with abundantly more encouragement and hope than others. Some have
had ten times less trouble of mind than others, in whom yet the issue
seems to be the same. Some have had such a sense of the displeasure of
God, and the great danger they were in of damnation, that they could not
sleep at nights; and many have said that when they have laid down, the
thoughts of sleeping in such a condition have been frightful to them;
they have scarcely been free from terror while asleep, and they have
awakened with fear, heaviness, and distress still abiding on their
spirits. It has been very common, that the deep and fixed concern on
persons minds, has had a painful influence on their bodies, and given
disturbance to animal nature. The awful apprehensions persons have had
of their misery, have for the most part been increasing, the nearer they
have approached to deliverance; though they often pass through many
changes and alterations in the frame and circumstances of their minds.
Sometimes they think themselves wholly senseless, and fear that the
Spirit of God has left them, and that they are given up to judicial
hardness; yet they appear very deeply exercised about that fear, and are