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THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY
MEMB. II. Lawful Cures, first from God.
Being so clearly evinced, as it is, all unlawful cures are to be refused, it remains to treat
of such as are to be admitted, and those are commonly such which God hath appointed, by virtue
of stones, herbs, plants, meats, and the like, which are prepared and applied to our use, by art and
industry of physicians, who are the dispensers of such treasures for our good, and to be
"honoured for necessities' sake," God's intermediate ministers, to whom in our infirmities we are
to seek for help. Yet not so that we rely too much, or wholly upon them: a Jove principium, we
must first begin with prayer, and then use physic; not one without the other, but both together. To
pray alone, and reject ordinary means, is to do like him in Aesop, that when his cart was stalled,
lay flat on his back, and cried aloud help Hercules, but that was to little purpose, except as his
friend advised him, rotis tute ipse annitaris, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder
to the wheel. God works by means, as Christ cured the blind man with clay and spittle: Orandum
est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. As we must pray for health of body and mind, so we must
use our utmost endeavours to preserve and continue it. Some kind of devils are not cast out but
by fasting and prayer, and both necessarily required, not one without the other. For all the physic
we can use, art, excellent industry, is to no purpose without calling upon God, nil juvat immensos
Cratero promittere montes: it is in vain to seek for help, run, ride, except God bless us.
------"non Siculi dapes
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem.
Non animum cytheræve cantus."
"Non domus et fundus, non æris acervus et auri
Ægroto possunt domino deducere febres."
"With house, with land, with money, and with gold,
The master's fever will not be controll'd."
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 King. 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
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
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