gave him a check: "O thou of little faith. why doubtest thou?" As Peter's faith was not pure, but mixed with some distrust, so our Saviour's help was not clear and absolute, but mixed with some reproof; a reproof, wherein there was both a censure and an expostulation; a censure of his faith, an expostulation for his doubt; both of them sore and heavy.

By how much more excellent and useful a grace faith is, by so much more shameful is the defect of it; and by how much more reason here was of confidence, by so much more blameworthy was the doubt. Now Peter had a double reason of his confidence: the command of Christ, the power of Christ; the one in bidding him to come, the other in sustaining him while he came. To misdoubt him whose will he knew, whose power he felt, was well worth a reprehension.

When I saw Peter stepping forth upon the waters, I could not but wonder at his great faith; yet behold, ere he can have measured many paces, the Judge of hearts axes him for little faith. Our mountains are but motes to God. Would my heart have served me to dare the doing of this that Peter did? durst I have set my foot where he did? O Saviour, if thou foundest cause to censure the weakness and poverty of his faith, what mayest thou well say to mine! They mistake that think thou wilt take up with anything. Thou lookest for firmness and vigour in those graces, which thou wilt allow in thy best disciples, no less than truth.

The first steps were confident, there was fear in the next. O the sudden alteration of our affections, of our dispositions' one pace varies our spiritual condition. What hold is there of so fickle creatures, if we be left never so little to ourselves? As this lower world, wherein we are, is the region | of mutability, so are we, the living pieces of it, subject to a perpetual change. It is for the blessed saints and angels above to be fixed in good while we are here, there can be no constancy expected from us, but in variableness.

As well as our Saviour loves Peter, yet he chides him. It is the fruit of his favour and mercy that we escape judgment, not that we escape reproof. Had not Peter found grace with his Master, he had been suffered to sink in silence; now he is saved with a check. There may be more love in frowns than in smiles: "Whom he loves he chastises." What is chiding but a verbal castigation? and what is chastiserent but a real chiding? Correct me, O Lord, yet in thy judgment, not in thy fury." Olet

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the righteous God smite me, when I offend, with his gracious reproofs; these shall be a precious oil that shall not break my head."

CONTEMPLATION VII. THE BLOODY ISSUE HEALED.

THE time was, O Saviour, when a worthy woman offered to touch thee, and was forbidden: now a meaner touches thee with approbation and encouragement. Yet as there was much difference in that body of thine which was the object of that touch, being now mortal and passible, then impassible and immortal, so there was in the agents: this a stranger, that a familiar; this obscure, that famous.

The same actions vary with time and other circumstances; and accordingly receive their dislike or allowance.

Doubtless thou hadst herein no small respect to the faith of Jairus, unto whose house thou wert going. That good man had but one only daughter, which lay sick in the beginning of his suit; ere the end, lay dead; while she lived, his hope lived; her death disheartened it. It was a great work that thou meantest to do for him; it was a great word that thou saidst to him: "Fear not, believe, and she shall be made whole." To make this good, by the touch of the verge of thy garment, thou revivedst one from the verge of death. How must Jairus needs now think, He who, by the virtue of his garment, can pull this woman out of the paws of death, which hath been twelve years dying, can as well, by the power of his word, pull my daughter, who hath been twelve years living, out of the jaws of death, which hath newly seized on her. It was fit the good ruler should be raised up with this handsel of thy divine power, whom he came to solicit.

That thou mightest lose no time, thou curedst in thy passage. The sun stands not still to give his influences, but diffuses them in his ordinary motion. How shall we imitate thee, if we suffer our hands to be out of use with good? Our life goes away with our time: we lose that which we improve not.

The patient laboured of an issue of blood; a disease that had not more pain than shame, nor more natural infirmity than legal impurity. Time added to her grief; twelve long years had she languished under this woful complaint. Besides the tediousness, diseases must needs get head by continuance, and so much more both weaken nature and strengthen themselves, by how much

longer they afflict us. So it is in the soul, so in the state: vices which are the sicknesses of both, when they grow inveterate, have a strong plea for their abode and uncontrollableness.

Yet more, to mend the matter, poverty, which is another disease, was superadded to her sickness; "she had spent all she had upon physicians." While she had wherewith to make much of herself, and to procure good tendance, choice diet, and all the succours of a distressing languishment, she could not but find some mitigation of her sorrow: but now want began to pinch her no less than her distemper, and helped to make her perfectly miserable.

Yet could she have parted from her substance with ease, her complaint had been the less. Could the physicians have given her, if not health, yet relaxation and painlessness, her means had not been misbestowed; but now, "she suffered many things from them;" many an unpleasing potion, many tormenting incisions and divulsions did she endure from their hands; the remedy was equal in trouble to the disease.

Yet had the cost and pain been never so great, could she have thereby purchased nealth, the match had been happy; all the world were no price for this commodity: but alas, her estate was the worse, her body not the better; her money was wasted, not her disease. Art could give her neither cure nor hope. It were injurious to blame that noble science, for that it always speeds not. Notwithstanding all those sovereign remedies, men must, in their times, sicken and die. Even the miraculous gifts of healing could not preserve the owners from disease and dissolution.

It were pity but that this woman should have been thus sick; the nature, the durableness, cost, pain, incurableness of her disease, both sent her to seek Christ, and moved Christ to her cure. Our extremities drive us to our Saviour; his love draws him to be most present and helpful to our extremities. When we are forsaken of all succours and hopes, we are fittest for his redress. Never are we nearer to help, than when we despair of help. There is no fear, no danger, but in our own insensibleness.

This woman was a stranger to Christ; it seems she had never seen him. The report of his miracles had lifted her up to such a confidence of his power and mercy, as that she said in herself, "If I may but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be whole." The shame of her disease stopt her mouth from any verbal suit. Had her unfirmity been known, she had been shunned

and abhorred, and disdainfully put back of all the beholders, as doubtless, where she was known, the law forced her to live apart. Now she conceals both her grief, and her desire, and her faith; and only speaks where she may be bold, within herself: "If I may but touch the hem of his garment, I shall be whole."

I seek not mysteries in the virtue of the hem, rather than of the garment. Indeed, it was God's command to Israel, that they should be marked, not only in their skin, but in their clothes too: those fringes and ribands upon the borders of their garments were for holy memorials of their duty, and God's law. But that hence she supposed to find more virtue and sanctity in the touch of the hem than of the coat, I neither dispute nor believe; it was the sight, not the signification that she intimated; not as of the best part, but the utmost. In all likelihood, if there could have been virtue in the garment, the nearer to the body the more. Here was then the praise of this woman's faith, that she promiseth herself cure from the touch of the utmost hem. Whosoever would look to receive any benefit from Christ, must come in faith: it is that only which makes us capable of any favour. Satan, the common ape of the AÍmighty, imitates him also in this point: all his charms and spells are ineffectual without the faith of the user, of the receiver.

Yea, the endeavour and issue of all, both human and spiritual things, depends upon our faith. Who would commit a plant or seed to the earth, if he did not believe to have it nursed in that kindly bosom? What merchant would put himself upon the guard of an inch-board in a furious sea, if he did not trust to the faithful custody of that plank? Who would trade, or travel, or war, or marry, if he did not therein surely trust he should speed well? What benefit can we look to carry from a divine exhortation, if we do not believe it will edify us? from a sacramental banquet, the food of angels, if we do not believe it will nourish our souls? from our best devotions, if we do not persuade ourselves they will fetch down blessings? O our vain and heartless services, if we do not say, May I drink but one drop of that heavenly nectar, may I taste but one crumb of that bread of life, may I hear but one word from the mouth of Christ, may I send up but one hearty sigh or ejaculation of a holy desire to my God, I shall be whole!

According to her resolution is her practice. She touched, but she came behind to touch; whether for humility, or her secrecy

rather, as desiring to steal a cure unseen, unnoted. She was a Jewess, and therefore well knew that her touch was, in this case, no better than a pollution, as hers, perhaps, but not of him. For, on the one side, necessity is under no positive law; on the other, the Son of God was not capable of impurity. Those may be defiled with a touch, that cannot heal with a touch; he, that was above law is not comprised in the law: be we never so unclean, he may heal us; we cannot infect him. O Saviour, my soul is sick and foul enough with the spiritual impurities of sin; let me, by the hand of faith, lay hold but upon the hem of thy garment (thy righteousness is thy garment), it shall be both clean and whole.

Who would not think but a man might lade up a dish of water out of the sea unmissed? Yet that water, though much, is finite; those drops are within number: that art, which hath reckoned how many corns of sand would make up a world, could more easily compute how many drops of water would make up an ocean; whereas the mercies of God are absolutely infinite, and beyond all possibility of proportion: and yet this bashful soul cannot steal one drop of mercy from this endless, boundless, bottomless sea of divine bounty, but it is felt and questioned: "And Jesus said, Who touched me?"

Who can now say that he is a poor man that reckons his store, when that God, who is rich in mercy, doth so? He knows all his own blessings, and keeps just tallies of our receipts; delivered so much honour to this man, to that so much wealth; so much knowledge to one, to another so much strength. How carefully frugal should we be in the notice, account, usage of God's several favours, since his bounty sets all his gifts upon the file! Even the worst servant in the gospel confessed his talents, though he employed them not. worse than the worst, if either we misknow, or dissemble, or forget them.

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Who now can forbear the disciple's reply? Who touched thee, O Lord? the multitude. Dost thou ask of one, when thou art pressed by many? In the midst of a throng, dost thou ask, Who touched me?" Yea, but yet, "some one touched me:" all thronged me; but one touched me. How riddle-like soever it may seem to sound, they that thronged me touched me not; she only touched me that thronged me not, vea, that touched me not. Even so, O Saviour, others touched thy body with theirs; she touched thy hem with her hand, thy divine power with her soul.

Those two parts whereof we consist, the bodily, the spiritual, do in a sort partake of each other. The soul is the man, and hath those parts, senses, actions, which are challenged as proper to the body. This spiritual part hath both a hand, and a touch; it is by the hand of faith that the soul toucheth; yea, this alone both is and acts all the spiritual senses of that immaterial and divine part: this sees, hears, tasteth, toucheth God; and without this, the soul doth none of these. All the multitude then pressed Christ: he took not that for a touch, since faith was away; only she touched him that believed to receive virtue by his touch. Outward fashionableness comes into no account with God; that is only done which the soul doth. It is no hoping that virtue should go forth from Christ to us, when no hearty desires go forth from us to him. He that is a spirit, looks to the deportment of that part which resembleth himself: as, without it, the body is dead; so without the actions thereof, bodily devotions are but carcasses.

What reason had our Saviour to challenge this touch? "Somebody touched me. The multitude, in one extreme, denied any touch at all: Peter, in another extreme, affirmed an over-touching of the multitude. Betwixt both, he who felt it can say, "Somebody touched me." Not all, as Peter; not none, as the multitude; but somebody. How then, O Saviour, how doth it appear that somebody touched thee? "For I perceive virtue is gone out from me." The effect proves the act; virtue gone out evinces the touch. These two are in thee convertible: virtue cannot go out of thee but by a touch, and no touch can be of thee, without virtue going out from thee. That which is a rule in nature, that every agent works by a contract, holds spiritually too: then dost thou, O God, work upon our souls, when thou touchest our hearts by the Spirit; then do we re-act upon thee, when we touch thee by the hand of our faith and confidence in thee; and, in both these, virtue goes out from thee to us; yet goes not so out, as that there is less in thee. In all bodily emanations, whose powers are but finite, it must needs follow, that the more is sent forth, the less is reserved: but as it is in the sun, which gives us light, yet loseth none ever the more, the luminosity of it being no whit impaired by that perpetual emission of lightsome beams, so much more is it in thee, the Father of lights. Virtue could not go out of thee without thy knowledge, without thy sending. Neither was it in a dislike, or in a grudging

exprobration, that thou saidst, "Virtue is gone out from me." Nothing could please thee better, than to feel virtue fetched out from thee by the faith of the receiver. It is the nature and praise of good to be communicative: none of us would be other than liberal of our little, if we did not fear it would be lessened by imparting. Thou, that knowest thy store so infinite, that participation doth only glorify and not diminish it, canst not but be more willing to give, than we to receive. If we take but one drop of water from the sea, or one corn of sand from the shore, there is so much, though insensibly, less: but were we capable of worlds of virtue and benediction from that munificent hand, our enriching could no whit impoverish thee. Thou which wert wont to hold it much "better to give than to receive," canst not but give gladly. Fear not, O my soul, to lade plentifully at this well, this ocean of mercy, which, the more thou takest, overflows the more.

But why then, O Saviour, why didst thou thus inquire, thus expostulate? Was it for thy own sake, that the glory of the miracle might thus come to light, which otherwise had been smothered in silence? was it for Jairus' sake, that his depressed heart might be raised to a confidence in thee, whose mighty power he saw proved by this cure, whose omniscience he saw proved by the knowledge of the cure? or, was it chiefly for the woman's sake, for the praise of her faith, for the securing of her conscience?

It was within herself that she said, "If I may but touch:" none could hear this voice of the heart, but he that made it. It was within herself that the cure was wrought: none of the beholders knew her complaint, much less her recovery; none noted her touch, none knew the occasion of her touch. What a pattern of powerful faith had we lost, if our Saviour had not called this act to trial! as her modesty hid her disease, so it would have hid her virtue. Christ will not suffer this secrecy. O the marvellous but free dispensation of Christ! One while he enjoins a silence to his re-cured patients, and is troubled with their divulgation of his favour; another while, as here, he will not lose the honour of a secret mercy, but fetches it out by his inquisition, by his profession: Who hath touched me? for I perceive virtue is gone out from me." As we see in the great work of his creation, he hath placed some stars in the midst of heaven, where they may be most conspicuous; others he hath set in the southern obscurity, obvious to but few eves: in the

earth he hath planted some flowers and trees in the famous gardens of the world; others, no less beautiful, in untracked woods or wild deserts, where they are either not seen, or not regarded.

O God, if thou hast intended to glorify thyself by thy graces in us, thou wilt find means to fetch them forth into the notice of the world; otherwise our very privacy shall content us, and praise thee.

Yet even this great faith wanted not some weakness. It was a poor conceit in this woman, that she thought she might receive so sovereign a remedy from Christ without his heed, without his knowledge. Now that she might see she had trusted to a power which was not more bountiful than sensible, and whose goodness did not exceed his apprehension, but one that knew what he parted with, and willingly parted with that which he knew beneficial to so faithful a receiver, he can say, “Somebody hath touched me, for I perceive virtue is gone out from me.' As there was an error in her thought, so in our Saviour's words there was a correction. His mercy will not let her run away with that secret offence. It is a great favour of God to take us in the manner, and to shame our closeness. We scour off the rust from a weapon that we esteem, and prune the vine we care for. O God, do thou ever find me out in my sin, and do not pass over my least infirmities without a feeling controlment !

Neither doubt I, but that herein, O Saviour, thou didst graciously forecast the securing of the conscience of this faithful, though overseen, patient, which might well have afterwards raised some just scruples, for the filching of a cure, for unthankfulness to the Author of her cure; the continuance whereof she might have good reason to misdoubt, being surreptitiously gotten, ungratefully concealed. For prevention of all these dangers, and the full quieting of her troubled heart, how fitly, how mercifully, didst thou bring forth this close business to the light, and clear it to the bottom! It is thy great mercy to foresee our perils, and to remove them ere we can apprehend the fear of them: as some skilful physician, who, perceiving a fever or phrenzy coming, which the distempered patient little misdoubts, by seasonable applications anticipates that grievous malady, so as the sick man knows his safety, ere he can suspect his danger.

Well might the woman think, He who can thus cure, and thus know his cure, can as well know my name, and descry my person and shame, and punish my ingratitude. With a pale face, therefore, and a trembling