o these two in an equal pace: my body falls down without pushing; my
soul does not go up without pulling; ascension is my soul's pace and
measure, but precipitation my body's. And even angels, whose home is
heaven, and who are winged too, yet had a ladder to go to heaven by
steps. The sun which goes so many miles in a minute, the stars of the
firmament which go so very many more, go not so fast as my body to the
earth. In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease,
I feel the victory; in the twinkling of an eye I can scarce see;
instantly the taste is insipid and fatuous; instantly the appetite is
dull and desireless; instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless;
and in an instant, sleep, which is the picture, the copy of death, is
taken away, that the original, death itself, may succeed, and that so I
might have death to the life. It was part of Adam's punishment, _In the
sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread_: it is multiplied to me, I
have earned bread in the sweat of my brows, in the labour of my calling,
and I have it; and I sweat again and again, from the brow to the sole of
the foot, but I eat no bread, I taste no sustenance: miserable
distribution of mankind, where one half lacks meat, and the other
stomach!

II. EXPOSTULATION.

David professes himself a dead dog to his king Saul,[5] and so doth
Mephibosheth to his king David,[6] and yet David speaks to Saul, and
Mephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatest
man, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have not
so much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure for
infinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave; he that hath
his grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buried
in the same grave; he that hath no grave but a dunghill, he that hath no
more earth but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hath
not that earth which he is, but even in that is another's slave, hath as
much proportion to God, as if all David's worthies, and all the world's
monarchs, and all imagination's giants, were kneaded and incorporated
into one, and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons of
men, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever I
be, as _God calls things that are not, as though they were_, I, who am
as though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, why
comes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost t