PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site
PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site
PDF format (1.55 Mb) - The Ex-Classics Web Site
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
THE ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY<br />
MEMB. II. Lawful Cures, first from God.<br />
Being so clearly evinced, as it is, all unlawful cures are to be refused, it remains to treat<br />
of such as are to be admitted, and those are commonly such which God hath appointed, by virtue<br />
of stones, herbs, plants, meats, and the like, which are prepared and applied to our use, by art and<br />
industry of physicians, who are the dispensers of such treasures for our good, and to be<br />
"honoured for necessities' sake," God's intermediate ministers, to whom in our infirmities we are<br />
to seek for help. Yet not so that we rely too much, or wholly upon them: a Jove principium, we<br />
must first begin with prayer, and then use physic; not one without the other, but both together. To<br />
pray alone, and reject ordinary means, is to do like him in Aesop, that when his cart was stalled,<br />
lay flat on his back, and cried aloud help Hercules, but that was to little purpose, except as his<br />
friend advised him, rotis tute ipse annitaris, he whipped his horses withal, and put his shoulder<br />
to the wheel. God works by means, as Christ cured the blind man with clay and spittle: Orandum<br />
est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano. As we must pray for health of body and mind, so we must<br />
use our utmost endeavours to preserve and continue it. Some kind of devils are not cast out but<br />
by fasting and prayer, and both necessarily required, not one without the other. For all the physic<br />
we can use, art, excellent industry, is to no purpose without calling upon God, nil juvat immensos<br />
Cratero promittere montes: it is in vain to seek for help, run, ride, except God bless us.<br />
------"non Siculi dapes<br />
Dulcem elaborabunt saporem.<br />
Non animum cytheræve cantus."<br />
"Non domus et fundus, non æris acervus et auri<br />
Ægroto possunt domino deducere febres."<br />
"With house, with land, with money, and with gold,<br />
<strong>The</strong> master's fever will not be controll'd."<br />
We must use our prayer and physic both together: and so no doubt but our prayers will be<br />
available, and our physic take effect. 'Tis that Hezekiah practised, 2 King. xx. Luke the<br />
Evangelist: and which we are enjoined, Coloss. iv. not the patient only, but the physician<br />
himself. Hippocrates, a heathen, required this in a good practitioner, and so did Galen, lib. de<br />
Plat. et Hipp. dog. lib. 9. cap. 15. and in that tract of his, an mores sequantur temp. cor. ca. 11..<br />
'tis a rule which he doth inculcate, and many others. Hyperius in his first book de sacr. script.<br />
lect. speaking of that happiness and good success which all physicians desire and hope for in<br />
their cures, "tells them that it is not to be expected, except with a true faith they call upon God,<br />
and teach their patients to do the like." <strong>The</strong> council of Lateran, Canon 22. decreed they should do<br />
so: the fathers of the church have still advised as much: whatsoever thou takest in hand (saith<br />
Gregory) "let God be of thy counsel, consult with him; that healeth those that are broken in heart,<br />
(Psal. cxlvii. 3.) and bindeth up their sores." Otherwise as the prophet Jeremiah, cap. xlvi. 11.<br />
denounced to Egypt, In vain shalt thou use many medicines, for thou shalt have no health. It is<br />
the same counsel which Comineus that politic historiographer gives to all Christian princes, upon<br />
occasion of that unhappy overthrow of Charles Duke of Burgundy, by means of which he was<br />
-16-