When Satan saith in thy heart, God will not pardon thy sins, nor be gracious unto thee, I pray (said Luther) how wilt thou then, as a poor sinner, raise up and comfort thyself, especially when other signs of God’s wrath besides do beat upon thee, as sickness, poverty, &c.  And that thy heart beginneth to preach and say, Behold, here thou livest in sickness, thou art poor and forsaken of every one, &c.

Oh! how true, how affectingly true is this!  And when too Satan, the tempter, becomes Satan the accuser, saying in thy heart:—­“This sickness is the consequence of sin, or sinful infirmity, and thou hast brought thyself into a fearful dilemma; thou canst not hope for salvation as long as thou continuest in any sinful practice, and yet thou canst not abandon thy daily dose of this or that poison without suicide.  For the sin of thy soul has become the necessity of thy body, daily tormenting thee, without yielding thee any the least pleasurable sensation, but goading thee on by terror without hope.  Under such evidence of God’s wrath how canst thou expect to be saved?” Well may the heart cry out, “Who shall deliver me from the ’body of this death’,—­from this death that lives and tyrannizes in my body?” But the Gospel answers—­“There is a redemption from the body promised; only cling to Christ.  Call on him continually with all thy heart, and all thy soul, to give thee strength, and be strong in thy weakness; and what Christ doth not see good to relieve thee from, suffer in hope.  It may be better for thee to be kept humble and in self-abasement.  The thorn in the flesh may remain and yet the grace of God through Christ prove sufficient for thee.  Only cling to Christ, and do thy best.  In all love and well-doing gird thyself up to improve and use aright what remains free in thee, and if thou doest ought aright, say and thankfully believe that Christ hath done it for thee.”  O what a miserable despairing wretch should I become, if I believed the doctrines of Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his Treatise on Repentance, or those I heard preached by Dr.——­; if I gave up the faith, that the life of Christ would precipitate the remaining dregs of sin in the crisis of death, and that I shall rise in purer capacity of Christ; blind to be irradiated by his light, empty to be possessed by his fullness, naked of merit to be clothed with his righteousness!

Ib. p. 207.

The nobility, the gentry, citizens, and farmers, &c. are now become so haughty and ungodly, that they regard no ministers nor preachers; and (said Luther) if we were not holpen somewhat by great princes and persons, we could not long subsist:  therefore Isaiah saith well, ‘And kings shall be their nurses’, &c.

Corpulent nurses too often, that overlay the babe; distempered nurses, that convey poison in their milk!

Chap.  XIII. p. 208.