afflicting state in which thy providence, O Lord, hath been pleased to place me, shall then be, in future, to reflect, that at least thou sparest me not; that thou measurest thy rigours and thy remedies upon my wants, and not upon my desires; and that thou hast more regard to the security of my salvation than to the injustice of my complaints.
I might still reply to you: Enter into judgment with the Lord, you who complain of the excess of your sufferings; place in a balance, on the one side your crimes, and on the other your afflictions; measure the rigour of his chastisements upon the enormity of your offences; compare that which you suffer with that which you ought to suffer; see if your afflictions go the same length as your senseless pleasures have done; if the keenness and the continuance of your sorrows correspond with those of your profane debaucheries; if the state of restraint in which you live equals the licentiousness and the depravity of your former manners; and should your afflictions be found to overbalance your iniquities, then boldly reproach the Lord for his injustice. You judge of your sufferings by your inclinations, but judge of them by your crimes. What! not a single moment of your worldly life but what has perhaps made you deserving of an eternal misery, and you murmur against the goodness of a God who commuteth these everlasting torments, so often merited, into a few rapid and momentary afflictions, and even against which the consolations of faith hold out so many resources!
What injustice! what ingratitude! Ah! have a care, unfaithful soul, lest the Lord listen to thee in his wrath; have a care lest he punish thy passions, by providing for thee, here below, whatever is favourable to them; lest thou be not found worthy in his sight of these temporal afflictions; lest he reserve thee for the time of his justice and his vengeance, and that he treat thee like those unfortunate victims who are ornamented with flowers, who are nursed and fattened with so much care, only because they are destined for the sacrifice, and that the knife which is to stab, and the pile which is to consume them, are in readiness upon the altar. He is terrible in his gifts as in his wrath; and seeing that guilt must be punished either with fleeting punishments here below, or with eternal pains after this life, nothing ought to appear more fearful in the eyes of faith, than to be a sinner and yet prosperous on the earth.
Great God! let it be here then for me the time of thy vengeance; and since my crimes cannot go unpunished, hasten, O Lord, to satisfy thy justice. The more I am spared here, the more shalt thou appear to me as a terrible God, who refuseth to let me go for some fleeting afflictions, and whose wrath can be appeased by nothing but mine eternal misery. Lend not thine ear to the cries of my grief, nor to the lamentations of a corrupted heart, which knows not its true interests. I disown, Lord, these too human sighs which the sadness of my state still continually forces from me; these carnal tears which affliction so often maketh me to shed in thy presence. Listen not to the intreaties which I have hitherto
