with herself, If I long to die, why do I go to physicians? Whence she
concluded that her longings for death were not well regulated. After
this she often put it to herself, which she should choose, whether to
live or to die, to be sick or to be well; and she found she could not
tell, till at last she found herself disposed to say these words: I am
quite willing to live, and quite willing to die; quite willing to be
sick, and quite willing to be well; and quite willing for any thing that
God will bring upon me! And then, said she, I felt myself perfectly
easy, in a full submission to the will of God. She then lamented much,
that she had been so eager in her longings for death, as it argued want
of such a resignation to God as ought to be. She seemed henceforward to
continue in this resigned frame till death.
After this, her illness increased upon her: and once after she had
before spent the greater part of the night in extreme pain, she waked
out of a little sleep with these words in her heart and mouth; "I am
willing to suffer for Christ's sake, I am willing to spend and be spent
for Christ's sake; I am willing to spend my life, even my very life, for
Christ's sake!" And though she had an extraordinary resignation with
respect to life or death, yet the thoughts of dying were exceeding sweet
to her. At a time when her brother was reading in Job, concerning wor