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fore, to make my chain the lighter in hell, I am refolved against all known fin: and accordingly I fell to works again; perceiving in myself no other motive or inducement hereto but merely expecting and hoping that, by this means, my being in hell would be made more tolerable and easy than that of other reprobates. By this very thing it will eafily be understood how near I was to final despair in my own thoughts and apprehenfions,

But among all the combats and conflicts I met with in the time of my bondage, none more racked and tormented my fpirit than thofe hideous and abominable thoughts which, by the devil, were like fiery and poifoned arrows, injected into my mind; fometimes against the holy fcriptures, as that they were not the word of God, but the cunning and politic inventions of men, devised and contrived by fome to awe and keep others in fubjection. This temptation caused no small anguish and perturbation in my mind, but did not continue long; for though fad and defperate I thought my cafe to be, I was enabled to confider what a mighty power went along with the fcriptures, in difcovering my most secret corruptions, and putting my confcience and fpirit into fuch fear of what would enfue, in cafe I did not confefs and forfake them. This very confideration, that the word which difcovered to me my vain and finful thoughts, and condemned the ill life I had led, and that laid me under fuch captivating horror and fear, for the

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fame must needs be the word of an infinite, allknowing and powerful God, did foil and repel that temptation.

No fooner had the firft temptation been over, but a fecond immediately enfues; which was, that there is no fuch thing as a God in nature; and that men's believing and profeffing that being of a God, was more from ufe of custom, and from the strong workings of fancy, than from any real truth, grounded on fenfible experience.

Oh! the fad concuffion this temptation gave to the powers of nature: I was so strangely influenced by it, that I folemnly profefs I felt myself finking, and just tottering to fall off my feet; all over in a muck fweat, with a ftrange fhivering and trembling in all the powers and parts of foul and body. But making to a window looking into a pleasant garden, I leaned on the window.with my elbows, and fo bore up my body from falling, which otherwife had undoubtedly funk down under its prefent load and weight, occafioned by that temptation. Remaining for fome little fpace in a horrible trembling and amazing confternation of fpirit, I looking out into the garden, began to confider and reafon with myself thus: How came thefe trees to grow thus orderly in this place? who reared or built thefe fumptuous buildings? Surely not themselves: why then, think I, if not themselves, then of neceffity they must spring from fome cause higher and more noble than themselves, E

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viz. man! Then, from the confideration of the trees and the buildings I began to exercife my thoughts about man, and other living creatures; thinking thus: And how came man and thefe other living creatures to have a being; furely, think I,' they could neither form nor quicken themfelves; and if so, then of neceffity there must be fome caufe of their being and living, which is higher and more excellent than they; which can, thinks my reafon, be no other but an infinitely glorious God. And this, faid reafon in me, might be evinced, not only by confidering the particulars already mentioned, but by confidering the frame of the world, and the ftrange prefervation of all things therein; and the wonderful government of the fecond caufes wherewith the world abounds.

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Thefe, and fundry others of the like arguments, proved fo ftrong and nervous to convince me that: of neceffity there must be a God, that the tempta

tion vanifhed.

The devil, perceiving himfelf foiled in this attempt, fets furiously on me with blafphemous thoughts; representing God in fuch vile shapes, and hideous and bafe ideas to my mind, that, were I to undergo the utmost of mifery that creatures are capable of inflicting, or I capable of fuffering, do humbly hope, in Chrift's ftrength, I should unspeakably choofe rather to be racked to death than but once to name them; fo vile, hideous, and horrible were they proceeding, rather from the enraged

enraged and revengeful malice of the devil against the majesty of God, than from the corruption and pravity of nature. Thefe things I do but glance or touch at, not from any delight I take in the remembrance of them, but rather for the relief of fome poor tempted, defpairing foul, who probably may be conflicting with the fame fiery affaults! concluding within themfelves, as I often did, that none belonging to God could ever be poffeffed with fuch black and difmal thoughts. Oh, the ghaftliness and fearful tremblings! Oh, the fweats and weariness of my very life, which these fatanical injections caufed in me! A fure and convincing argument they were immediately from the devil, and none else; the fins flowing from the pravity of nature being commonly rather pleasing and de lightful than amazing and terrifying to nature *.

* It is the conftant practice of thrat infernal accufer of the brethren, when once he has filled the awakened mind with hard, vile, and blafphemous thoughts against the ever-blessed God, his dear Son, the Spirit of all grace, the word of God, of his ways and worship, to father or charge all his bafe fugges tions to the fuffering captive, and accufe him of them as if they were his own crimes, that sprung from his heart, without his agency; whereas himself is the father of them all; they being fo hateful to the foul, and oppofed by the whole bent of the awakened mind, and refifted by every feeble effort that a finking finner in fuch circumstances can make. The diftinction this Author makes between man's natural corruption and Satan s fiery darts, is very beautiful and ftriking, and may be of ufe under God to fome poor troubled and confufed reader.

W.H.S.S.

In this fad condition I continued fo long, till my very animal spirits were even drunk up, and the radical moisture of my body wafted by that burning inflammation which I fenfibly felt invade and poffefs my body. The pitiful and deplorable state I was in, both in respect of my foul, which I found was invaded by the terrors of God for the breach of his royal law, and, as I verily concluded, given up to Satan by God in a judicial way, to be poffeffed by him: as also in refpect of my body, in which the fad fymptoms of my approaching doom did, as I verily thought, hourly appear: fuch as the growing and increafing of that burning inflammation already mentioned; decay of my fight, which neceffitated the ufe of fpectacles at the age of twenty-five years; the lofs of my fmelling and tafting for about three months, with a great decay of my hearing: fo ghaftly a fight was I to behold, that I became a fpectacle of wonderment to all the family where I lived; fome concluding that I was ftarved by my frequent faftings, others verily concluding that evil spirits haunted me, which caufed fuch ghaftly looks, and my body to bend and bow towards crookednefs, fo heavy and infupportable was the load I lay under.

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