Keen anguish dwelt in ev’ry vein,
And sadly turn’d his breath to moans.
Sorrow was all his soul; he scarce perceiv’d,
But by the pains he suffer’d, that he liv’d!”
He was tempted, and sorely buffeted of the devil. The nature of his disorder exposed him to a degree of precipitancy, and discomposure, which he was more than superior to, while in better health. In short, so did the wisdom of God permit, that thro’ the malice of Satan, the extreme violence of his disorder, and the concurrence of several other circumstances, this servant of God, was brought to the utmost extremity of spiritual distress and anguish, consistent with keeping the faith: insomuch that it was but few degrees removed from despair.
“His agonizing soul sweat blood!
With Christ he fainted on the tree,
And cry’d in death, ‘My God, my God,
Ah! Why hast thou forsaken me?’”
*His great soul lay thus, as it were in ruins, for some considerable time; and poured out many a heavy groan, and speechless tear, from an oppressive heart, and dying body. He sadly bewailed the absence of him, whose wonted presence had so often given him the victory, over the manifold contradictions and troubles, which he endured for his name-sake. A heart so sensible of the visits of its Lord, and so restless at his smallest absence, as his was throughout his warfare, must needs be deeply afflicted when left, seemingly to its own poverty, and surrounded as it were with hosts of infernal fiends, seeking to devour him. The intervals which he had of cessation from the extremity of the conflict, and of comparatively quiet confidence in God, are not perhaps so well known: but that he had such, may well be supposed; for otherwise his soul and flesh must needs have failed before God.