Page:Causes and cure of spiritual darkness.pdf/3

3 miserable being this side hell. I often wondered to see people afflict themselves about the common calamities of life : they appeared mere trifles, infirmities that might be easily borne ; but mine was a wounded spirit, torn with the clearest apprehensions of the malignancy of sin, and the displeasure of an Almighty God. I not only could not see any interest I had in his pardoning mercy, but feared I was given up by him to the tyranny of my corruptions, so that I should certainly fall into some gross and scandalous sin, as a just judgment upon me, and so be left to perish with the most aggravated guilt, a monument of the Divine resentment against false pretenders to religion. I often wished to die, even though I could but dread the consequence. I sought the Lord by prayer and other means of grace, day and night, but he still hid his face from me ; now and then a glimpse of hope would break in upon me, but it was of short continuance. The Bible seemed as a sealed book in which I could meet with no comfort, though often much to aggravate my distress and increase my terrors. I endeavoured to examine myself, and search for the evidences of renewing grace in my heart, but all in vain ; the more I searched the more dark, and confounded, and distressed I grew. I continued to preach indeed to others, but very often with this heart-sinking conclusion, that ‘ I myself was a cast-away.’ Sometimes, even in the midst of my work, the melancholy darkness would rush in upon my soul, so that l was ready to sink ewn in the pulpit. Though for the most part was tolerable during the exercise, yet I generally went to the pulpit and returned from it with