e
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 assistants 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 see that
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,
though death conclude me; for 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] 2 Sam. xviii. 25.

[100] So all but our translation takes it; even Buxdor and Schindler.

[101] 2 Tim. iv. 11.

[102] Exod. xviii. 13.

[103] Num. xi. 16.

[104] Heb. i. 6.

[105] Matt. xxvi. 53.

[106] Matt. xxv. 31.

[107] Luke, ii. 13, 14.

[108] John, xx. 12.

[109] Gen. xxviii. 12.

[110] Psalm xci. 11.

[111] Gen. xix. 15.

[112] Rev. i. 20.

[113] Rev. viii. 2.

[114] Matt. xiii. 39.

[115] Luke, xvi. 22.

[116] Rev. xxi. 12.

[117] 2 Kings, xix. 35.

[118] Luke, iv. 18.

[119] Eph. iv. 12.

[120] 1 Pet. ii. 25.

[121] John, xx. 22.

VIII. ET REX IPSE SUUM MITTIT.

_The King sends his own physician._

VIII. 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 usufructuary, 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 kneaded into earth by tears; his
matter is earth, his form misery. In this world that is mankind