distress.”  And they have found good success in so doing, as David confesseth, Psal. xxx. 12.  “Thou hast turned my mourning into joy, thou hast loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.”  Therefore he adviseth all others to do the like, Psal. xxxi. 24.  “All ye that trust in the Lord, be strong, and he shall establish your heart.”  It is reported by [2819]Suidas, speaking of Hezekiah, that there was a great book of old, of King Solomon’s writing, which contained medicines for all manner of diseases, and lay open still as they came into the temple:  but Hezekiah king of Jerusalem, caused it to be taken away, because it made the people secure, to neglect their duty in calling and relying upon God, out of a confidence on those remedies. [2820]Minutius that worthy consul of Rome in an oration he made to his soldiers, was much offended with them, and taxed their ignorance, that in their misery called more on him than upon God.  A general fault it is all over the world, and Minutius’s speech concerns us all, we rely more on physic, and seek oftener to physicians, than to God himself.  As much faulty are they that prescribe, as they that ask, respecting wholly their gain, and trusting more to their ordinary receipts and medicines many times, than to him that made them.  I would wish all patients in this behalf, in the midst of their melancholy, to remember that of Siracides, Ecc. i. 11. and 12.  “The fear of the Lord is glory and gladness, and rejoicing.  The fear of the Lord maketh a merry heart, and giveth gladness, and joy, and long life:”  and all such as prescribe physic, to begin in nomine Dei, as [2821]Mesue did, to imitate Laelius a Fonte Eugubinus, that in all his consultations, still concludes with a prayer for the good success of his business; and to remember that of Creto one of their predecessors, fuge avaritiam, et sine oratione et invocations Dei nihil facias avoid covetousness, and do nothing without invocation upon God.

MEMB.  III.
Whether it be lawful to seek to Saints for Aid in this Disease.

That we must pray to God, no man doubts; but whether we should pray to saints in such cases, or whether they can do us any good, it may be lawfully controverted.  Whether their images, shrines, relics, consecrated things, holy water, medals, benedictions, those divine amulets, holy exorcisms, and the sign of the cross, be available in this disease?  The papists on the one side stiffly maintain how many melancholy, mad, demoniacal persons are daily cured at St. Anthony’s Church in Padua, at St. Vitus’ in Germany, by our Lady of Loretto in Italy, our Lady of Sichem in the Low Countries:  [2822]_Quae et caecis lumen, aegris salutem, mortuis vitam, claudis gressum reddit, omnes morbos corporis, animi, curat, et in ipsos daemones imperium exercet_; she cures halt, lame, blind, all diseases of body and mind, and commands the devil himself, saith Lipsius. “twenty-five thousand in a day come thither,” [2823]_quis nisi numen