Wholesome words. A visit of advice, given unto families that are visited with sickness;…

I. There is a Duty incumbent upon the whole Family, even upon every Person that can understand their Duty, when Sickness comes upon any Person in the Family. If any One Person in a Family be under any Sickness, there is an Holy Improvement of it, and an Improvement in Holiness on it, whereof every Soul in the Family should be studious. Particularly;

First. Let the whole Family acknowledge, that the Sickness of any one in the Family, is by the Providence of the Great GOD brought upon them. When there was only a Child Sick in a Family, it was said, 2 Sam. XII.15. The Lord struck the Child, and it was very Sick. Tis Atheism in us, if we do not own, that a Sparrow falls not unto the Ground, without the Providence of God; and we are Blinder than the Owl, if we see not the Providence of God in it, when Sickness threatens to lay any of us or of ours, in the Ground. The Providence of God is to be eyed, as in all the Comforts of a Family, ⟨p. 3⟩so in all the Troubles of it. When Sickness does Happen in a Family, it comes not merely by Hap. It was said, Amos III.6- Shall there be Evil in a City, and the Lord hath not done it? We may say, Shall there be Sickness in a Family, and the Lord hath not sent it? When Health is taken away from any of us, tis by the Hand of Him, who is, The God of our Health. It was the Creation of God, which put our Body's in their good Order at the first: If Sickness put our Body's out of Order, there is the Providence of God, ordering of it. Are we Sick? We must Esteem our selves to be Stricken and Smitten of God, and Afflicted. Indeed, there are some Diseases, in which the more Immediate Hand of God, (and of His Angels,) may Scourge the Sinful Children of men. The Leprosy, as it often Arrested, first, the Houses, and then the Garments, and then (upon Impenitency) the Body's of the Israelites, in the Holy Land, seems to have been one of those Diseases. And even the most Famous Pagan Physician, advises the Practitioners of Physic, to mind, whether there be no extraordinary Stamp of a Divine Hand in those Diseases, which they