The works of George Swinnock, M.A

I Wish that I may be solicitous to understand the spiritual conditions of the sick, that my prescriptions may be profitable, being suitable to their several sores. The knowledge of the disease, must necessarily precede directions for its cure. Its folly to undertake their recovery, whose estates I am ignorant of. He works at the labour-in-vain, who goeth about to heal a wounded Patient, when he knoweth not the place or nature of his pain. The mistake of the Physician may be as mortal and dangerous as the disease it self. It will be no wonder if a blind man shoot awry and miss the mark. This was the cause that Jobs friends, though holy men, and designing a good end, wandered exceedingly; and instead of administering comfort by their visitation, wounded him to the quick, and proved his greatest cross; The Sabeans and Chaldeans robbed him of his Cattle; Satan wronged him in his body, but his three friends vexed his soul, and did break him in pieces with words. Their ignorance was the ground of the hurt they offered, instead of the help they intended, Job 19. 2. A Friend may do that mischief upon a false supposition, which an Enemy doth out of malice. Though the Doctrine be true and right, if the Application ⟨p. 597⟩of it be wrong, I may kill sooner then cure the person to whom I apply it. The Husbandman must know the nature of his ground, before he casteth in his seed, or otherwise he will miss of his expected crop. Lord, thou knowest the conditions and dispositions of all men, by immediate intuition, and needest not that any should testify of man; thou knowest how needful it is for me to understand by rational discourse, who and what those sick persons are, how things stand betwixt thy Majesty and their souls, whose recovery I go about; O help me to find out their sickness, and to give such advice out of thy word, that thou mayst work their cure.

I Wish that I may be solicitous to understand the spiritual conditions of the sick, that my prescriptions may be profitable, being sutable to their several sores. The knowledge of the disease, must necessarily precede directions for its cure. Its folly to undertake their recovery, whose estates I am ignorant of. He works at the labour-in-vain, who goeth about to heal a wounded Patient, when he knoweth not the place or nature of his pain. The mistake of the Physitian may be as mortal and dangerous as the disease it self. It will be no wonder if a blind man shoot awry and miss the mark. This was the cause that Jobs friends, though holy men, and designing a good end, wandred exceedingly; and instead of administring comfort by their visitation, wounded him to the quick, and proved his greatest cross; The Sabeans and Chaldeans robbed him of his Cattel; Satan wronged him in his body, but his three friends vexed his soul, and did break him in peices with words. Their ignorance was the ground of the hurt they offered, instead of the help they intended,