And upon this very account God still brings variety of afflictions and sorrows upon his own children; he suffereth them to be plundered, banished, imprisoned, reduced to great extremities, that by their own experience they may learn to draw out their bowels towards such objects of pity; that they might say within themselves, I know the heart of this afflicted Soul, I know what it is to be plundered, to be rich one day, and the very next day to be stripped naked of all ones comforts and accommodations; I know what it is to hear poor hunger-starved children cry for bread, and there is none to give them; I know what it is to be banished from dearest relations, to be like arms and legs, torn out of the body, and to lie bleeding in their separation: I know what it is to be cast into prison, to be locked up alone in the dark, with no other company but fears and sorrows; I know what it is to receive ⟨p. 9⟩the sentence of death in our selves, &c. Shall not I pity, and pray, and pour out my Soul over such as are bleeding and languishing under the like miseries! And this Argument yet makes deeper impression, when a Christian compares and measures his lighter burden of affliction with another's more grievous yoke, and reasons thus within himself; Imprisonment was grievous to me, and yet I enjoyed many comforts and accommodations, which others have not; I had a sweet chamber, and a soft bed, when some poor Members of Jesus Christ, in the Spanish Inquisition, and the Turkish Slavery, are cast into the Dungeon, and sink, with Jeremiah, into the mire; their feet are hurt in the stocks, and the irons do enter into their Soul; others lie bleeding and gasping upon the cold ground with their underest wounds, exposed to all the injuries of hunger and nakedness in the open air. I saw the face of my Christian friends, sometimes, enjoyed refreshment in converse ⟨p. 10⟩with dearest relations, while some of Gods precious people are cast into dark and stinking prisons, and do not see the face of a Christian, not of a man possibly in five, ten or twenty years together, unless it be of their tormenters.
And upon this very account God still brings variety of afflictions and sorrows upon his own children; he suffereth them to be plundered, banished, imprisoned, reduced to great extremities, that by their own experience they may learn to draw out their bowels towards such objects of pity; that they might say within themselves, I know the heart of this afflicted Soul, I know what it is to be plundered, to be rich one day, and the very next day to be stript naked of all ones comforts and accommodations; I know what it is to hear poor hunger-starved children cry for bread, and there is none to give them; I know what it is to be banisht from dearest relations, to be like arms and legs, torn out of the body, and to lie bleeding in their separation: I know what it is to be cast into prison, to be lockt up alone in the dark, with no other company but fears and sorrows; I know what it is to receive ⟨p. 9⟩the sentence of death in our selves, &c. Shall not I pity, and pray, and pour out my Soul over such as are bleeding and languishing under the like miseries! And this Argument yet makes deeper impression, when a Christian compares and measures his lighter burden of affliction with anothers more grievous yoke, and reasons thus within himself; Imprisonment was grievous to me, and yet I enjoyed many comforts and accommodations, which others have not; I had a sweet chamber, and a soft bed, when some poor Members of Jesus Christ, in the Spanish Inquisition, and the Turkish Slavery, are cast into the Dungeon, and sink, with Jeremiah, into the mire; their feet are hurt in the stocks, and the irons do enter into their Soul; others lie bleeding and gasping upon the cold ground with their undrest wounds, exposed to all the injuries of hunger and nakedness in the open ayr. I saw the face of my Christian friends, sometimes, enjoyed refreshment in converse ⟨p. 10⟩with dearest relations, while some of Gods precious people are cast into dark and stinking prisons, and do not see the face of a Christian, not of a man possibly in five, ten or twenty years together, unless it be of their tormenters.
