Page:Devotions - Donne - 1840.djvu/161

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my father's house[1]. It is kingly to give; when Araunah gave that great and free present to David, that place, those instruments for sacrifice, and the sacrifices themselves, it is said there by thy Spirit, All these things did Araunah give, as a king, to the king[2]. To give is an approaching to the condition of kings, but to give health, an approaching to the King of kings, to thee. DBut this his assisting to my bodily health, thou knowest, O God, and so do some others of thine honourable servants know, is but the twilight of that day wherein thou, through him, hast shined upon me before; but the echo of that voice, whereby thou, through him, hast spoke to me before, then when he, first of any man, conceived a hope that 1 might be of some use in thy church, and descended to an intimation, to a persuasion, almost to a solicitation, that I would embrace that calling. And thou who hadst put that desire into his heart, didst also put into mine an obedience to it; and I, who was sick before of a vertiginous giddiness and irresolution, and almost spent all my time in consulting how I should spend it, was by this man of God, and God of men, put into the pool and recovered: when I asked, perchance, a stone, he gave me bread; when I asked, perchance, a scorpion, he gave me a fish; when I asked a temporal office, he denied not, refused not that; but let me see that he had rather I took this. These things thou, O God, who forgettest nothing, hast not forgot, though perchance he, because they were benefits, hath; but I am not only a witness, but an instance, that our Jehoshaphat hath a care to ordain priests, as well as judges[3]: and not only to send physicians for temporal, but to be the physician for spiritual health.

  1. 2 Sam. xxiv. 17.
  2. 2 Sam. xxiv. 22, 23.
  3. 2 Chron. xix. 8.