e, when thou rebukest thy
disciples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; _Suffer
little children to come to me_, sayest thou.[12] Is there a verier child
than I am now? I cannot say, with thy servant Jeremy, _Lord, I am a
child, and cannot speak_; but, O Lord, I am a sucking child, and cannot
eat; a creeping child, and cannot go; how shall I come to thee? Whither
shall I come to thee? To this bed? I have this weak and childish
frowardness too, I cannot sit up, and yet am loth 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, dost thou not accuse me, dost 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_[13], 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_.[14] To go up into
the bed denotes strength, and promises 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.[15] 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,[16] his master was fain to come to Christ; the sick man could
not. Their friend lay sick of the palsy, and the four charitable men
were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come.[17] Peter's wife's
mother lay sick of a fever, and Christ came to her; she could not come
to him.[18] 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_.[19] I lie here and say, _Blessed are
they that dwell in thy house_;[20] but I cannot say, _I will come into
thy house_; I may say, _In thy fear will I worship towards thy holy
temple_;[21] but I cannot say in thy holy temple. And, _Lord, the zeal
of thy house eats me up_,[22] as fast as my fever; it is not a
recusancy, for I would come, but it is an