Hermetical physick: or, The right way to preserve, and to restore health. By that famous and faithfull chymist, Henry Nollius. Englished by Henry Uaughan, Gent.

Section. 7.

How the sick man should behave himself, while he is in a course of Physick.

I.

Let the sick person acknowledge, that he hath deserved, and drawn upon himselfe, the just anger of God by his frequent sinnes: and that it is by his righteous permission, that he is visited with sicknesse.

II.

Let him by an unfeigned penitence, and a godly sorrow reconcile him∣himselfe unto God through the me∣rits of his Saviour, putting on an holy resolution to become a new man; and afterwards let him draw near to the throne of Grace, and intreat God for mercy, and his healing assistance.

III.

After reconciliation and invocation of the divine Aide, let him send for the Physician, and Physick be∣ing taken, let him not doubt of Gods mercy, and his own recovery.

THat is to say, let him certainly believe that there is communi∣cated and infused (by the gift of God) into the medicine which he hath taken, such an innate vertue▪ as is effectual and proper to expell his Disease. If he doth this, the event will be answerable to his faith, and the Medicine will in all circumstan∣ces work successfully. A firm creduli∣ty, chearfull hope and true love and confidence towards the Physician, and the Medicine, (saith that great Philosopher Oswaldus Crollius,) conduce as much to the health of

the Patient, yea sometimes more, then either the remedy▪ or the Phy∣sician. Naturall faith (I meane not the faith of Grace which is from Christ, but the imaginative ••aith, which in the day that the first man was created, was then infused and planted in him by God the Father, and is still communicated to his po∣sterity,) is so powerfull, that it can both expell and introduce Diseases: as it manifestly appeares in times of infection, when man by his owne private imagination, out of meere feare and horrour, generates a Ba∣siliscum Coeli, which infects the Microcosmical Firmament by means of the Imaginants superstition ac∣cording as the Patients faith assists, or resists. To the faithfull all things are possible, for faith ascertaines all those things which are uncertaine: God can by no meanes be reach'd and injoy'd of us, but onely by faith:

whosoever therefore believes in God, he operates by the power of God, and to God all things are possible. But how this is performed, no hu∣mane wit can find out: This onely we can say, that ••aith is an operati∣on or work not of the Bel••ever but of him in whom he believes. Cogi∣tations or thoughts, surpasse the o∣perations of all Elements and Stars: for while we imagine and believe, such a thing shall come to passe, that faith brings the worke about, and without it is nothing done Our faith that it will be so, makes us i∣magine so: imagination excites a Star, that Star (by conjunction with Imagination) gives the effect or perfect operation. To believe that there is a medicine which can cure us, gives the spirit of Medicine: that spi∣rit gives the knowledge of it and the Medicine being known, gives health. Hence it appeares, that a true Phy∣sician, whose operations are natural,

is born of this faith, and the spirit (I meane this spirit of nature, or star of medicine,) furthers and assists him, according to his faith. It hap∣pens oftentimes, that an illiterate man performes those cures by this i∣maginative faith, which the best Physicians cannot doe with the most soveraigne medicines. Sometimes al∣so, this bare perswasion or imagina∣tive faith heales more and more ef∣fectually, then any virtue in the ex∣hibited Medicine, as it was manifest∣ly found of late years, in that famous Panacea, or All-heal of Amwaldus, and since his time, in that new me∣dicinall spring, which broke out this present yeare in the Confines of Misnia and Bohemia, to which an incredible number of sick persons doe daily resort. No other cause can be rendred of these Magnalia, or rare Physical operations, then the firme and excessive affection of the Patient; for the power, which work∣eth

thus, is in the Spirit of the re∣ceiver, when taking the medicine without any fear or hesitation, he is wholly possessed and inspired (as it were) with an actual desire and be∣liefe of health: for the rationall soule, when stirred up, and enkind∣led by a vehement imagination, o∣vercomes nature, and by her own ef∣fectuall affections, renewes many things in her own body or mansion, causing either health or sicknesse, and that not onely in her own body, but Extraneously, or in other bodies. The efficacy of this naturall faith, manifested it selfe in that woman with the bloody Issue, and in the Centurion. Hitherto are the words of Crollius.

IV.

When the Patient is del••vered from his disease, and restored to his for∣mer health, let him heartily and solemnly give all the glory to the Supreme, All-mighty Physician:

let him offer the sacrifice of Thankes-giving, and acknowledge the goodness and the tender mercies of the Lord. And let not the Phy∣sitian forget to performe his duty, by a thankeful and solemn acknow∣ledgement of Gods gracious con∣cessions, by choosing and enabling him to be his unworthy instrument to restore the sick. And this he must do, not onely because it is his duty, and a most deserved and ob∣liged gratitude, but also out of a wise Christian caution, to avoid those judgements which are poured upon the negligent and ungratefull, by the most just jealousie of the ir∣resistible and everlasting GOD; unto whom alone be rendred by An∣gels and Men, and by all his crea∣tures, All Praise and Glory, and perpetual thanks in this the Tem∣porall, and in the eternall Being. Amen.

FINIS.