Even the earthquake, though nothing could be more
terrible in its nature, or more immediately directing to the
invisible Power which alone directs such things, yet no sooner was
the first fright over, but the impression it had made went off
also. I had no more sense of God or His judgments - much less of
the present affliction of my circumstances being from His hand -
than if I had been in the most prosperous condition of life. But
now, when I began to be sick, and a leisurely view of the miseries
of death came to place itself before me; when my spirits began to
sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was
exhausted with the violence of the fever; conscience, that had
slept so long, began to awake, and I began to reproach myself with
my past life, in which I had so evidently, by uncommon wickedness,
provoked the justice of God to lay me under uncommon strokes, and
to deal with me in so vindictive a manner. These reflections
oppressed me for the second or third day of my distemper; and in
the violence, as well of the fever as of the dreadful reproaches of
my conscience, extorted some words from me like praying to God,
though I cannot say they were either a prayer attended with desires
or with hopes: it was rather the voice of mere fright and distress.
Pages:
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160