EIther my Curiosity, Sophronia, or my Value of Health, has made it my Custom, when I have pass’d through a course of Physick, to review the particulars it consisted of; That taking notice by what Remedies I found most good, and by what, little or none; if I should fall into the like Distemper for the future, I might derive some advantage from my past Experience. In compliance with this Custom, as I was this Day reviewing and putting together the Doctor’s several Prescriptions sent me back by the Apothecary; Good God! said I, in my self, what a multitude of unpleasant Medicines have I been order’d to take: The very Numbring, and Reading them were able to Discompose me, and make me almost Sick, though the taking of them help’d to make me VVell. And certainly, if when I was about to enter into a course of Physick, all these loathsome Medicines, and uneasie Prescriptions, had been presented to me together, as things I must take, and comply with, I should have utterly despair’d of a Recovery that must be so obtain’d, and should not perhaps have undertaken so difficult and tedious a Work, out of an apprehension that it would prove impossible for me to go thorow with it. Thus when a Man considers the Duties, and the Mortifications, that are requisite to a recovery out of a state of Sin, into a state of Grace, he must be resolute enough, if he be not deterr’d from undertaking the conditions that Piety requires, by so many and great difficulties as will present themselves to his affrighted Imagination: But let not this make him Despondent; for ‘tis true, that these discomposing Medicines, if I must have taken so much as a tenth part of them in one Day, would have either dispatch’d me, or disabled me to endure the taking any the next. But then, although I now see these troublesome Prescriptions all at once, I did not use them so, but took only one or two harsh Remedies in one Day, and thereby was enabled to bear them, especially being assisted by moderate Intervalls of Respite, and supported both by other seasonable Cordials, and by that highest Cordial, the Hope that the use of these troublesome means of Recovery would soon free me from the need of them. And thus, though the hardships of Piety are, by the Ghostly and Carnal enemies of it, wont to be represented to one that begins to grow a Convert, so great and formidable a Multitude as to be insuperable; yet if he consider, that though his fore-sight meet with them all at once, yet he will need to grapple with them but one after another, and may be as well able to overcome a Temptation this Day, or to Morrow, as he did another Yesterday: So that to this case also may in some sense be applied, that (either Counsel, or Precept) of our Saviour, not to be sollicitous for to Morrow, but to charge no more upon a Day than the trouble that belongs to it. And if he considers too, That as a wise Physitian has always a great care, that his Remedies be not disproportionate to the Patient’s Strength, and after harsh Physick to relieve him with Cordials, so God will not suffer those that intrust themselves to him to be tempted above what they are able; but will allow them Cordials after their Sufferings, in case he do not turn the Sufferings themselves into Cordials. If (I say) our new Convert shall consider things of this Nature, he will not be much discourag’d by the appearance of difficulties, that will as much ennoble and indear his success, as they can oppose it; and he will never despair of Victory in an engagement, where he may justly hope to have God for his Second, and Heaven for his Reward.
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