Sarum Manual (St John's College MS): On the Day of Visiting the Sick (Middle English) (Middle English exhortations in a 15th-century Sarum manual, St John's College, Oxford)

On the Day of Visiting the Sick

In die visitationis infirmorum [On the day of the visitation of the sick].

My dear [brother] in God [the opening words are damaged in the scan], thou goest fast thy way to Godward; there thou shalt see all thy former fathers, apostles, martyrs, confessors, virgins, and all men and women that be saved. And therefore [be of good] comfort in God; and thou must lay a stone in the wall of the city of heaven, [which is made] without noise or strife. And therefore ere thou wend out of this world, thou must make this stone ready, and then shalt thou not be [lost]. The stone is thy soul, which thou makest clean; the noise that thou must make here is the thinking of thy sin, which thou must tell the [priest]; the stroke is penance, that thou shalt be sorry for thy sin and smite thyself on thy breast: and when thou hast made ready thus thy stone, then mayest thou go thy way in God, and lay thy stone surely without [noise] in the city of heaven. And therefore I counsel thee that thou shrive thee [while thou] mayest.

And this is not only [said] to sick men, but also to whole; for every day a man nigheth his death nearer and nearer, and of a man it is said, The more he waxeth, the more he unwaxeth. And therefore saith the gospel: Wake, for thou wost never when our God will [come]; and therefore look thou always be ready.

And thou shalt wit, good man, that God visiteth many a man for his sins diversely: some with prison, [some] with divers sicknesses; and if the sin were away, then his sickness should slake. Hereof beareth witness the gospel, that God saith to the ten lepers, when he had healed them of their leprosy: Go, he said, and sin no more, lest worse befall you; as who saith, For your sin ye had this sickness. And therefore it is ordained by the law that no leech shall give bodily medicine to a sick man till he be healed ghostly, and that he have taken ghostly medicine, that is to say, shrift and housel. And if he be well shriven and very repentant, I dread not that the sickness shall slake which he hath for sin, or else it shall turn him to more bliss after his death. And therefore if his sickness slake not, thou shalt comfort him on this manner.

How thou shalt comfort a man that he grudge not when he is sick

Son, lovest thou thy Lord God? He will say, Yea. Then thus: if thou love God, thou lovest that he doeth; and he scourgeth thee, and therefore thou shalt gladly suffer it. Hereof speaketh Solomon and saith: Son, speak not against the chastising of thy father, for it is no son whom the father chastiseth not. And it accordeth with common manner of speech: for if a man see another's child do shrewdly in his father's presence, and the father chastise him not, then would that other man say, It is not his son, or else he loveth him not; for if he were his child, or else loved him, he would chastise him. And therefore be not evil afraid of thy Father's chastising of heaven; for he saith himself, Whom I love, him I chastise.

Also sickness of body maketh soul's health, and soul's health is nought but of God: therefore despise not God's scourge, but when God punisheth thee, thank him and love him that he amendeth thee, and reproveth thee, and blameth thee, and punisheth thee not in his wrath nor in his madness, but in his [mercy]. Thank thy God, and think that his mercy passeth all his great wrath. He is judge; he will not damn thee, but he will have mercy on thee. Mercifully he chastiseth thee; and where thou hast deserved to have his wrath and be damned for ever, he putteth over his vengeance, and suffereth of his great mercy, and punisheth thee here but a while. And therefore despise not his rod of mercy, nor grudge not there against, but suffer it gladly, for all the dooms of God be rightful.

Now since sickness of God is health to the soul, and will thou or nill thou, thou shalt have it: if thou grudge against God, with thy grudging thou makest thy soul more feeble; and so thou profitest not thyself with thy grudging against thy Father, which is thy leech, but grievest thyself in divers manners. One is, that thou grievest thy God; another, thou shalt not have so much ghostly meed as thou shouldest if thou suffered [it] patiently. And thou shalt know that God the Father of heaven punisheth not one thing twice; and therefore with a glad heart thou shalt suffer the sickness that God hath sent thee here, for it shall allay thee of the pain of purgatory, so that thou the sooner shalt come to the kingdom of heaven. Think that if the king to whom thou hast been traitor forgave thee thy death and punished thee but a while in easy prison, thou wert much beholden to him: so thou art to God, to whom thou hast been traitor; and he hath forgiven thee everlasting death, punishing thee with a little sickness here.

If a man be nigh the death

If a man be nigh the death, speak to him on this manner and say:

Man, if thou thoughtest and well sawest the mischiefs of this world, thou shouldest desire to die and be with God. Holy writ saith, Blessed be they that die in God. Look at the beginning of thy life, care and sorrow; thy further living, travail and [dread] and disease; and so thou leadest thy life. Now whether is it better to die well or live evil? Pardee, to die well. Thou mayest not live fully well by no way in this wretched world; for holy writ saith, Every man is a liar, that is to say, sinful; and also it saith that seven times in the day falleth a righteous man; and that saith Saint Paul, that no man liveth without some default, as Cato saith. And say thus to God: I desire to be dead and be with God; for the wickedness of this world may no man tell. Here is hunger and thirst, cold and heat, travail and weariness, envy and wrath, gluttony and lechery, pride and sloth, covetise and falseness, manslaughter and theft, and many other; and there is no man without all these, that he hath not some of these, for every man is sinful. And therefore these old philosophers made ever sorrow when their children were born, and joy when they died and passed out of the woe of this world. And Saint Austin, when he should be dead, spake to death on this manner: Ah thou death, end of all wickedness; thou death, end of travail, beginning of ease and all joy; what man may think the profits and the blisses that thou bringest with thee? Thou art desirable to me; for a Christian man may not evil die, but well die, and live with Christ.

The Questions to the Dying

When thou hast told him all this, or else if thou have no time to say all for haste of death, begin here, and speak to him on this manner when thou seest that he nigheth the death:

Brother, art thou glad that thou shalt die in Christian faith? Answer. Yea.

Acknowledgest thou that thou hast not well lived, as thou shouldest? Answer. Yea.

Art thou sorry therefor? Answer. Yea.

Hast thou will to amend thee, if thou haddest space of life? Answer. Yea.

Believest thou in God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and of earth? Answer. Yea.

Believest thou in the Father and Son and Holy Ghost, three persons and one God? Answer. Yea.

Believest thou that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, was conceived of the Holy Ghost, and took flesh and blood of our Lady Saint Mary, and was born of her, she being mother and maid? Answer. Yea.

Believest thou that he suffered pain and death for our trespass, and not for his guilt, under Pontius Pilate, and that he was done on the cross and died for thee on Good Friday, and was buried? Answer. Yea.

Thankest thou him therefor? Answer. Yea.

Believest thou that thou mayest not be saved but through his death? Answer. Yea.

Trust in the Passion

Then say thus:

While thy soul is in thy body, put all thy trust in his passion and in his death, and think only thereon and on none other thing: with his death meddle thee, and wrap thee therein, not thinking on thy wife, nor on thy children, nor on thy riches, but all on the passion of Christ. And have the cross before thee, and say thus: I wot well thou art not my God, but thou art imaged after him, and makest me have more mind of him after whom thou art imaged. Lord, Father of heaven, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, which is here imaged, I set between thee and my evil deeds; and the desert of Jesus Christ I offer for that I should have deserved and have not. Say again: Lord, the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, which was born of Saint Mary, mother and maiden, I set between me and thy wrath. And say: Into thy hands, Lord, I betake my soul, for thou, God of truth, boughtest me. And say so thrice.

Saint Austin spake to God on this manner: Ah my Lord God, my mercy, my refuge, thee I desire, to thee I flee, I hie to come to thee. Lord, despise not me, though I be wretched and sinful, but be to me helper in these my great needs; for I may not help and again-buy myself with my deeds; but thou, Lord, hast bought me; thou bring me out of care and have mercy on me. I trust not on my deeds, but despair of them; save yet I trust more on thy mercies than in the despair of my wicked deeds. Thou art my hope, thou art my God; thou art full of mercy. Against thee I have sinned through my great default; I come and acknowledge to thee; I beseech thee of mercy, which deniest to no man mercy.