Page:Devotions - Donne - 1840.djvu/124

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should easily fall to, and fix myself long upon my devotions to thee. A sound heart is the life of the flesh[1]; and a heart visited by thee, and directed to thee by that visitation, is a sound heart. There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine anger[2]. Interpret thine own work, and call this sickness correction, and not anger, and there is soundness in my flesh. There is no rest in my bones, because of my sin[3]; transfer my sins, with which thou art so displeased, upon him with whom thou art so well pleased, Christ Jesus, and there will be rest in my bones. And, O my God, who madest thyself a light in a bush, in the midst of these brambles and thorns of a sharp sickness, appear unto me so that I may see thee, and know thee to be my God, applying thyself to me, even in these sharp and thorny passages. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who was not the less the King of heaven for thy suffering him to be crowned with thorns in this world.


III. Decubitus sequitur tandem.

The Patient takes his Bed.

III. MEDITATION.

WE attribute but one privilege and advantage to man's body above other moving creatures, that he is not, as others, groveling, but of an erect, of an upright form, naturally built and disposed to the contemplation of heaven. Indeed it is a thankful form, and recompenses that soul, which gives it, with carrying that soul so many feet higher towards heaven. Other creatures look to the earth; and even that is no unfit object, no unfit contemplation for man; for

  1. Prov. xiv. 30.
  2. Psalm xxxviii. 3.
  3. Psalm xxxviii. 3.