Christian ethics -- Fiction; Christian fiction; Conduct of life -- Fiction
After he had kept his Bed a while, his distemper began to abate, and he
to feel himself better, so he in little time was so finely mended, that
he could walk about the house, and also obtained a very fine stomach
to his food: {146a} and now did his wife and her good friends stand
gaping, to see Mr. Badman fulfill his promise of becoming new towards
God, and loving to his wife: but the contrary only shewed it self. For
so soon as ever he had hopes of mending, and found that his strength
began to renew, his trouble began to goe off his heart, and he grew as
great a stranger to his frights and fears, as if he had never had them.
But verily, I am apt to think, that one reason of his no more
regarding, or remembring of his sick-bed fears, and of being no better
for them, was, some words that the Doctor that supplied him with
Physick said to him when he was mending. For as soon as Mr. Badman
began to mend, the Doctor comes and sits him down by him in his house,
and there fell into discourse with him about the nature of his disease;
and among other things they talked of Badmans trouble, and how he
would cry out, tremble, and express his fears of going to Hell when
his sickness lay pretty hard upon him. To which the Doctor replyed:
{146b} That those fears and Out-cries did arise from the height of
his distemper, for that disease was often attended with lightness of
the head, by reason the sick party could not sleep, and for that the
vapours disturbed the brain: But you see Sir, quoth he, that so soon
as you got sleep and betook your self to rest, you quickly mended, and
your head settled, and so those frenzies left you.
And was it so indeed, thought Mr. Badman; was my troubles, only the
effects of my distemper, and because ill vapours got up into my brain?
Then surely, since my Physician was my Saviour, my Lust again shall be
my God. So he never minded Religion more, but betook him again to the
world, his lusts and wicked companions: And there was an end of Mr.
Badmans Conversion.
Atten. I thought, (as you told me of him) that this would be the result
of the whole; for I discerned by your relating of things, that the
true symptoms of conversion were wanting in him, and that those that
appeared to be any thing like them, were only such as the reprobates
may have.
Wise. You say right, for there wanted in him, when he was most
sensible, a sence of the pollution of his Nature; he only had guilt for
his sinful actions, the which Cain, and Pharaoh, and Saul, and Judas,
those reprobates, have had before him. {147a}
Besides, the great things that he desired, were, to be delivered from
going to Hell, (and who would willingly?) and that his life might be
lengthened in this world. We find not by all that he said or did, that
Jesus Christ the Saviour was desired by him, from a sence of his need
of his Righteousness to cloath him, and of his Spirit to sanctifie him.
{147b}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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