THE DUTY OF PHYSICIANS.
Neither is it my purpose to give any occasion to the learned men of
this honourable profession, to say that I intermeddle in the mysteries
of their art. I shall only tell them, and that very briefly, what God
and conscience will expect from them.
_Direct._ I. Be sure that the saving of men's lives and health,
be first and chiefly in your intention, before any gain or honour of
your own. I know you may lawfully have respect both to your
maintenance and honour; but in a second place only, as a far less good
than the lives of men. If money be your ultimate end, you debase your
profession, which, as exercised by you, can be no more to your honour
or comfort than your own intention carrieth it. It is more the end
than the means that ennobleth or debaseth men; if gain be the thing
which you chiefly seek, the matter is not very great (to you) whether
you seek it by medicining men or beasts, or by lower means than either
of them. To others indeed it may be a very great benefit, whose lives
you have been a means to save; but to yourselves it will be no greater
than your intention maketh it. If the honouring and pleasing God, and
the public good, and the saving of men's lives, be really first and
highest in your desires, then it is God that you serve in your
profession; otherwise you do but serve yourselves. And take heed lest
you here deceive yourselves, by thinking that the good of others is
your end, and dearer to you than your gain, because your reason
telleth you it is better and ought to be preferred: for God and the
public good are not every man's end, that can speak highly of them,
and say they should be so. If most of the world do practically prefer
their carnal prosperity even before their souls, while they speak of
the world as disgracefully as others, and call it vanity; how much
more easily may you deceive yourselves, in preferring your gain before
men's lives, while your tongue can speak contemptuously of gain!
_Direct._ II. Be ready to help the poor as well as the rich;
differencing them no further than the public good requireth you to do.
Let not the health or lives of men be neglected, because they have no
money to give you: many poor people perish for want of means, because
they are discouraged from going to physicians, through the emptiness
of their purses; in such a case you must not only help them gratis,
but also appoint the cheapest medicines for them.
_Direct._ III. Adventure not unnecessarily on things beyond your
skill, but in difficult cases persuade your patients to use the help
of abler physicians, if there be any to be had, though it be against
your own commodity. So far should you be from envying the greater
esteem and practice of abler men, and from all unworthy aspersions or
detraction, that you should do your best to persuade all your patients
to seek their counsels, whenever the danger of their lives or health
requireth it. For their lives are of greater value than your gain. So
abstruse and conjectural is the business of your profession, that it
requireth very high accomplishments to be a physician indeed. If there
concur not, 1. A natural strength of reason and sagacity; 2. And a
great deal of study, reading, and acquaintance with the way of
excellent men; 3. And considerable experience of your own, to ripen
all this; you have cause to be very fearful and cautelous in your
practice, lest you sacrifice men's lives to your ignorance and
temerity. And one man that hath all these accomplishments in a high
degree, may do more good than a hundred smatterers: and when you are
conscious of a defect in any of these, should not reason and
conscience command you to persuade the sick to seek out to those that
are abler than yourselves? Should men's lives be hazarded, that you
may get by it a little sordid gain? It is so great a doubt whether the
ignorant, unexperienced sort of physicians, do cure or hurt more, that
it hath brought the vulgar in many countries into a contempt of
physicians.[121]
_Direct._ IV. Depend on God for your direction and success.
Earnestly crave his help and blessing in all your undertakings.
Without this all your labour is in vain. How easy is it for you to
overlook some one thing among a multitude that must be seen, about the
causes and cure of diseases; unless God shall open it to you, and give
you a clear discerning, and a universal observation! And when twenty
considerable things are noted, a man's life may be lost, for want of
your discerning one point more. What need have you of the help of God,
to bring the fittest remedies to your memory! and much more to bless
them when they are administered! as the experience of your daily
practice may inform you (where atheism hath not made men fools).
_Direct._ V. Let your continual observation of the fragility of
the flesh, and of man's mortality, make you more spiritual than other
men, and more industrious in preparing for the life to come, and
greater contemners of the vanities of this world. He that is so
frequently among the sick, and a spectator of the dead and dying, is
utterly unexcusable if he be himself unprepared for his sickness or
for death. If the heart be not made better, when you almost dwell in
the house of mourning, it is a bad and deplorate heart indeed. It is
strange that physicians should be so much suspected of atheism as
commonly they are; and _religio medici_ should be a word that
signifieth irreligiousness: sure this conceit was taken up in some
more irreligious age or country; for I have oft been very thankful to
God, in observing the contrary, even how many excellent, pious
physicians there have been in most countries where the purity of
religion hath appeared, and how much they promoted the work of
reformation; (such as Crato, Platerus, Erastus, and abundance more
that I might name;) and in this land and age, I must needs bear
witness, that I have known as many physicians religious proportionably
as of any one profession, except the preachers of the gospel. But as
no men are more desperately wicked, than those that are wicked after
pious education, and under the most powerful means of their
reformation; so it is very like that those physicians that are not
truly good are very bad; because they are bad against so much light,
and so many warnings; and from some of these it is like this
censorious proverb came. And indeed man's nature is so apt to be
affected with things that are unusual, and to lose all sense of things
that are grown common, that no men have more need to watch their
hearts, and be afraid of being hardened, than those that are
continually under the most quickening helps and warnings. For it is
very easy to grow customary and senseless under them; and then the
danger is, that there are no better means remaining, to quicken such a
stupid, hardened heart. Whereas those that enjoy such helps but
seldom, are not so apt to lose the sense and benefit of them. The
sight of a sick or dying man, doth usually much awaken those that have
such sights but seldom; but who are more hardened than soldiers and
seamen, that live continually as among the dead? When they have twice
or thrice seen the field covered with men's carcasses, they usually
grow more obdurate than any others. And this is it that physicians are
in danger of, and should most carefully avoid. But certainly an
atheistical or ungodly physician, is unexcusably blind. To say, as
some do, that they study nature so much, that they are carried away
from God; is as if you should say, they study the work so much, that
they forget the workman; or, they look so much on the book, that they
overlook the sense; or, that they study medicine so much, that they
forget both the patient and his health. To look into nature and not
see God, is as to see the creatures, and not the light by which we see
them; or to see the trees and houses, and not to see the earth that
beareth them. For God is the creating, conserving, dirigent, final
Cause of all. Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; He
is all in all. And if they know not that they are the subjects of this
God, and have immortal souls, they are ill proficients in the study of
nature, that know no better the nature of man. To boast of their
acquisitions in other sciences, while they know not what a man is, or
what they are themselves, is little to the honour of their
understandings. You that live still as in the sight of death, should
live as in the sight of another world, and excel others in spiritual
wisdom, and holiness, and sobriety, as your advantages by these
quickening helps excel.
_Direct._ VI. Exercise your compassion and charity to men's
souls, as well as to their bodies; and speak to your patients such
words as tend to prepare them for their change. You have excellent
opportunities, if you have hearts to take them. If ever men will hear,
it is when they are sick; and if ever they will be humbled and
serious, it is when the approach of death constraineth them. They will
hear that counsel now with patience, which they would have despised in
their health. A few serious words about the danger of an unregenerate
state, and the necessity of holiness, and the use of a Saviour, and
the everlasting state of souls, for aught you know, may be blest to
their conversion and salvation. And it is much more comfortable for
you to save a soul, than cure the body. Think not to excuse yourselves
by saying, It is the pastor's duty; for though it be theirs _ex
officio_, it is yours also _ex charitate_. Charity bindeth every man,
as he hath opportunity, to do good to all; and especially the greatest
good. And God giveth you opportunity, by casting them in your way; the
priest and Levite that passed by the wounded man, were more to be
blamed for not relieving him, than those that never went that way, and
therefore saw him not, Luke x. 32. And many a man will send for the
physician, that will not send for the pastor: and many a one will hear
a physician that will despise the pastor. As they reverence their
landlords, because they hold their estates from them, so do they the
physician, because they think they can do much to save their lives.
And alas, in too many places the pastors either mind not such work, or
are insufficient for it; or else stand at odds and distance from the
people; so that there is but too much need of your charitable help.
Remember therefore, that he that "converteth a sinner from the error
of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude
of sins," James v. 20. Remember that you are to speak to one that is
going into another world, and must be saved now or never! And that all
that ever must be done for his salvation must be presently done, or it
will be too late. Pity human nature, and harden not your hearts
against a man in his extreme necessity. O speak a few serious words
for his conversion (if he be one that needs them) before his soul be
past your help, in the world from which there is no return.
[121] As overvaluing men's own understandings in religion, is the ruin
of souls and churches; so overvaluing men's raw, unexperienced
apprehensions in physic costeth multitudes their lives. I know not
whether a few able, judicious, experienced physicians cure more or the
rest kill more.