4 1 Non domus et fundus, non æris acervus et auri 2" With house, with land, with money, and with gold, 3 We must use our prayer and physic both together; and so no doubt but our prayers will be available, and our physic take effect. "Tis that Hezekiah practised, 2 Kings xx., Luke the Evangelist; and which we are enjoined, Coloss. iv. not the patient only, but the physician himself. Hippocrates, a heathen, required this in a good practitioner, and so did Galen, lib. de Plat. et Hipp. dog. lib. 9, cap. 15, and in that tract of his, an mores sequantur temp. cor. ca. 11, 'tis a rule which he doth inculcate, and many others. Hyperius in his first book de sacr. script. lect., speaking of that happiness and good success which all physicians desire and hope for in their cures, tells them that "it is not to be expected, except with a true faith they call upon God, and teach their patients to do the like." The council of Lateran, Canon 22, decreed they should do so; the fathers of the church have still advised as much: "whatsoever thou takest in hand (saith 5 Gregory) let God be of thy counsel, consult with him; that healeth those that are broken in heart (Psal. cxlvii. 3), and bindeth up their sores." Otherwise as the prophet Jeremiah, cap. xlvi. 11, denounced to Egypt, In vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt have no health. It is the same counsel which Comineus, that politic historiographer, gives to all Christian princes, upon occasion of that unhappy overthrow of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, by means of which he was extremely melancholy, and sick to death; insomuch that neither physic nor persuasion could do him any good, per 6 1 Hor. 1. 1, ep. 2. 2 Sint Croesi et Crassi licet, non hos Pactolus aureas undas agens eripiet unquam è miseriis. 3 Scientia de Deo debet in medico infixa esse, Mesue Arabs. Sanat omnes languores Deus For you shall pray to your Lord, that he would prosper that which is given for ease, and then use physic for the prolonging of life, Ecclus. xxxviii. 4. Omnes optant quandam in medicina fælicitatem, sed hanc non est quod ex- ceiving his preposterous error belike, adviseth all great men in such cases, 166 to pray first to God with all submission and penitency, to confess their sins, and then to use physic." The very same fault it was, which the prophet reprehends in Asa, king of Judah, that he relied more on physic than on God, and by all means would have him to amend it. And 'tis a fit caution to be observed of all other sorts of men. The prophet David was so observant of this precept, that in his greatest misery and vexation of mind, he put this rule first in practice. Psal. lxxvii. 3, "When I am in heaviness, I will think on God." Psal. lxxxvi. 4, "Comfort the soul of thy servant, for unto thee I lift up my soul;" and verse 7,"In the day of trouble will I call upon thee, for thou hearest me." Psal. liv. 1, "Save me, O God, by thy name," &c., Psal. lxxxii. Psal. xx. And 'tis the common practice of all good men, Psal. cvii. 13, "When their heart was humbled with heaviness, they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress." And they have found good success in so doing, as David confesseth, Psal. xxx. 11, "Thou hast turned my mourning into joy, thou hast loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness." Therefore he adviseth all others to do the like, Psal. xxxi. 24, "All ye that trust in the Lord, be strong, and he shall establish your heart." It is reported by * Suidas, speaking of Hezekiah, that there was a great book of old, of King Solomon's writing, which contained medicines for all manner of diseases, and lay open still as they came into the temple; but Hezekiah, king of Jerusalem, caused it to be taken away, because it made the people secure, to neglect their duty in calling and relying upon God, out of a confidence on those remedies. 2 Minutius, that worthy consul of Rome, in an oration he made to his soldiers, was much offended with them, and 1 In his animi malis princeps imprimis ad Deum precetur, et peccatis veniam exoret, inde ad medicinam, &c. * Greg. Tholoss. To. 2, 1. 28, c. 7, Syntax In vestibulo templi Solomonis liber remediorum cujusque morbi fuit, quem revul sit Ezechias, quod populus neglecto Deo nec invocato, sanitatem inde peteret. 2 Livius, 1. 23. Strepunt aures clamoribus plorantium sociorum, sæpius nos quam deorum invocantium opem. taxed their ignorance, that in their misery called more on him than upon God. A general fault it is all over the world, and Minutius's speech concerns us all, we rely more on physic, and seek oftener to physicians, than to God himself. As much faulty are they that prescribe, as they that ask, respecting wholly their gain, and trusting more to their ordinary receipts and medicines many times, than to him that made them. I would wish all patients in this behalf, in the midst of their melancholy, to remember that of Siracides, Ecc. i. 11 and 12, "The fear of the Lord is glory and gladness, and rejoicing. The fear of the Lord maketh a merry heart, and giveth gladness, and joy, and long life;" and all such as prescribe physic, to begin in nomine Dei, as 1 Mesue did, to imitate Lælius à Fonte Eugubinus, that in all his consultations, still concludes with a prayer for the good success of his business; and to remember that of Creto one of their predecessors, fuge avaritiam, et sine oratione et invocatione Dei nihil facias, avoid covetousness, and do nothing without invocation upon God. MEMB. III. Whether it be lawful to seek to Saints for Aid in this Disease. THAT we must pray to God, no man doubts; but whether we should pray to saints in such cases, or whether they can do us any good, it may be lawfully controverted. Whether their images, shrines, relics, consecrated things, holy water, medals, benedictions, those divine amulets, holy exorcisms, and the sign of the cross, be available in this disease? The papists, on the one side, stiffly maintain how many melancholy, mad, demoniacal persons are daily cured at St. Anthony's Church in Padua, at St. Vitus's in Germany, by our 1 Rulandus adjungit optimam orationem ad finem Empyricorum. Mercurialis, consil. 25, ita concludit. Montanus passim, &c., et plures alii, &c. 1 Lady of Loretto in Italy, our Lady of Sichem in the Low Countries; 1 Quæ et cæcis lumen, ægris salutem, mortuis vitam, claudis gressum reddit, omnes morbos corporis, animi, curat, et in ipsos dæmones imperium exercet; she cures halt, lame, blind, all diseases of body and mind, and commands the devil himself, saith Lipsius, "twenty-five thousand in a day come thither," 2 quis nisi numen in illum locum sic induxit; who brought them? in auribus, in oculis omnium gesta, nova novitia; new news lately done, our eyes and ears are full of her cures, and who can relate them all? They have a proper saint almost for every peculiar infirmity: for poison, gouts, agues, Petronella; St. Romanus for such as are possessed; Valentine for the falling-sickness; St. Vitus for madmen, &c., and as of old 3 Pliny reckons up gods for all diseases (Febri fanum dicatum est), Lilius Giraldus repeats many of her ceremonies; all affections of the mind were heretofore accounted gods, love, and sorrow, virtue, honour, liberty, contumely, impudency, had their temples, tempests, seasons, Crepitus Ventris, dea Vacuna, dea Cloacina, there was a goddess of idleness, a goddess of the draught, or jakes, Prema, Premunda, Priapus, bawdy gods, and gods for all 5 offices. Varro reckons up 30,000 gods; Lucian makes Podagra the gout a goddess, and assigns her priests and ministers; and melancholy comes not behind; for as Austin mentioneth, lib. 4, de Civit. Dei, cap. 9, there was of old Angerona dea, and she had her chapel and feasts, to whom (saith Macrobius) they did offer sacrifice yearly, that she might be pacified as well as the rest. 'Tis no new thing, you see this of papists; and in my judgment, that old doting Lipsius might have fitter dedicated his pen after all his labours, to this our goddess of melancholy, than to his Virgo Halensis, and been her chaplain, it would have become him better; but he, poor man, thought no harm in that 6 1 Lipsius. 2 Cap. 26. 3 Lib. 2, cap. 7, de Deo Morbisque in genera descriptis deos reperimus. Selden prolog. cap. 3, de diis Syris. Rofinus. 5 See Lilii Giraldi syntagma de diis, &c. 7 612 Cal. Januarii ferias celebrant, ut angores et animi solicitudines propitiata depellat. 7 Hanc divæ pennam con secravi, Lipsius. which he did, and will not be persuaded but that he doth well, he hath so many patrons, and honourable precedents in the like kind, that justify as much, as eagerly, and more than he there saith of his lady and mistress; read but superstitious Coster and Gretser's Tract de Cruce, Laur. Arcturus Fanteus de Invoc. Sanct., Bellarmine, Delrio, dis. mag. tom. 3, l. 6, quæst. 2, sect. 3, Greg. Tolosanus, tom. 2, lib. 8, cap. 24, Syntax, Strozius Cicogna, lib. 4, cap. 9, Tyreus, Hieronymus Mengus, and you shall find infinite examples of cures done in this kind, by holy waters, relics, crosses, exorcisms, amulets, images, consecrated beads, &c. Barradius the Jesuit boldly gives it out, that Christ's countenance, and the Virgin Mary's, would cure melancholy, if one had looked steadfastly on them. P. Morales the Spaniard, in his book de pulch. Jes. et Mar. confirms the same out of Carthusianus, and I know not whom, that it was a common proverb in those days, for such as were troubled in mind to say, eamus ad videndum filium Mariæ, let us see the son of Mary, as they now do post to St. Anthony's in Padua, or to St. Hilary's at Poictiers in France. 1 In a closet of that church, there is at this day St. Hilary's bed to be seen, to which they bring all the madmen in the country, and after some prayers and other ceremonies, they lay them down there to sleep, and so they recover." It is an ordinary thing in those parts, to send all their madmen to St. Hilary's cradle. They say the like of St. Tubery in another place. Giraldus, Cambrensis Itin. Camb. c. 1, tells strange stories of St. Ciricius's staff, that would cure this and all other diseases. Others say as much (as Hospinian observes) of the three kings of Cologne; their names written in parchment, and hung about a patient's neck, with the sign of the cross, will produce like effects. Read Lipomannus, or that golden legend of Jacobus de Voragine, you shall have infinite stories, or those new 8 66 Gallia Narbonensi. 3 Lib. de orig. Festorum. Collo suspensa et pergamena inscripta, cum signo crucis, &c. |