David professes himself a dead dog to his king Saul,[5] and so doth
Mephibosheth to his king David,[6] and yet David speaks to Saul, and
Mephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatest
man, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have not
so much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure for
infinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave; he that hath
his grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buried
in the same grave; he that hath no grave but a dunghill, he that hath no
more earth but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hath
not that earth which he is, but even in that is another's slave, hath as
much proportion to God, as if all David's worthies, and all the world's
monarchs, and all imagination's giants, were kneaded and incorporated
into one, and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons of
men, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever I
be, as _God calls things that are not, as though they were_, I, who am
as though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, why
comes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost thou melt me, scatter me,
pour me like water upon the ground so instantly? Thou stayedst for the
first world, in Noah's time, one hundred and twenty years; thou stayedst
for a rebellious generation in the wilderness forty years, wilt thou
stay no minute for me? Wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thy
citation and thy judgment, but one act? Thy summons, thy battle, thy
victory, thy triumph, all but one act; and lead me captive, nay, deliver
me captive to death, as soon as thou declarest me to be enemy, and so
cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, and
for that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but that
the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, my
God, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentle
air. Thy first breath breathed a soul into me, and shall thy breath blow
it out? Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathes
communion and consolation here, and consummation hereafter; shall thy
breath in this chamber breathe dissolution and destruction, divorce and
separation? Surely it is not thou, it is not thy hand. The devouring
sword, the consuming fire, the winds from the wilderness, the diseases
of the body, all that afflicted Job, were from the hands of Satan; it is
not thou. It is thou, thou my God, who hast led me so continually with
thy hand, from the hand of my nurse, as that I know thou wilt not
correct me, but with thine own hand. My parents would not give me over
to a servant's correction, nor my God to Satan's. I am _fallen into the
hands of God_ with David, and with David I see that his mercies are
great.[7] For by that mercy, I consider in my present state, not the
haste and the despatch of the disease, in dissolving this body, so much
as the much more haste and despatch, which my God shall use, in
re-collecting and re-uniting this dust again at the resurrection. Then I
shall hear his angels proclaim the _Surgite mortui_, Rise, ye dead.
Though I be dead, I shall hear the voice; the sounding of the voice and
the working of the voice shall be all one; and all shall rise there in a
less minute than any one dies here.