people 2 Samuel 24 10 my heart hath struck me when I come to number my sins because those sins are not to death but my heart lives in thee but yet as long as I remain in this great hospital this sick, this diseaseful world as long as I remain in this leprous house this flesh of mine this heart, though thus prepared for thee prepared by thee will still be subject to the invasion of malign and pestilent vapors I have my cordials in thy promise when I shall know the plague of my heart and pray unto thee in thy house 1 Kings 8 38 thou wilt preserve that heart from all mortal force of that infection and the peace of God which passeth all understandings shall keep my heart and mind through Christ Jesus Philippians 4 7 prayer O eternal and most gracious God who in thy upper house the heavens though there be many mansions yet art alike and equally in every mansion but here in thy lower house though thou fillest all yet art otherwise in some rooms thereof and in others otherwise in thy church than in my chamber and otherwise in thy sacraments so though thou be always present and always working in every room of this thy house my body yet I humbly beseech thee to manifest always a more effectual presence in my heart than in the other offices into the house of thine anointed this loyal persons traitors will come into thy house the church hypocrites and idolaters will come into some rooms of this thy house my body temptations will come infections will come but be my heart thy bedchamber oh my God and thither let them not enter Job made a covenant with his eyes but not his making of that covenant but thy dwelling in his heart enabled him to keep that covenant thy son himself had a sadness in his soul to death and he had a relocation a deprecation of death and the approaches thereof but he had his cordial too yet not my will but thine be done and as thou hast not delivered us thine adopted sons from these infectious temptations so neither hast thou delivered us over to them nor withheld thy cordials from us I was baptized in thy cordial water against original sin and I have drunk of thy cordial blood for my recovery from actual and habitual sin in the other sacrament thou, O Lord who hast imprinted all medicinal virtues which are in all creatures and has made even the flesh of vipers to assist in cordials art able to make this present sickness everlasting health this weakness everlasting strength and this very dejection and faintness of heart a powerful cordial when thy blessed son cried out to thee my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me thou didst reach out thy hand to him but not to deliver his sad soul but to receive his holy soul neither did he longer desire to hold it of thee but to recommend it to thee I see thine hand upon me now, O Lord and I ask not why it comes what it intends whether thou wilt bid it to stay still in this body for some time or bid it meet thee this day in paradise I ask not not in a wish not in a thought infirmity of nature infirmity of mind are temptations that offer but a silent and absolute obedience to thy will even before I know it is my cordial preserve that to me, O my God and that will preserve me to thee that when thou hast catechized me with affliction here I may take a greater degree and serve thee in a higher place in thy kingdom of joy and glory Amen What will not kill a man if a vapor will how great an elephant how small a mouse destroys to die by a bullet is the soldier's daily bread but few men die by hail-shot a man is more worth than to be shot by a bullet than to be shot by a bullet by a bullet a man is more worth than to be sold for single money a life to be valued above a trifle if this were a violent shaking of the air by thunder or by cannon in that case the air is condensed above the thickness of water of water baked into ice almost petrified almost made stone and no wonder that kills but that which is but a vapor and a vapor not forced but breathed should kill that our nurse should overlay us and air that nourishes us should destroy us but that it is a half atheism to murmur against nature who is God's immediate commissioner who would not think himself miserable to be put into the hands of nature who does not only set him up for a mark for others to shoot at but delights herself to blow him up like a glass till she see him break even with her own breath nay, if this infectious vapor was sought for or travelled to as Pliny hunted after the vapor of Etna and dared and challenged death in the form of a vapor to do his worst and felt the worst he died or if this vapor were met with all in an ambush and we surprised with it out of a long shut well or out of a new opened mine who would lament, who would accuse when we had nothing to accuse not to lament against but fortune who is less than a vapor but when ourselves are the well that breathes out this exhalation the oven that spits out this fiery smoke the mine that spews out this suffocating and strangling damp who can ever after this aggravate his sorrow by this circumstance that it was his neighbour his familiar friend, his brother that destroyed him and destroyed him with a whispering and a culminating breath when we ourselves do it to ourselves by the same means kill ourselves with our own vapours or if these occasions of this self-destruction had any contribution from our own wills any assistance from our own intentions nay, from our own errors we might divide the rebuke and chide ourselves as much as them fevers upon willful distempers of drink and surface consumptions upon intemperances and licentiousness madness upon misplacing or overbending our natural faculties proceed from ourselves and so as that ourselves are in the plot and we are not only passive but active too in our own self-destruction but what have I done either to breed or to breathe these vapours they tell me it is my melancholy did I infuse did I drink in melancholy into myself it is my thoughtfulness was I not made to think it is my study does not my calling call for that I have done nothing willfully perversely toward it yet must suffer in it die by it there are too many examples of men that have been their own executioners and that have made hard shift to be so some have always had poison about them in a hollow ring upon their finger and some in their pen that they used to write with some have beat out their brains at the wall of their prison and some have et the fire out of their chimneys footnote coma and one is said to have come nearer our case than so to have strangled himself though his hands were bound by crushing his throat between his knees but I do nothing upon myself and yet am my own executioner and we have heard of death upon small occasions and by scornful instruments a pin a comb a hair pulled have gangrened and killed but when I have said a vapor if I were asked again what is a vapor I could not tell it is so insensible a thing so near nothing is that that reduces us to nothing but extend this vapor rarefied from so narrow a room as our natural bodies to any politic body state that which is fume in us is in a state rumour and these vapours in us which we consider here pestilent and infectious fumes are in a state infectious rumours detracting and dishonourable calamities libels the heart in that body is the king and the brain his council and the whole magistracy that ties all together in news which proceed from thence and the life of all is honour and just respect and due reverence and therefore when these vapours these venomous rumours are directed against these noble parts the whole body suffers but yet for all their privileges they are not privileged from our misery that as the vapours most pernicious to us arise in our own bodies and so do the most dishonourable rumours and those that wound a state most arise at home what ill air that I could have met in the street what channel what shambles what dung hill what vault could have hurt me so much as these homebred vapours what fugitive what armsmen of any foreign state can do so much harm as a detractor a libeler a scornful jester at home for as they that write of poisons and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of a man do as well mention the flea as the viper footnote Arduino's end footnote because the flea though he kill none he does all the harm he can so even these libelous and licentious gestures utter the venom they have though sometimes virtue and always power be a good pigeon to draw this vapor from the head and from doing any deadly harm there twelve expostulation my god as I servant James when he asks that question what is your life provides me my answer it is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away James 414 he did ask me what is your death I am provided of my answer it is a vapor too and why should it not be all one to me whether I live or die if life and death be all one both a vapor thou hast made vapor so indifferent a thing as that thy blessings and I judgments are equally expressed by it and is made by the the hieroglyphic of both why should not that be always good by which thou hast declared thy plentiful goodness to us a vapor went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground Genesis 2.6 and that by which thou hast imputed a goodness to us and wherein thou hast accepted our service to thee sacrifices for sacrifices were vapours Leviticus 16.13 and in them it is said that a thick cloud of incense went up to thee Ezekiel 13.11 so it is of that wherein thou comest to us the dew of heaven and of that wherein we come to thee both are vapours and he in whom we have and are all that we are or have temporarily or spiritually thy blessed son in the person of wisdom is called so too she is that is she is the vapor of the power of God and the pure influence from the glory of the Almighty Wisdom 7.25 hast thou thou oh my God perfumed vapor with thine own breath with so many sweet acceptations in thine own word and shall this vapor receive an ill and infectious sense it must since we have displeased thee with that which is but vapor for what is sin but a vapor but a smoke though such a smoke as takes away our sight and disables us from seeing our danger it is just that thou punish us with vapours too for so thou dost as the wise man tells us thou comest to punish us by those things wherein we offend thee as he had expressed it there by beasts newly created breathing vapours wisdom 11.18 therefore that combination of thine by thy prophet I will show wonders in the heaven and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke Joel 2.30 thine apostle who knew thy meaning best calls vapours of smoke Acts 2.19 one prophet presents thee in thy terribleness so there went out a smoke at his nostrils Psalm 18.8 and another the effect of thine anger so the house was filled with smoke Isaiah 4.4 and he that continues his prophecy as long as the world can continue describes the miseries of the latter times so out of the bottomless pit of the smoke that darkened the sun and out of the smoke came locusts who had the power of scorpions Revelation 9.2 now all smokes begin in fire and all these will end so too the smoke of sin and of thy wrath will end in the fire of hell but hast thou afforded us no means to evaporate these smokes and withdraw these vapours when thine angels fell from heaven thou tookest into thy care the reparation of that place and didst it by assuming by drawing us thither when we fell from thee here in this world thou tookest into thy care the reparation of this place too and didst it by assuming us another way by descending down to assume thy nature in thy sun so that though our last act be an ascending to glory we shall ascend to the place of angels yet our first act is to go the way of thy sun descending and the way of thy blessed spirit too who descended in the dove therefore hast thou been pleased to afford us this remedy in nature by this application of a dove to our lower parts these vapours in our bodies to descend and to make that a type to us that by the visitation of thy spirit the vapours of sin shall descend and we tread them under our feet at the baptism of thy sun the dove descended and at the exalting of thine apostles to preach the same spirit descended let us draw down the vapours of our own pride our own wits our own ideals our own inventions to the simplicity of thy sacraments and the obedience of thy word and these doves thus applied shall make us live twelve, prayer O eternal and most gracious God who though thou have suffered us to destroy ourselves and has not given us the power of reparation in ourselves has yet afforded us such means to be and familiarly be compassed by us prosper I humbly beseech thee this means of bodily assistance in this thy ordinary creature and prosper thy means of spiritual assistance in thy holy ordinances and as thou hast carried this thy creature the dove through all thy ways through nature and made it naturally proper to conduce medicinally to our bodily health through the law to sacrifice for sin there and through the gospel and made it and thy spirit in it a witness of thy son's baptism there so carry it and the qualities of it home to my soul and imprint there that simplicity that mildness that harmlessness which thou hast imprinted by nature in this creature that so all vapours of me being subdued under my feet I may in the power and triumph of thy son tread victoriously upon my grave and trample upon the lion and dragon Psalm 91.13 that lie under it to devour me thou, O Lord, by the prophet callest the dove the dove of the valleys but promises that the dove of the valleys shall be upon the mountain Ezekiel 7.16 as thou hast laid me low in this valley of sickness so low as that I am made fit for that question asked in the field of bones son of man, can these bones live Ezekiel 37.3 so in thy good time carry me up to these mountains of which even in this valley thou affordest me a prospect the mountain where thou dwellest the holy hill unto which none can ascend but he that hath clean hands which none can have but by that one and that strong way of making them clean in the blood of thy son Christ Jesus Amen Devotion 13 from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions This is a LibriVox recording. A LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by David Lawrence. Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn. Devotion 13 Numerosos Digmate Fascist Pulitor Ad Pectis Morbeque Suburbia Morbus The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof by spots. Devotion 13 Meditation We say that the world is made of sea and land as though they were equal but we know that there is more sea in the western than in the eastern hemisphere. We say that the firmament is full of stars as though it were equally full but we know that there are more stars under the northern than under the southern pole. We say the elements of man are misery and happiness as though he had equal proportion of both. And the days of man vis-a-situdinary as though he had as many good days as ill and that he lived under a perpetual equinoxial night and day equal good and ill fortune in the same measure but it is far from that. He drinks misery and he tastes happiness. He mows misery and he gleams happiness. He journeys in misery. He does but walk in happiness. And, which is worse, his misery is positive and dogmatical. His happiness is but disputable and problematical. All men call misery misery but happiness changes the name by the taste of man. In this accident that befalls me now that this sickness declares itself by spots to be a malignant and pestential disease if there be a comfort in the declaration that thereby the physicians see more clearly what to do there may be as much discomfort in this that the malignity may be so great as that all they can do shall do nothing that an enemy declares himself then when he is able to subsist and to pursue and to achieve his ends is no great comfort in test and conspiracies voluntary confessions do more good than confessions upon the rack. In these infections when nature herself confesses and cries out by these outward declarations which she is able to put forth of herself they minister comfort but when all is by the strength of cordials it is but a confession upon the rack by which though we come to know the malice of that man yet we do not know whether there be not as much malice in his heart then as before his confession we are sure of his treason but not of his repentance sure of him but not of his accomplices it is a faint comfort to know the worst when the worst is remedy-less and a weaker than that to know much ill and not to know that that is the worst a woman is comforted with the birth of her son her body is eased of a burden but if she could prophetically read his history how ill a man perchance how ill a son he would prove she should receive a greater burden into her mind scarce any purchase that is not clogged with secret encumbrances scarce any happiness that hath not in it so much of the nature of faults and base money as that the LA is more than the metal nay is it not so at least much toward it even in the exercise of virtues I must be poor and want before I can exercise the virtue of gratitude miserable and in torment before I can exercise the virtue of patience how deep do we dig and for how coarse gold and what other touchstone have we of our gold but comparison whether we be as happy as others or as ourselves at other times or poor step toward being well when these spots to only tell us that we are worse than we were sure of before thirteen, expostulation my God, my God thou hast made this sick bed dine altar and I have no other sacrifice to offer but myself and wilt thou accept no spotted sacrifice doth thy son dwell bodily in this flesh that thou shouldst look for an unspottedness here or is the Holy Ghost the soul of this body as he is of thy spouse who is therefore all fair and no spot in her song of songs four seven or hath thy son himself no spots who hath all our stains and deformities in him or hath thy spouse, thy church, no spots when every particular limb of that fair and spotless body every particular soul in that church is full of stains and spots thou bidst us hate the garment that is spotted with thy flesh Jude 23 the flesh itself is the garment and it spotted itself with itself and if I wash myself with snow water mine own clothes shall make me abominable Job 9 30 and yet no man yet ever hated his own flesh Ephesians 5 29 Lord, if thou look for a spotlessness whom wilt thou look upon thy mercy may go a great way in my soul and yet not leave me without spots thy corrections may go far and burn deep and yet not leave me spotless thy children apprehended that when they said from our former iniquity we are not cleansed until this day though there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord Joshua 22 17 thou rainest upon us and yet does not always mollify all our hardness thou kindless thy fires in us and yet does not always burn up all our dross thou healest our wounds and yet leave us scars thou purgeest the blood and yet leave us spots but the spots that thou hateest are the spots that we hide the carvers of images cover spots Wisdom of Solomon 13 14 says the wise men when we hide our spots we become idolaters of our own stains of our own foulnesses but if my spots come forth by what means so ever whether by the strength of nature by voluntary confession for grace is the nature of a regenerate man and the power of grace is the strength of nature or by the virtue of cordials for even thy corrections are cordials if they come forth either way thou receive us that confession with a gracious interpretation when thy servant Jacob practiced an invention to procure spots in his sheep Genesis 30 33 thou didst prosper his rods and thou dost prosper thine own rods when corrections procure the discovery of our spots the humble manifestation of our sins to thee till then now may us justly say the whole need not the physician Matthew 9 12 till we tell thee in our sickness we think ourselves whole till we show our spots thou applyest no medicine but since I do that shall I not Lord lift up my face without spot and be steadfast and not fear Job 11 15 even my spots belong to thy son's body and are part of that which he came down to this earth to fetch and challenge and assume to himself when I open my spots I do but present him with that which is his until I do so I detain and withhold his right when therefore thou seeest them upon me as his and seeest them by this way of confession they shall not appear to me as the pinches of death to decline my fear to hell for thou hast not left thy holy one in hell thy son is not there but these spots upon my breast and upon my soul shall appear to me as the constellations of the firmament to direct my contemplation to that place where thy son is thy right hand 13 prayer O eternal and most gracious God who as thou giveest all for nothing if we consider any precedent merit in us so give us nothing for nothing if we consider the acknowledgement and thankfulness which thou locused for after except my humble thanks both for thy mercy and for this particular mercy that in thy judgment I can discern thy mercy and find comfort in thy corrections I know, O Lord, the ordinary discomfort that accompanies that phrase that the house is visited and that thy marks and thy tokens are upon the patient but what a wretched and disconsolate hermitage is that house which is not visited by thee and what a wave and stray is that man that hath not thy marks upon him these heats, O Lord, which thou hast brought upon this body are but thy chafing of the wax that thou mightst seal me to thee these spots are but the letters in which thou hast written thine own name and conveyed thyself to me whether for a present possession by taking me now or for a future reversion by glorifying thyself in my stay here I limit not, I condition not I choose not, I wish not no more than the house or land that passeth by any civil conveyance only be thou ever present to me, O my God and this bedchamber and thy bedchamber shall be all one room and the closing of these bodily eyes here and the opening of the eyes of my soul there all one act End of Devotion 13 recording by David Lawrence in Brampton, Ontario February 2009 Devotion 14 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 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Dunn Devotion 14 Edquenotant Criticis Medici Evinissi Diebus The Physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the critical days 14. Meditation I would not make man worse than he is nor his condition more miserable than it is but could I though I would As a man cannot flatter God nor overpraise him a man cannot injure man nor undervalue him this much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance that those false happinesses which he hath in this world have their times and their seasons and their critical days and they are judged and denominated according to the times when they befall us what poor elements are our happinesses made of if time, time which we can scarce consider to be anything be an essential part of our happiness all things are done in some place but if we consider place to be no more but the next hollow superficies of the air alas how thin and fluid a thing is air and how thin a film is a superficie's and a superficie's of air all things are done in time too but if we consider time to be but the measure of motion and how so ever it may seem to have three stations past present and future yet the first and last of these are not one is not now and the other is not yet and that which you call present is not now the same that it was when you began to call it so in this line before you sound that word present or that monosyllable now the present and the now is past if this imaginary half-nothing time be of the essence of our happinesses how can they be thought durable time is not so how can they be thought to be time is not so, not so considered in any of the parts thereof if we consider eternity into that time never entered eternity is not an everlasting flux of time but time is a short parenthesis in a long period and eternity had been the same as it is though time had never been if we consider not eternity but perpetuity not that which had no time to begin in but which shall outlive time and be when time shall be no more what a minute is the life of the durableest creature compared to that and what a minute is man's life in respect of the sun's or of a tree and yet how little of our life is occasion opportunity to receive good in and how little of that occasion do we apprehend and lay hold of how busy and perplexed a cobweb is the happiness of man here that must be made up with a watchfulness to lay hold upon occasion which is but a little piece of that which is nothing, time and yet the best things are nothing without that honours, pleasures, possessions presented to us out of time in our decrepit and distasted and unapprehensive age lose their office, lose their name they are not honours to us that shall never appear nor come abroad into the eyes of the people to receive honour from them who gave it nor pleasures to us who have lost our sense to taste them nor possessions to us who are departing from the possession of them youth is their critical day that judges them that denominates them that in animates and informs them and makes them honours and pleasures and possessions and when they come in an unapprehensive age they come as a cordial when the bell rings out as a pardon when the head is off we rejoice in the comfort of fire but does any man cleave to it at mid-summer we are glad of the freshness and coolness of a vault but does any man keep his Christmas there or are the pleasures of the spring acceptable in autumn if happiness be in the season or in the climate how much happier then are birds than men who can change the climate and accompany and enjoy the same season ever 14. Ex-Postulation my God, my God wouldst thou call thyself the ancient of days Daniel 7.22 if we were not to call ourselves to an account for our days wouldst thou chide us for standing idle here all the day Matthew 20.6 if we were sure to have more days to make up a harvest when thou bidst us take no thought for tomorrow for sufficient unto the day to every day is the evil thereof Matthew 6.34 is this truly absolutely to put off all that concerns the present life when thou reprehendest the Galatians by thy message to them that they observed days and months and times and years Galatians 4.10 when thou sendest by the same messenger to forbid the Colossians all critical days, indicatory days let no man judge you in respect of a holy day or of a new moon or of a Sabbath Galatians 2.16 dost thou take away all consideration, all distinction of days though thou remove them from being of the essence of our salvation thou leavest them for assistances and for the exaltation of our devotion to fix ourselves at certain periodical and stationary times upon the consideration of those things which thou hast done for us and the crisis, the trial, the judgment how those things have wrought upon us and disposed us to a spiritual recovery and convalescence for there is to every man a day of salvation now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation 2 Corinthians 6.2 and there is a great day of thy wrath Revelation 6.17 which no man shall be able to stand in for our evil days before and therefore thou warnest us and armest us take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day Ephesians 6.11 so far then our days must be critical to us as that by consideration of them we may make a judgment of our spiritual health for that is the crisis of our bodily health thy beloved servants and John wishes to Gaius that he may prosper in his health so as his soul prospers 3 John 2 for if the soul be lean, the marrow of the body is but water if the soul wither, the verdure and the good estate of the body is but an illusion and the goodliest man a fearful ghost shall we, oh my God, determine our thoughts and shall we never determine our disputations upon our climacterical years for particular men and periodical years for the life of states and kingdoms and never consider these in our long life and our interest in the everlasting kingdom we have exercised our curiosity in observing that Adam, the eldest of the eldest world died in his climacterical year and shem the eldest son of the next world in his Abraham, the father of the faithful in his and the Blessed Virgin Mary, the garden where the root of faith grew in hers but they whose climacterics we observe employed their observation upon their critical days the working of thy promise of a messiahs upon them and shall we, oh my God, make less use of those days who have more of them we who have not only the day of the prophets the first days but the last days in which thou hast spoken unto us by thy son Hebrews 1, 2 we are the children of the day 1 Thessalonians 5, 8 for thou hast shined in as full a noon upon us as upon the Thessalonians they who were of the night a night which they had super-induced upon themselves the Pharisees pretended that if they had been in their father's days those indicatory and judicatory, those critical days they would not have been partakers of the blood of the prophets Matthew 23.30 and shall we who are in the day these days not of the prophets but of the son stone those prophets again and crucify that son again for all the evident indications and critical judicators which are afforded us those opposed adversaries of thy son, the Pharisees with the Herodians watched a critical day then when the state was incensed against them came to tempt him in the dangerous question of tribute Matthew 22.15 they left him and that day was the critical day to the Sadducees the same day says thy spirit in thy word the Sadducees came to him to question him about the resurrection Matthew 22.23 and them he silenced they left him and this was the critical day for the scribe expert in the law who thought himself learneder than the Herodian the Pharisee or Sadducee and he tempted him about the great commandment Matthew 22.36 and him Christ left without power of replying when all was done and that they went about to begin their circle of vexation and temptation again Christ silences them so that as they had taken their critical days to come in that and in that day so Christ imposes a critical day upon them from that day forth says thy spirit no man does ask him any more questions Matthew 22.46 this oh my God my most blessed God is a fearful crisis a fearful indication when we will study and seek and find what days are fittest to forsake thee in to say now religion is in a neutrality in the world and this is my day the day of liberty now I may make new friends by changing my old religion and this is my day the day of advancement but oh my God with thy servant Jacob's holy boldness who though thou lamest him would not let thee go till thou hadst given him a blessing Genesis 32.26 though thou have laid me upon my hearse yet thou shalt not depart from me from this bed till thou have given me a crisis a judgment upon myself this day since a day is as a thousand years with thee 2 Peter 3.8 let oh Lord a day be as a week to me and in this one let me consider seven days seven critical days and judge myself that I be not judged by thee first this is the day of thy visitation thy coming to me and would I look to be welcome to thee and not entertain thee in thy coming to me we measure not the visitations of great persons by their apparel, by their equipage by the solemnity of their coming but by their very coming and therefore howsoever thou come it is a crisis to me that thou wouldst not lose me who seekest me by any means this leads me from my first day thy visitation by sickness to a second to the light and testimony of my conscience there I have an evening and a morning a sad guiltiness in my soul but yet a cheerful rising of thy son too thy evenings and mornings made days in the creation and there is no mention of nights my sadness is for sins are evenings but they determine not in night they deliver me over to the day the day of a conscience dejected but then rectified accused but then acquitted by thee by him who speaks thy word and who is thy word, thy son from this day the crisis and examination of my conscience breaks out my third day my day of preparing and fitting myself for a more special receiving of thy son in his institution of the sacrament though there be many dark passages and slippery steps to them who will entangle and endanger themselves in unnecessary disputations yet there are light hours enough for any man to go his whole journey intended by thee to know that that bread and wine is not more rarely assimilated to my body and to my blood than the body and blood of thy son is communicated to me in that action and participation of that bread and that wine and having, oh my God, walked with thee these three days the day of thy visitation the day of my conscience the day of preparing for this seal of reconciliation I am less afraid of the clouds or storms of my fourth day the day of my disillusion and trans-migration from hence nothing deserves the name of happiness that makes the remembrance of death bitter O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that lives at rest in his possessions that man hath nothing to vex him yea unto him that is able to receive meat Sirach 41.1 Therefore hast thou, oh my God, made this sickness in which I am not able to receive meat my fasting day, my eve to this great festival my disillusion and this day of death shall deliver me over to my fifth day the day of my resurrection for how long a day so over thou make that day in the grave yet there is no day between that and the resurrection then we shall all be invested reapparalled in our own bodies but they who have made just use of their former days be super-invested with glory whereas the others condemned to their old clothes their sinful bodies shall have nothing added but immortality to torment and this day of awaking me and reinvesting my soul in my body and my body in the body of Christ shall present me body and soul to my sixth day the day of judgment which is truly and most literally the crucial the decretery day both because all judgment shall be manifested to me then and I shall assist in judging the world then and because then that judgment shall declare to me and possess me of my seventh day my everlasting Sabbath in thy rest thy glory, thy joy, thy sight, thy self and where I shall live as long without reckoning any more days after as thy Son and thy Holy Spirit lived with thee before you three made any days in the creation 14. Prayer a eternal and most gracious God who, though thou didst permit darkness to be before light in the creation yet in the making of light didst so multiply that light as that it enlightened not the day only but the night too though thou have suffered some dimness some clouds of sadness and disconsolentness to shed themselves upon my soul I humbly bless and thankfully glorify thy Holy Name that thou hast afforded me the light of thy Spirit against which the Prince of Darkness cannot prevail nor hinder his illumination of our darkest nights of our saddest thoughts even the visitation of thy most blessed Spirit upon the blessed Virgin is called an overshadowing there was the presence of the Holy Ghost the fountain of all light and yet an overshadowing nay except there were some light there could be no shadow let thy merciful providence so govern all in this sickness that I never fall into utter darkness ignorance of thee or inconsideration of myself and let those shadows which do fall upon me faintnesses of Spirit and condemnations of myself be overcome by the power of thine irresistible light the God of Consolation that when those shadows have done their office upon me to let me see that of myself I should fall into irrecoverable darkness thy Spirit may do his office upon those shadows and disperse them and establish me in so bright a day here as may be a critical day to me a day wherein and whereby I may give thy judgment upon myself and that the words of thy Son spoken to his apostles may reflect upon me behold, I am with you always even to the end of the world Matthew 28 20 End of DIVORTION 14