Page:Devotions - Donne - 1840.djvu/134

 pray, and pray thy servant David's prayer, Have mevcy upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are vexed : 1 know, that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, to induce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health. When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, to commiserate, as in misery? But is praying for health in season, as soon as I am sick? Thy method goes further: Leave off from sin, and order thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness. Have I, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holy detestation of my former sin; is there any more? In thy method there is more: Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat offering, as not being. And Lord, by thy grace, I have done that, sacrificed a little of that little which thou lentest me, to them for whom thou lentest it: and now in thy method, and by thy steps, I am come to that, Zhen give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created him; let him not go f?'om thee, Jor thou hast need of him. 1 send for the physician, but I will hear him enter with those words of Peter, Jesus Christ maketh thee whole ; 1 long for his presence, but I look that the power of the Lord should be present to heal me.

MOST mighty and most merciful God, who art so the God of health and strength, as that without thee, all health is but the fuel, and all strength but the bellows of sin; behold me under the vehe mence of two diseases, and under the necessity of two physicians, authorized by thee, the bodily, and the