him; but whether this disease may not alien and remove my friends, so that they stand aloof from my sore, and my kinsmen stand afar off[1], 1 cannot tell. I cannot fear but that thou wilt reckon with me from this minute, in which, by thy grace, I see thee; whether this understanding, and this will, and this memoryv may not decay, to the discouragement and the ill interpretation of them that see that heavy change in me, I cannot tell. It was for thy blessed, thy powerful Son alone, to tread the wine-press alone, and none of the people with him[2]. 1 am not able to pass this agony alone, not alone without thee; thou art thy spirit, not alone without thine; spiritual and temporal physicians are thine, not alone without mine; those whom the bands of blood or friendship have made mine, are mine; and if thou, or thine, or mine, abandon me, I am alone, and woe unto me if I be alone. Elias himself fainted under that apprehension, Lo, I am left alone[3]; and Martha murmured at that, said to Christ, Lord, dost not thow care that my sister hath left me to serve alone[4]? Neither could Jeremiah enter into his lamentations from a higher ground than to say, How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people[5]. O my God, it is the leper that thou hast condemned to live alone[6]; have I such a leprosy in my soul that I must die alone; alone without thee? Shall this come to such aleprosy in my body that I must die alone; alone without them that should assist, that should comfort me? But comes not this expostulation too near a murmuring? Must I be concluded with that, that Moses was commanded to come near the Lord alone[7]; that solitariness, and dereliction, and abandoning of others, disposes us best
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