The works of George Swinnock, M.A

Some tell us the Art of medicines was thus perfected. When any one met with an Herb, and discovered the virtue of it by any accident, he did post it up in some public place; and if any were sick or diseased, he was laid in some common passage, that every passenger might communicate the best Receipt he knew for that distemper; and so the Physicians skill was completed, by a collection of those posted Experiences and Receipts. I cannot but think that our souls would be more safe, and our spiritual sicknesses less dangerous, if Christians were more free in revealing what means have, through the assistance of the Spirit, been instrumental for their recovery out of their inward distempers, and the preservation of their health.

Some tell us the Art of medicines was thus perfected. When any one met with an Herb, and discovered the vertue of it by any accident, he did post it up in some publique place; and if any were sick or diseased, he was laid in some common passage, that every passenger might communicate the best Receipt he knew for that distemper; and so the Physitians skill was compleated, by a collection of those posted Experiences and Receipts. I cannot but think that our souls would be more safe, and our spiritual sicknesses less dangerous, if Christians were more free in revealing what means have, through the assistance of the Spirit, been instrumental for their recovery out of their inward distempers, and the preservation of their health.

²2. Take heed of censuring the good; This is another sin, that even good men are guilty of when they meet together; Some no sooner creep into the Cradle of Profession, but immediately they leap out of it, into the Chair of Censure; If a Christian do stumble, he saith he falls, and so carrieth it up and down; He always greatens others, and lessens his own sins. Things in a mist, seem bigger to us, then in a fair day, by reason of the indisposedness of the air or medium; He looks on the sins of others, through the mist of envy, and so makes them bigger then they are; He beholds his own sins, as God doth himself afar off, or as things on a Steeple, which seem small and little. Because some persons are not of his party, therefore they are in the bond of iniquity, saith the Censorious man. Thus the Romans judged others not Saints, because they were not exactly of their