That which is set down touching them, is of two sorts: First, The cause of this plague, They provoked God with their inventions: Secondly, the Cure, Phinehas stood up and prayed, and it ceased.
The Cause is double, First, Their inventions: Secondly,
Gods Anger, provoked by them. And from these two come both, The
wrath of God is the 〈◊〉〈◊〉 Cause, per quod; and their inventions, the Cause propter quod. So a double Cure: Against Gods Anger, is opposed, as a remedy, Prayer; and against Inventions, the execu∣ting of judgement upon these sinners.
The Prayer is qualified in two sorts: First, that is
Phinehas pray∣er: Secondly, He stood up in the cause.
The first thing to be set down is, That sicknesse and mortality of people is causall, and not casuall; for nothing is more contrary than Chance or Fortune, and Judgement. For seeing a sparrow cannot light on the ground, without Gods providence, such is Gods care for them, though two of them be sold for a farthing, Matthew the tenth chapter, it is a senselesse thing to think that ficknesse can befall a man by chance. Therefore the Philistims, being plagued by God would try whether that disease came of Gods hand, or by chance, the first book of Samuel, the sixth chapter and the ninth verse. But the very name of plague signifying originally judgement, shews it is no casual thing, as in the first epistle to the Corinthians, the ele∣venth chapter, where he saith, They did eat and drink their own judge∣ment, that is, that many were sick among them, and many
〈◊〉〈◊〉. So the mortalitie at
Corinth, was Gods judgement: and so the Latin word plaga, being a stripe, sheweth the same. If a stripe, there is a striker: so then, they are not casual. If a Surgeon, Physician, or Philoso∣pher, were to give a reason hereof, he will impute the cause to the infection of the aire, the putrefaction of the bodies by humors, and to conversing one with another; and they are good causes of it: For so saith God, Exodus the ninth chapter and the tenth verse, Mases took the ashes of the furnace, and cast them up in the 〈◊〉〈◊〉, and they caused a stink: And David in his sicknesse saith, Psalm the thirty second, His moisture was like the draught in Summer. Therefore in the plague of Leprosie, Leviticus the thirteenth chapter and the fourty fift verse, the Leper was to have his mouth shut up. David, in that great 〈◊〉〈◊〉, spoken of in the first book of Chronicles, the twenty first chap∣ter and the thirtieth verse, would have gone to 〈◊〉〈◊〉, but be found he should not, feared with the Angel: Therefore the servant of God saith, Proverbs the fourteenth chapter, A wise man 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the plague, and shunneth it, but the foolish goeth on still.
But these are not the only causes: For besides
〈◊〉〈◊〉, there is some divine thing to be considered; for there is no 〈◊〉〈◊〉, but a spirit belongs to it, as Luke the thirteenth chapter and the ele∣venth verse, a spirit of infirmity. So are we to conceive, that besides natural causes, there is some spiritual, of the sicknesse, as 〈…〉〈…〉 twelfth chapter,
a destroying Angel. So in Davids plague in the se∣cond book of Samuel, the twenty fourth chapter: And 〈◊〉〈◊〉 the