* ' And it shall bo, that thou slialt drink of the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there.'— G. t Misprinted 'becomes.' — G.
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Their heaven is not here ; for they are not clean from corruption, which bringcth death and sickness, by which also God intends good to the body. For if such recover, their bodies are purged from many bad humours ; if they do not recover it, God by little and little unties the marriage knot between the soul and the body, and so death comes more easy. And thus also grace is strengthened in the soul ; as the outward man is weakened, so is the inward man renewed, 2 Cor. iv. 16. For by sickness we ai'e put in mind to make even our accounts with God, and by it he also makes pleasures of the world to be bitter unto us, that we may the more willingly part with them ; even as nurses use to anoint the pap with some bitter thing to make the child refuse the pap. Observe in the second place, that God often suifers his children to cone to extremities, yea, even to death itself, and into desperate estates. Thus did he suifer Hezekiah, Job, Jonas, David, Daniel, and the ' three children ' to run into the jaws of death. Thus suffered he also his disciples to be overwhelmed with water ere he would seem to take notice of it.* Nay, thus suffered he his only Son Christ upon the cross while he said, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?' and by this means it comes to pass that when all natural and ordinary means fail them, their trust is not placed on the means, but on some more durable and constant help, upon God's own good will and power. For else our nature is such as soon we should idolise the means, and set them in the place of God, if means should continually recover us. And this offence was Asa f guilty of in his sickness ; he trusted not the Lord, but physicians. God is jealous of our affections. And hence lest Paul should be lifted up, he gave him over to some base temptation, which he calls ' the messenger of Satan.' In the second place, God suffers his children to fall into extremities, to the end that we having experience of God's helping hand in them, we might come to rely more confidently on him in all adversities. He suffers us to receive the sentence of death in us, to the end that we should not trust in our- selves, but in God, 2 Cor. i. 9. For God is never nearer than in extremities. His power is seen in man's weakness. In the third place, God suffers us to fall into extremities that he might try what is in us, and that he might exercise the graces in us. And commonly it is seen, those that rely upon means in such extremities make themselves executioners of themselves. Thus did Saul, Ahithophel, and Judas ; for while they trust on the means, they failing them, what marvel if they seeing no remedy run into despair, whenas God's children go to their own Father, exercising their faith, hope, prayers, and all Christian graces and duties. And there- fore afflictions are called trials, because they try our graces. For if it were not for them, we should not know what faith, patience, hope, or grace were. Fourthly, hence it comes that the communion between God and us might be more sincere ; for whenas nothing is between God and us to rely on, then do we come more sensibly and experimentally to taste, see, and feel God more to our comfort ; for where ordinary helps fail, God's help begins.
The use of all this is. That we should not be'dismayed, though we be in the most forlorn estate ; for in extremity God is most near us, and then shall our graces be strengthened, and we shall have experience of God's favour strengthening us. And in the second place, when thou seest any in great afflictions, pronounce not thy sentence rashly on him, for even then he may be nearest God : Ps. xli. 1, ' Blessed,' saith the prophet, ' is he that considereth the poor aright : the Lord will deliver him in the time of * Cf. Mat. xiv. 25.— G. t Misprinted Ahaz. Cf. 2 Cliron. xvi. 12.— G.
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trouble.' The papists, indeed, are unmerciful in this kind. See what he is by his diseases and sicknesses, say they of Calvin, who, as Beza writes of him, was much afflicted that way (a). But see even in Epaphroditus, of whom Paul said none was minded like to him, yet he in a good cause was afHicted, and came to great extremities. Seeing then we cannot avoid sickness nor death, but we must all come to it, let us consider briefly how to fit ourselves for it beforehand, that it comes not suddenly, and takes us before we are aware thereof. And herein let us consider what we are to do before sickness, and what in sickness.
(1.) Before sickness labour to via/ce God tlnj friend, ulio is Lord of life and death. Is there any hope that a prisoner which abuses the judge con- tinually till he be on the ladder shall have pardon ? How can he imagine that a man that all his lifetime followed his own wilful courses of sin, and persecuted, by scandalising and slandering good men ; that continually blasphemed God and abused him in his word ; how can this man think to command comfort in sickness ? How can he think God will be pleased with him ? No. All such repentance in sickness may justly be suspected to be hypocritical, that it is made rather for fear of punishment than loathing of sin ; and therefore God often leaves such men to despair, and that justly. See what he saith, Prov. i. 25, ' Because I have called, and ye refused ; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded ; I will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh,' and so forth to the end of the chapter. It is just with God, seeing when he called you would not answer, that when you call he should not answer. Be wise therefore to foresee the time to come.