Devotions vpon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes digested into I. Meditations vpon our humane condition, 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God, 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to Him / by Iohn Donne ...

23. MEDITATION.

IT is not in mans body, as it is in the Citie, that when the Bell hath rung, to couer your fire, and ••ake vp the embers, you may lie downe, and sleepe without feare. Though you haue by

••••ysicke and diet, raked vp the embers of your ••isease, stil there is a feare of a relapse; and the greater danger is in that. ••uen in pleasures, and in ••••ines, there is a propriety, •• Meum & Tuum; and a man is most affected with that pleasure which is his, his by former en∣••oying and experience, and most intimidated with those paines which are his, his by a wofull ••ense of them, in former ••fflictions. A couetous ••erson, who hath preoc∣cupated

all his senses, filled all his capacities, with the delight of gathe∣ring, wonders how any man can haue any taste of any pleasure in any opennesse, or liberalitie; So also in bodily paines, in a fit of the stone, th•• patient wonders why a∣ny man should call the Gout a paine: And hee that hath felt neither, but the tooth-ach, is as much afraid of a ••it of that, as either of the o∣ther, of either of the o∣ther. Diseases, which we

••euer felt in our selues, ••ome but to a compassi∣•••• of others that haue ••ndured them; Nay, ••ompassion it selfe, comes ••o no great degree, if wee ••aue not felt, in some ••roportion, in our selues, ••hat which wee lament ••nd condole in another. But when wee haue had ••hose torments in their ••••altation, our selues, wee ••emble at a relapse. ••hen wee must pant ••hrough all those fierie ••eats, and saile thorow ••ll those ouerflowing

sweats, when wee must watch through all those long nights, and mourne through all those long daies, (daies and nights, so long, as that Nature her selfe shall seeme to be peruerted, and to hau•• put the longest day, and the longest night, which should bee six moneths asunder, into one natu∣rall, vnnaturall day) when wee must stand at the same barre, expect the re∣turne of Physitians from ••heir consultations, and not bee sure of the s••me

verdict, in any good In∣dications, when we must goe the same way ouer againe, and not see the same issue, this is a state, a condition, a calamitie, in respect of which, any other sicknesse were a ••onualescence, and any greater, lesse. It addes to the affliction, that relap∣ses are, (and for the most part iustly) imputed to our selues, as occasioned by some disorder in vs; and so we are not onely passiue, but actiue, in our owne ruine; we doe not

onely stand vnder a fal∣ling house, but pull it downe vpon vs; and wee are not onely execu∣ted, (that implies guilti∣nesse) but wee are execu∣tioners, (that implies dis∣honor;) and executioners of our selues, (and that implies impietie.) And wee fall from that com∣fort which wee might haue in our first sick∣nesse, from that meditati∣on, Alas, how generally miserable is Man, and how subiect to diseases, (for in that it is some degree of

comfort, that wee are but in the sta••e common to all) we fall, I say, to this discomfort, and selfe accu∣sing, & selfe condemning; Alas, how vnprouident, and in that, how vn∣thankfull to God and his instruments am I, in ma∣king so ill vse of so great benefits, in destroying so soone, so long a worke, in relapsing, by my disor∣der, to that from which they had deliuered mee; and so my meditation is fearefully transferred from the body to the

minde, and from the consideration of the sicknesse, to that sinne, that sinfull carelesnesse, by which I haue occa∣sioned my relapse. And a∣mongst the many weights that aggrauate a relapse, this also is one, that a relapse proceeds with a more violent dispatch, and more irremediably, because it finds the Countrie weakned, and depopulated before. Vpon a sicknesse, which as yet appeares not, wee can scarce fix a feare, because

wee know not what to feare; but as feare is the busiest and irksomest af∣fection, so is a relapse (which is still ready to come) into that, which is but newly gone, the nearest obiect, the most immediate exercise of that affection of fear••.