p me therefore still, O my gracious God, in
such a proportion of both strengths, as I may still have something to
thank thee for, which I have received, and still something to pray for
and ask at thy hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[297] John, xi. 43.

[298] John, xii. 28.

[299] Matt. xxvii. 46, 50.

[300] Deut. v. 22.

[301] 2 Sam. xxii. 14.

[302] Psalm lxviii. 33.

[303] Psalm xxix.

[304] John, v. 25.

[305] Rev. i. 12.

[306] Job, iv. 16.

[307] Psalm xciii. 3, 4.

[308] Ecclus. xviii, 8.

[309] Ecclus. v. 7.

[310] 1 Sam. xix. 15.

[311] 2 Chron. xxiv. 25.

[312] Amos, iii. 12.

[313] Acts, v. 15.

[314] Matt. ix. 6.

XXII. SIT MORBI FOMES TIBI CURA.

_The physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals,
and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that._

XXII. MEDITATION.

How ruinous a farm hath man taken, in taking himself! How ready is the
house every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread with
weeds, all the body with diseases; where not only every turf, but every
stone bears weeds; not only every muscle of the flesh, but every bone of
the body hath some infirmity; every little flint upon the face of this
soil hath some infectious weed, every tooth in our head such a pain as
a constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that fear, of that sense
of the pain. How dear, and how often a rent doth man pay for his farm!
He pays twice a day, in double meals, and how little time he hath to
raise his rent! How many holidays to call him from his labour! Every day
is half holiday, half spent in sleep. What reparations, and subsidies,
and contributions he is put to, besides his rent! What medicines besides
his diet; and what inmates he is fain to take in, besides his own
family; what infectious diseases from other men! Adam might have had
Paradise for dressing and keeping it; and then his rent was not improved
to such a labour as would have made his brow sweat; and yet he gave it
over; how far greater a rent do we pay for this farm, this body, who pay
ourselves, who pay the farm itself, and cannot live upon it! Neither is
our labour at an end when we have cut down some weed as soon as it
sprung up, corrected some violent and dangerous accident of a disease
which would have destroyed speedily, nor when we have pulled up that
weed from the very root, recovered entirely and soundly from that
particular disease; but the whole ground is of an ill natu