Wesley Corpus

17. And it must be owned, a confinement of such a sort is as fit to cause as to cure distraction: For what scene of distress is to be compared to it?--To be separated at once from all who are near and dear to you; to be cut off from all reasonable con versation; to be secluded from all business, from all reading, from every innocent entertainment of the mind, which is left to prey wholly upon itself, and day and night to pore over your misfortunes; to be shut up day by day in a gloomy cell, with only the walls to employ your heavy eyes, in the midst either of melancholy silence, or horrid cries, groans and laughter inter mixed; to be forced by the main strength of those Who laugh at human nature and compassion, to take drenches of nauseous, perhaps torturing, medicines, which you know you have no need of now, but know not how soon you may, possibly by the operation of these very drugs on a weak and tender constitution: Here is distress It is an astonishing thing, a signal proof of the power of God, if any creature who has his senses when the confinement begins, does not lose them before it is at an end | How must it heighten the distress, if such a poor wretch, being deeply convinced of sin, and growing worse and worse, (as he probably will, seeing there is no medicine here for his sick ness, no such Physician as his case requires,) be soon placed among the incurables! Can imagination itself paint such a hell upon earth? where even “hope never comes, that comes to all!”--For, what remedy? If a man of sense and humanity should happen to visit that house of woe, would he give the hearing to a madman’s tale? Or if he did, would he credit it? “Do we not know,” might he say, “how well any of these will talk in their lucid intervals P” So that a thousand to one he would concern himself no more about it, but leave the weary to wait for rest in the grave 18. I have now answered most of the current objections, par ticularly such as have appeared of weight to religious or reason able men.