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I wrought at the trade of duty, the further I found myfelf from peace: which did cause me to conclude that my cafe was certainly defperate, and that it was peculiarly my own; and that none that belonged to God was ever in fuch a condition as I found myself to be in.

I then renewed my old practice of going to minifters, acquainting them with the deplorable and wretched ftate and condition I was in; and earnestly begged their advice and council, what one in my fad circumftances had best to do, in order, if it were poffible, to escape eternal damnation. Oh! that killing word, damnation! whenever I heard, read, or thought of it, how did it rack and torment my fpirit! as fearing it would be my portion from God for ever.

As the principle from which I acted, in order to healing and cure, was, do and live; fo thefe fpiritual physicians to whom I addreffed myself for counfel and comfort in this defpair of foul, being as ignorant in the mystery of the new birth as ever was Nicodemus, (John iii. 4.) they put me on doing thofe duties in and about which I had laboured before, even to wearinefs. The names of those dignitaries of the church to whom I applied myfelf, together what their fayings were, are too tedious to relate; and therefore I here pass them by : only I think fit to acquaint the reader with the great and fuperlative ingenuity and dexterous fkilfulness in healing a fin-fick foul which one of

3

them,

them, above all the reft, had attained to, to his everlasting fame be it fpoken. The thing is thus:

After I had acquainted the Bishop, for of no lower a degree was he, with the fad and lamentable condition my foul was in, but he forthwith exhorts me to get a book stiled The Whole Duty of Man, and when I had got it, I fhould come to him for further inftructions. The book I forthwith procured, and to his Lord Bishop I repaired; who, finding that I had got the book, takes it out of my hand, and turning to a prayer appointed for one of the nights in the week, with great earnestnefs charged me that when I was ready to go to bed that I should be fure to kneel down by my bedfide, and say that prayer: the which was done according to his Lordship's directions: but to how great purpose I leave the judicious and experienced Christian to judge.

Having thus applied myself to feven or eight of the ableft and most famed of the fathers and dignitaries of the church of England then in Dublin, and finding, by woful and fad experience, how little they understood my cafe, and how vastly short they proved in helping me in my extremity, I concluded my cafe to be altogether defperate and hopeless.

It is not to be told by tongue or pen what foul conflicts and agonies accompanied me wherever I went, and whatever I fet about; infomuch that

they

they became frequent and familiar to me in the very night-vifions. The devil, hell, damnation, with the manner how the wicked are handled in hell, were things very often prefented to my fancy, in those short and tormenting flumbers whereinto I fell. Yea, I have fometimes dreamed that I have seen and felt myself in hell among the damned, tumbling and finking down deeper and deeper, feeling no bottom; which hath occafioned me often to think of Job's cafe, of which he bitterly complains: When I say my bed fhall comfort me, my couch fhall eafe my complaint, then thou fcareft me with dreams, and terrifieft me through vifions. Job vii. 13, 14.

As it was with Job fo it was with me; when I had been even-spent with the conflicts and temptations of the day, I thought fometimes, and hoped at least, that my bed and fleep would something eafe and leffen my pain and inward horror of mind: but, alas! I was never wearier of the fatigue of the day than I was of the reftlefs toffings of the night! and that because of those dreams and vifions which did, as it were, realize the things themselves to my mind. The confternation into which those foul-afflicting visions did put me, did often startle me out of my fleep, and caufed in me reftlefs longings for daylight; and that because I could not employ my thoughts about any thing but what had a tendency to augment my despair and mifery. My thoughts running out and fixing upon the fins

of

of my youth, thinking how many and black they were; calling to mind the advances I had formerly made in the way of strict and zealous religion; and what methods and ways I had used to get healing and comfort, and all in vain and to no purpose; and that because, as I concluded, God had given me up to be a prey to the enemy. Sometimes in the night, when I could not fleep, I heard dogs howl and cry piteously in the cold weather: this, I apprehended, was a lively representing to the ear the fhrieks and roarings of the damned in hell. Thus are they in those eternal flames; and fo fhall I ere long. Oh! that I could but fee one glimpfe of the morning light! but, woe is me, deferted and forfaken of God, I fhall be with the damned in that place of torment before morning! I fhall never fee light! Well, when, contrary to my foolish and wicked thoughts and expectations, I had lived to fee the morning light, I would then begin to reason and query with myfelf, what I had fo earnestly defired the day for? My day of grace is certainly paft and gone: there is no mercy in ftore for fuch a one as I am. All the helps and means of grace which have had a bleffing attending them for fpecial good to others, are attended with a curfe to me: I am a reprobate. In vain it is to pray any more, or fpend any more time in the duties of religion: I have had fad experience of that. Under this weight would I lie in my bed, concluding it altogether in vain to arife to engage in

any

any duty. This temptation fo far prevailed that I did, for a time, refrain prayer, and neglect other duties of religion. From my concluding that I belonged not to God, I found myself like a dead log, as if I had neither life nor foul left in me. I expected, certainly, every hour, nay each minute, nay, every breath I fetched, to be hurried away into the place and company of the damned; which caused in me fuch amazement and unufual horror, that I would creep, like a condemned malefactor, into the chimney-corner among the company: there refolving to stay while any ftaid there, on purpose to avoid and fhun thofe damned fpirits whom I expected every twinkling of an eye to fee.

Among my fad and defpairing thoughts concerning the ineffectualness of all means and duties to do me good, there did come into my thoughts a paffage which I had read in fome author whofe name I have forgot: it was this-that there are different degrees of torment among the damned in hell. This thing I fixed my thoughts on fo long, till I did hence infer and conclude, that seeing there are different degrees of torment among the damned in hell, and that the damned exceed each other in the degrees of fin, muft neceffarily be the ground and foundation of fuch a difference. I concluded that the lefs fin I committed, the lefs would be my torment in hell. Now every omiffion of duty, think I, as well as doing what is pofitively forbidden in the moral law, is a fin against God; and there

fore,

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