I Have now at length, Eusebia, by the goodness of God, regain’d that measure of Health, which makes the Doctor allow me to return to my former Studies, and Recreations, and Dyet; and in a word, to my wonted course of Life, so that the Physitian having dismiss’d himself, nothing seems more seasonable and pertinent to my present Condition, than that of our Saviour to the Paralitick Man, to whom he gave both Recovery, and an Admonition, which, if he obey’d, he found the more advantagious of the two; Behold, thou art made whole, Sin no more, least a worse thing come unto thee. But I am not so free from the apprehensions of an Ague, as my Friends think me from the danger of it: For having sadly Experienc’d the uneasiness of Sickness, I am thereby brought, though at no easie Rate, to set a high Value upon Health, and be a very Jealous Preserver of so great a Blessing; and those petty Chilnesses that formerly I regarded not, but was apt to impute to nothing but Fumes of the Spleen, or Melancholy Vapours, are now able to give me hot Alarms, and make me apt to fancy them the fore-runners, if not the beginners, of the Cold fit of an Ague, the first Invasion of that Disease having been preceded by the like Distempers; and accordingly, I carefully avoid the least Irregularities in point of Dyet, or of any other kind that may any ways endanger a Relapse into the Disease that once handl’d me so ill. But why should I be more apprehensive for my Body than my Mind; and if at any time (as it may but too often happen) any Sin should come to be prevalent in my Mind, why should I not be sollicitously afraid of all the occasions and approaches of it, and tremble at these Commotions of the Appetite, which would not else perhaps be formidable to me, in case I have found that such Beginnings indulg’d or neglected have ended in actual Sin, the real Disease of the Soul; and as dangerous Sicknesses do for the most part leave a crasie Disposition behind them, which threatens Relapses, so Sins once prevalent, though afterwards supprest, do yet leave behind them a secret Disposition or Propensity to the Repetition of the same faults; and as ‘tis less difficult to find examples of Bodily Diseases, than of Spiritual ones, where the Patient is protected from Relapses, so I think we should be more watchfull against falling back into the Sins, than into the Sicknesses, we have once found our selves subject to, unless we would think, that a greater Danger, and of a Nobler part, deserv’d less of our care.
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