Illustration-A Person in Bed-Jesus at the Bedside.
Have mercy, Lord, upon me, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed.-PSALM vi. 2.
Soul. AH! Son of David, help. Jes. What sinful cry
Implores the son of David? Soul. It is I.
Jes. Who art thou? Soul. Oh! a deeply wounded breast
That's heavy laden, and would fain have rest.
Jes. I have no scraps, and dogs must not be fed,
Like household children, with the children's bread. Soul. True, LORD; yet tolerate a hungry whelp
To lick their crumbs: 0 Son of David, help.
Jes. Poor soul, what ail'st thou? Soul. O I burn, I fry,
I cannot rest, I know not where to fly,
To find some ease; I turn my blubber'd face
From man to man; I roll from place to place
T' avoid my tortures, to obtain relief,
But still am dogg'd and haunted with my grief:
My midnight torments call the sluggish light,
And, when the morning's come, they woo the night. Jes. Surcease thy tears, and speak thy free desires. Soul. Quench, quench my flames, and 'suage those scorching fires.
Jes. Canst thoù believe my hand can cure thy grief? Soul. LORD, I believe; LORD, help my unbelief. Jes. Hold forth thine arm, and let my fingers try
Thy pulse; where, chiefly, doth thy torment lie? Soul. From head to foot; it reigns in ev'ry part,
But plays the self-law'd tyrant in my heart. Jes. Canst thou digest, canst relish wholesome food? How stands thy taste? Soul. To nothing that is good:
All sinful trash, and earth's unsav'ry stuff
I can digest, and relish well enough.
Jes. Is not thy blood as cold as hot, by turns?
Soul. Cold to what's good;
Jes. How old's thy grief?
Soul. I took it at the fall
With eating fruit. Jes. 'Tis epidemical:
Thy blood's infected, and the infection sprung
From a bad liver: 'tis a fever strong
And full of death, unless with present speed
A vein be open'd: thou must die, or bleed. Soul. O I am faint and spent: that lance that shall Let forth my blood, lets forth my life withal: My soul wants cordials, and has greater need Of blood, than (being spent so far) to bleed: 40 I faint already: if I bleed, I die.
Jes. "Tis either you must bleed, sick soul, or I:
My blood's a cordial. He that sucks
He that sucks my veins,
Shall cleanse his own, and conquer greater pains
Than these: cheer up; this precious blood of mine
Shall cure thy grief; my heart shall bleed for thine.
Believe, and view me with a faithful eye,
Thy soul shall neither languish, bleed, nor die.
LORD, be merciful unto me! Ah me! behold, I hide not my wounds thou art a physician, and I am sick; thou art merciful, and I am miserable.-S. AUGUST. Lib. x. Confess.
O wisdom, with how sweet an art doth thy wine and oil restore health to my healthless soul! How powerfully merciful, how mercifully powerful art thou! powerful for me, merciful to me! S. GREG. in Pastoral.
Canst thou be sick, and such a doctor by?
Thou canst not live, unless thy doctor die :
Strange kind of grief, that finds no med'cine good
To 'suage her pains, but the physician's blood!
Illustration-One grinding at a Mill—an Angel chastising him.
Look upon mine affliction and my pain, and forgive all my sins.—
PSALM XXV. 18.
BOTH work and strokes? both lash and labour too?
What more could Edom, or proud Asshur do?
Stripes after stripes; and blows succeeding blows!
LORD, has thy scourge no mercy, and my woes
No end? my pains no ease? no intermission?
Is this the state, is this the sad condition
Of those that trust thee? will thy goodness please
T' allow no other favours? none but these?
Will not the rhet'ric of my torments move?
Are these the symptoms, these the signs of love?
Is 't not enough, enough that I fulfil
The toilsome task of thy laborious will?
May not this labour expiate and
purge
My sin, without th' addition of a scourge?
Look on my cloudy brow, how fast it rains
Sad show'rs of sweat, the fruits of fruitless pains:
Behold these ridges, see what purple furrows
Thy plough has made; oh think upon those sorrows
That once were thine; oh wilt thou not be woo'd
To mercy by the charms of sweat and blood?
Canst thou forget that drowsy mount, wherein
Thy dull disciples slept? was not my sin
There punish'd in thy soul? did not this brow
Then sweat in thine? were not these drops enow?
Remember Golgotha, where that spring-tide
O'erflow'd thy sov'reign, sacramental side:
There was no sin, there was no guilt in thee,
That caused those pains; thou sweat'st, thou bleed'st
Was there not blood enough, when one small drop 29
Had pow'r to ransom thousand worlds, and stop
The mouth of justice? LORD, I bled before
In thy deep wounds; can justice challenge more?
Or dost thou vainly labour to hedge in
Thy losses from my sides? my blood is thin,
And thy free bounty scorns such easy thrift;
No, no, thy blood came not as loan, but gift.
But must I ever grind? and must I earn
Nothing but stripes? O wilt thou disaltern 1
The rest thou gav'st? hast thou perused the curse
Thou laid'st on Adam's fall, and made it worse?
Canst thou repent of mercy? Heav'n thought good
Lost man should feed in sweat; not work in blood:
Why dost thou wound th' already wounded breast?
Ah me! my life is but a pain at best:
I am but dying dust: my day's a span;
What pleasure tak'st thou in the blood of man?
Spare, spare thy scourge, and be not so austere :
Send fewer strokes, or lend more strength to bear.
Miserable man! who shall deliver me from the reproach of this shameful bondage? I am a miserable man, but a free man: free, because a man; miserable, because a servant: in regard of my bondage, miserable: in regard of my will, inexcusable for my will, that was free, beslaved itself to sin, by assenting to sin; for he that committeth sin, is the servant to sin.-S. BERN. Hom. lxxxi. in Cant.
Tax not thy GOD: thine own defaults did urge
This twofold punishment: the mill, the scourge.
Thy sin's the author of thy self tormenting :
Thou grind'st for sinning; scourged for not repenting.
16 Disaltern: Disannul.
Illustration-An Angel fashioning an image of Man in a Potter's Wheel. Remember, I beseech thee, that thou hast made me as the clay; and wilt thou bring me into dust again?-JOB x. 9.
THUS from the bosom of the new-made earth
Poor man was delved, and had his unborn birth;
The same the stuff, the self-same hand doth trim
The plant that fades, the beast that dies, and him:
One was their sire, one was their common mother,
Plants are his sisters, and the beast his brother,
The elder too; beasts draw the self-same breast,
Wax old alike, and die the self-same death:
Plants grow as he, with fairer robes array'd;
Alike they flourish, and alike they fade:
The beast in sense exceeds him, and, in growth,
The three-aged oak doth thrice exceed them both.
Why look'st thou then so big, thou little span
Of earth? what art thou more in being man?
Ay, but my great Creator did inspire
My chosen earth, with the diviner fire
Of reason; gave me judgment and a will;
That, to know good; this, to chose good from ill:
He puts the reins of pow'r in my free hand,
A jurisdiction over sea and land,
He gave me art to lengthen out my span
Of life, and made me all, in being man.
Ay, but thy passion has committed treason
Against the sacred person of thy reason:
Thy judgment is corrupt, perverse thy will;
That knows no good, and this makes choice of ill:
The greater height sends down the deeper fall;
And good declined, turns bad, turns worst of all.
Say then, proud inch of living earth, what can
Thy greatness claim the more in being man?
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