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THE

SICK MAN VISITED;

And furnished with

INSTRUCTIONS, MEDITATIONS, and PRAYERS, fuitable to his CONDITION, &c.

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Of this Life's uncertainty.

THEOPHILUS.

H! How true is the faying of that holy man.
Job, that faithful fervant of God, that noble

pattern of an unwearied patience and refignation to the Divine Will? (a) Man that is born of a woman, is of a few days, and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth alfo as a Shadow, and continueth not. How oft do we all experiment this truth in others! And how foon may we poffibly do it in ourselves! It is not two days fince I faw our friend Anchithanes, as to all appearance, in perfect health, and as like to continue fo as any I know; yet now he fends his fervant for me to leave my bufinefs and come to him, because he is very fick, and apprehends himself not like to live. Such is the frailty of our prefent ftate, and the little reafon we all have, to promise ourselves any long continuance in it.

This is a very fudden unexpected alteration, and a plain proof of the juft caufe St. James (b) had to compare our Life here to a vapour that appeareth for (a) Job xiv. 1, 2. (6) James iv. 13.

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a little time, and then vanisheth away. Who would ever place his happiness in a state so frail, so transıtory, fo fickle and inconftant, were it in all other respects ever so desirable? (c) We have here no abiding city, but are liable every moment to changes and viciffitudes, and inceffant approaches towards our latter end. How inftantly is our health turned into ficknefs, our ftrength into weakness and numerous infirmities, our greatest joy into the depth of forrow, our hope into despair, our plenty into want, our choiceft comforts into disappointments, and our life itself into death! See how the rich man in St. Luke's Gospel delighted himself with the thoughts of a fure fund of pleasure and satisfaction, for a long and an eafy life. It tranfported him to reflect upon the vaft increase of his wealth, the fruitfulness of his ground, and the plentiful provifion it had ftored him with: fo that now his chief care was how to difpofe of what he had, that he might command it upon all occafions. Which having firft contrived to do, his next ftudy would be to folace himself in the enjoyment of so fure a foundation of happiness for many years togegether; till perhaps, worn out with old age, and a gentle decay, he should, like the patriarch (d) Ifaac, give up. the ghoft and die, and be gathered to his people, being old and full of days. For fo fays our Saviour, (e) He thought within himself, faying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he faid, This I will do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I beftow all my fruits and my goods. And I will fay to my foul, Soul, thou haft much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. A project the generality of mankind

would never blame him for! And which there are few that would not be ready to imitate in the like circumftances! And yet how fpeedily, and how miferably, was he difappointed! He accounted of years, many years to live; when, alas! poor man, he had (c) Heb. xiii. 14. (d) Gen. xxxv. 29. (e) Luke xii. 17, 18, 19.

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hot one day, nor many hours remaining. So our Saviour acquaints us in the following words, wherein we fee all his hopes dafh'd at once, with the unwelcome news of his approaching end: (f) God faid unto him, Thou fool, this night fhall thy foul be required of thee; then whofe fhall those things be which thou hast provided? A most astonishing stroke! and which must inevitably stab him like a dagger to the heart; I that when arrived at the top of his defired profperity and happiness, he should be immediately caft down below all his fears! Oh! how fad, how difconfolate, how melancholick, how defperate, muft his cafe be! What meffage to a worldly-minded man like this? As if it had been faid to him, Thou vain, thoughtlefs creature, thus to lay thy weak defigns for many years to come, and not remember at the fame time thou art not fure of one hour thou canst call thine own! It is true, thou haft laid up goods for many years, but for whom thou knoweft not; certainly not for thyself. For even this night thou must be called away, and fo muft leave them to fomebody, that it may be will neither thank thee for them now, nor fhew any regard to thy memory when thou art gone. So vain a thing is man! We are apt to form our projects, and contrive, and drudge, and toil for futurity; when, for aught we know to the contrary, we are upon the very brink of the grave, and ready to drop the next moment into eternity.

Hæret lateri lethalis arundo.

We carry death always about us. Such is the weakness of our conftitution, fuch our natural decays and infirmities, fo many the diseases we are liable to, and fuch the multiplicity and danger of the outward accidents we are all expofed to, that it is a great vanity and ftupidity to promise ourselves any long continuance here, nothing in the world being more certain than death, nor any thing more uncertain than the time of it. We know not when our (ƒ) Luke xii. 20.

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Lord will call for us, whether at even, or at midnight, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning. Hence our life is compared in Scripture, to things of the leaft ftability or duration; to a (g) fhip under fail, and an eagle upon the wing in purfuit after its prey; to a (b) poft that hafteth by to a weaver's (i) shuttle for the quickness of its motion; to a tale (k) that is foon told; and, as I have already observed, to a (1) vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisbeth And Drexelius justly enough fets it forth by divers fuch resemblances, as plainly intimate it to be of the most flitting nature that can be;

away.

Somnus, bulla, vitrum, glacies, flos, fabula, fœnum,

Umbra, cinis, pun&tum, vox, sonus, aura, nihil (m). Such as a fleep that is interrupted by any noife, a bubble that inftantly disappears, a glafs that is broken in a moment, the ice that neceffarily diffolves upon the approach of any heat, a flower that prefently dries up and falls, a ftory that is immediately at an end, the grafs that is quickly cut down and withered into hay, a fhadow that has no fubftance of its own, afhes blown away by every puff of wind, a point that has no extenfion, a voice that is no fooner heard than gone, or any other fort of found, the air that is in perpetual motion; and as if all this were not enough to exprefs its vanity and uncertainty, he concludes in refembling it, at laft, to a mere nothing. And agreeably hereto, fays Petrarch, and each one's experience abundantly confirms his ob fervation (n),

Currimus ad mortem citius vel tardius omnes: We are all of us hafting to our latter end, and one after another fhall be fure to meet with it. It cannot poffibly be far from any of us (0); but may be much

(g) Job ix. 26. (b) Ver. 25. (i) Ibid. vii. 6. (4) Pfalm xc. 9. (1) James iv. 14. (m) Prodrom. Etern. c. 1. § 30. (n) De remed. utr. fortun. 1. 1. dial. 6. (0) Mors, quæ propter incertos cafus quotidie imminet, propter brevitatem vitæ nunquam longè poteft abeffe. Cic. Tufc. Quæft. 1. 1. c. 38.

nearer

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nearer to the youngest and most healthy, than they feem to imagine, or are aware of. (p) One dieth in his full ftrength, being wholly at eafe and quiet. His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marAnd another dieth in the bitterness of his foul, and never eateth with pleasure. They fhall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms fhall cover them. Whence it nearly concerns all that have any regard for their own eternal welfare to be always upon their watch, according to that direction of cur bleffed Lord; (g) Know this, that if the good man of the boufe bad known in what watch the thief would come, he would bave watched, and would not have fuffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye alfo ready for in fuch an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh. And that other admonition in St. John's (r) Revelation, Behold, I come as a thief. Bleed is be that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, left he walk naked, and they fee his fhame.

A furprising change indeed! fo very lately healthy and ftrong, and now in a weak and dangerous condition! Oh the inftability of this frail and mortal state! Whom would not this provoke to look about him, and be fo wife as feriously to confider his latter end, that fo neither fickness nor death may ever feize him unprovided for it? How ought it to banish all vice and wickedness out of the world, and excite people to a conftant holiness of converfation! And how must it raise up in the minds of fuch, who have any remainders of compaffion in them, a hearty concern for thofe they fee or hear to lie under any fuch afflictive vifitation! especially confidering they know not how very foon it may be their own cafe, inafmuch as we have no certainty of our lives, nor indeed of our health, fo much as for a day or hour. Wherefore I have a great mind to go to vifit this good man, as he defires; to fee how he is, and try if I can administer any comfort to him, and to remind him (p) Job xxi. 23, 24, 25, 26. (q) Matth. xxiv. 43, 44. (r) Rev. xvi. 15.

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