Decubitus sequitur tandem.
The Patient takes his bed.
WEE
attribute but one
priviledge and advantage to Mans body, above other
moving creatures, that he is not as others,
groveling, but of an
erect, of an
upright form, naturally built, and disposed to the
contemplation of Heaven. Indeed it is a thankfull forme, and
recompences that soule, which gives it, with carrying that soule so many foot higher,
towards heaven. Other
creatures look to the earth; and even that is no unfit object, no unfit
contemplation for Man; for
thither hee must come; but because, Man is not to stay there, as other creatures are, Man in his naturall forme, is carried to the contemplation of that place, which is
his home,
Heaven. This is
Mans prerogative; but what state hath he in this dignitie? A fever can fillip him downe, a fever can depose him; a fever can bring that head, which yesterday caried a crown of gold, five foot towards a crown of glory, as low as his own foot, today.
When God came to breath into Man
the breath of life, he found him flat upon the ground; when he comes to withdraw that breath from him againe, hee prepares him to it, by laying him flat upon his bed.
Scarse any prison so close, that affords not the prisoner two, or three steps. The
Anchorites that barqu'd themselves up in hollowe trees, and immur'd themselves in hollow walls; that perverse man, that barrell'd himselfe in a Tubb, all could stand, or sit., and enjoy some change of posture. A sicke bed, is a
grave; and all that the patient saies there, is but a varying of his owne
Epitaph. Every nights bed is a Type of the grave: At night wee tell our servants at what houre wee will rise; here we -cannot tell our selves, at what day, what week, what moneth. Here the head lies as low as the foot; the
Head of the people, as lowe as they, whome those feete trod upon; And that hande that signed
Pardons, is too weake to begge his owne, if he might have it for lifting up that hand: Strange fetters to the feete, strange
Manacles to the bands, when the feete, and handes are bound so much the faster, by how much the coards are slacker; So much the lesse able to doe their Offices, by how much more the
Sinews and Ligaments are the looser. In the
Grave I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends, and in the accents of those wordes, which their love may afford my memory; Here I am mine owne
Ghost, and rather
affright my
beholders, than instruct them; they conceive the worst of me worse; they give me for dead now, and yet wonder how I doe, when they wake at midnight, and aske how I doe to morrow. Miserable and, (though common to all)
inhuman posture, where I must practise my lying in the grave, by lying still, and not practise my
Resurrection, by rising any more.
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Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions