My God and my Jesus, my Lord and my Christ, my strength and my salvation, I hear thee, and I hearken to thee, when thou rebukest thy disciples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; _Suffer little children to come to me_, sayest thou.[12] Is there a verier child than I am now? I cannot say, with thy servant Jeremy, _Lord, I am a child, and cannot speak_; but, O Lord, I am a sucking child, and cannot eat; a creeping child, and cannot go; how shall I come to thee? Whither shall I come to thee? To this bed? I have this weak and childish frowardness too, I cannot sit up, and yet am loth to go to bed. Shall I find thee in bed? Oh, have I always done so? The bed is not ordinarily thy scene, thy climate: Lord, dost thou not accuse me, dost thou not reproach to me my former sins, when thou layest me upon this bed? Is not this to hang a man at his own door, to lay him sick in his own bed of wantonness? When thou chidest us by thy prophet for lying in _beds of ivory_[13], is not thine anger vented; not till thou changest our beds of ivory into beds of ebony? David swears unto thee, _that he will not go up into his bed, till he had built thee a house_.[14] To go up into the bed denotes strength, and promises ease; but when thou sayest, _that thou wilt cast Jezebel into a bed_, thou makest thine own comment upon that; thou callest the bed tribulation, great tribulation.[15] How shall they come to thee whom thou hast nailed to their bed? Thou art in the congregation, and I in a solitude: when the centurion's servant lay sick at home,[16] his master was fain to come to Christ; the sick man could not. Their friend lay sick of the palsy, and the four charitable men were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come.[17] Peter's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and Christ came to her; she could not come to him.[18] My friends may carry me home to thee, in their prayers in the congregation; thou must come home to me in the visitation of thy Spirit, and in the seal of thy sacrament. But when I am cast into this bed my slack sinews are iron fetters, and those thin sheets iron doors upon me; and, _Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth_.[19] I lie here and say, _Blessed are they that dwell in thy house_;[20] but I cannot say, _I will come into thy house_; I may say, _In thy fear will I worship towards thy holy temple_;[21] but I cannot say in thy holy temple. And, _Lord, the zeal of thy house eats me up_,[22] as fast as my fever; it is not a recusancy, for I would come, but it is an excommunication, I must not. But, Lord, thou art Lord of hosts, and lovest action; why callest thou me from my calling? _In the grave no man shall praise thee_; in the door of the grave, this sick bed, no man shall hear me praise thee. Thou hast not opened my lips that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but that my mouth might show forth thy praise. But thine apostle's fear takes hold