156 FOURTH SERMON falling sickness, and that the worstkind of fall, not for- ward in our way or race, as every good man some- times falls, where a man bath the help of his knees and hands to break the blow, to prevent or lessen the hurt, and to make him to rise again; but old Eli falls a falling backward, where a man can put forth no part to save the whole, and so doth more dangerously break and bruise himself thereby. Therefore as it is a sickness which requires curing, so it is a wound which requires healing and binding. The ancients compare it to falling into a pit full of dirt and stones : where a man doth not only defile, but miserably break and bruise himself. There are all the evils of a dan- gerous and mortal wound. Add to all this, that in this diseased and wounded condition, 1. A man hath no power to heal or to help himself, but in that respect he must cry out with the prophet, " My wound is incurable, and refuseth to be healed," Jer. xv. 18. 2. He hath no desire, no will, no thought to inquire or send after a physician who may heal him, but is well contented rather to con- tinue as he is than to be put to the pain and trouble of a cure, and pleaseth himself in the goodness of his own condition, Rev. iii. 17. 3. He is in the hands of his cruel enemy, who takes no pity on him, but by flattery and tyranny and new temptations continually cherish - eth the disease. 4. When the true physician comes, he shuts the door against him, refuseth his counsel, reject- eth his receipts, quarrels with his medicines ; they are too bitter, or too strong and purifying, or too sharp and searching ; he will not be healed at all except it may be his own way. Prov. i. 24, 25.2 Chron. xxxvi. 16. Ezek. xxiv. 13. Matt. xxiii. 37. Jer. xiii. 11. Thus we have taken a view of the patient, sick, weak, pained, con-
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