A Golden Chain

In the preserving of life, two things must be considered: the means, and the right use of the means. The means is good and wholesome physic: which, though it be despised of many as a thing unprofitable and needles, yet must it be esteemed as an ordinance and blessing of God. This appears, because the spirit of God hath given approvation unto it in the Scriptures. When it was ⟨p. 800⟩the good pleasure of God to restore life unto king Hezekiah,¹ a lump of dry figs by the prophets appointment was laid to his boil and he was healed. Indeed this cure was in some sort miraculous, because he was made whole in the space of two or three days, and the third day he went up to the temple: yet the bunch of figs was a natural and ordinary medicine or plaster serving to soften & ripen tumours or swellings in the flesh.² And the Samaritan is commended for the binding up and for the pouring in of wine and oil into the wounds of the man that lay wounded between Jerusalem and Jericho. Now this dealing of his was a right practise of physic:³ for the wine served to cleanse the wound and to ease the pain within: & the oil served to supple the flesh & to assuage the pain without. And the prophet Isaiah seems to commend this physic, when he saith,⁴ From the sole of the foot there is nothing whole therein, but wounds and swellings; & sores full of corruption: they have not bin wrapped nor bound up, nor mollified with oil. And whereas God did not command circumcision of children before the eight day, he followed a rule of physic observed in all ages, that the life of the child is very uncertain till the first seven days be expired, as we may see by the example of the child which David had by Bathsheba which died the seventh day. And upon the very same ground heathen men used not to name their children before the eight day.⁵ Thus then it is manifest that the use of physic is lawful and commendable.