out in the bitterness of my soul, I said to my soul, with a grievous
sigh, 'How can God comfort such a wretch as I am?' I had no sooner
said it, but this returned upon me, as an echo doth answer a voice,
'This sin is not unto death.' At which I was as if raised out of the
grave, and cried out again, 'Lord, how couldst thou find out such a
word as this?' for I was filled with admiration at the fitness and at
the unexpectedness of the sentence. The fitness of the word; the
rightness of the timing of it; the power and sweetness and light and
glory that came with it also, were marvellous to me to find. I was
now for the time out of doubt as to that about which I was so much in
doubt before. I seemed now to stand upon the same ground with other
sinners, and to have as good right to the word and prayer as any of
them."

In coming to this conclusion, he had made a great step in advance.
His misery had hitherto been occasioned by a device of the devil,
which keeps many anxious souls from comfort. He regarded his own
case as a special exception to which a gospel, otherwise general, did
not apply; but this snare was now broken, and, though with halting
pace, he was on the way to settled rest and joy. Frequently he would
feel that his transgressions had cut him off from Christ, and left
him "neither foot-hold nor handhold among all the props and stays in
the precious word of life;" but presently he would find some gracious
assurance--he knew not how--sustaining him. At one time he would
appear to himself like a child fallen into a mill-pond, "who thought
it could make some shift to sprawl and scramble in the water," yet,
as it could find nothing to which to cling, must sink at last; but by
and by he would perceive that an unseen power was buoying him up, and
encouraging him to cry from the depths. At another time he would be
so discouraged and daunted, that he scarcely dared to pray, and yet