10 They struggle to treat the patient's deteriorating condition

This is natures nest of boxes: the heavens contain the earth, the earth cities, cities men. All these are concentric. The common centre to them all is decay.

Only that is eccentric which was never made.

Only that place which we can imagine but not demonstrate, that light which is the very emanation of the light of God, only that bends not to this centre, to ruin.

Only that which was not made, is of nothing, is not threatened with annihilation.

All other things are, even angels, even our souls. They move upon the same poles, they bend to the same centre.

And if they were not made immortal by preservation their nature could not keep them from sinking to this centre, annihilation.

In all these - the frame of the heavens, the states upon earth and men in them - the greatest mischiefs are those which are least detectable.

The heavens have had their dropsy, they drowned the world. They shall have their fever and burn the world.

The world had a foreknowledge of the Flood 120 years before it came and so some made provision against it and were saved.

The fever shall break out in an instant and consume all.

The Flood did no harm to the heavens from whence it fell, it did not put out those lights, it did not quench those heats.

But the fever, the fire shall burn the furnace itself, annihilate those heavens that breathe it out .

Though the Dog Star has a pestilent breath, an infectious exhalation, yet because we know when it will rise we clothe ourselves and we diet ourselves and we protect ourselves against it.

But comets and blazing stars, whose effects no man can interrupt or frustrate, no man foresaw.

No almanac tells us when a blazing star will break out. No astrologer tells us when the effects will be accomplished for that is a secret of a higher sphere.

That which is most secret is most dangerous.

It is also here in the societies of men, in states and commonwealths.

Twenty rebellious drums make not so dangerous a noise as a few whisperers and secret plotters in corners.

The cannon does not do so much damage against a wall as a mine under the wall. A thousand enemies who make threats do not harm so much as a few that take an oath to say nothing.

God knew many heavy sins of the people in the wilderness and after, but still he charges them with that one, with murmuring, murmuring in their hearts, secret disobediences, secret repugnances against his declared will. These are the most deadly, the most pernicious.

So it is with the diseases of the body.

The pulses, the urine, the sweat, all have sworn to say nothing, to give no indication of any dangerous sickness. My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength. I find no abhorring in my appetite. I find no false apprehensions to work upon my understanding; and yet invisibly, and insensibly, the disease prevails.

The disease has established a kingdom, an empire in me and will have certain state secrets, by which it will proceed and not be bound to declare.

The magistrates can use torture to root out conspiracies against the state.

Physicians have their weapons against disease, and those they employ now.