Part 103

14. By the extremity of this anguish, I was for some time, about the end of ninety-seven, and the beginning of ninety-eight, dreadfully cast down. I was weary of my life. Oft did I use _Job_’s words, _I loath it, I would not live alway_. And yet I was afraid to die. I had no rest; _My sore ran in the day, and in the night time it ceased not_. At night I wished for day, and in the day I wished for night. I said, _My couch shall comfort me; but then darkness was as the shadow of death_. I was often on the brink of despair. _He filled me with bitterness, he made me drunk with wormwood. He removed my soul far from peace: I forgat prosperity. I said my hope and my strength are perished from the Lord._ I wondered that I was not consumed; and though I dreaded destruction from the Almighty, yet I must have justified him if he had destroyed me. Thus I walked about dejected, weary and heavy laden: weary of my disease, and weary of my vain remedies; and utterly uncertain what to do next, or what course to take.