The words were very apt to my case, and made some impression upon my thoughts at the time of reading them, though not so much as they did afterwards; for as for being delivered, the word had no sound, as I may say, to me; the thing was so remote, so impossible in my apprehension of things, that I began to say as the children of Israel did, when they were promised flesh to eat, “Can God spread a table in the wilderness?” So I began to say, Can God himself deliver me from this place? And as it was not for many years that any hope appeared, this prevailed very often upon my thoughts: but, however, the words made a very great impression upon me, and I mused upon them very often. It grew now late, and the tobacco had, as I said, dozed my head so much, that I inclined to sleep; so that I left my lamp burning in the cave, lest I should want any thing in the night, and went to bed; but before I lay down, I did what I never had done in all my life: I kneeled down, and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called upon him in the day of trouble, he would deliver me. After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco, which was so strong and rank of the tobacco, that indeed I could scarce get it down. Immediately upon this I went to bed, and I found presently it flew up into my head violently; but I fell into a sound sleep, and waked no more, till by the sun it must necessarily be near three o’clock in the afternoon the next day; nay, to this hour I am partly of the opinion, that I slept all the next day and night, and till almost three the day after; for otherwise I knew not how I should lose a day out of my reckoning in the days of the week, as it appeared some years after I had done; for if I had lost it by crossing and recrossing the line, I should have lost more than a day; but in my account it was lost, and I never knew which way.
Be that however one way or other; when I awaked, I found myself exceedingly refreshed, and my spirits lively and cheerful; when I got up, I was stronger than I was the day before, and my stomach better; for I was hungry; and, in short, I had no fit the next day, but continued much altered for the better: this was the 29th.
The 30th was my well day of course, and I went abroad with my gun, but did not care to travel too far: I killed a sea-fowl or two, something like a brand goose, and brought them home, but was not very forward to eat them: so I ate some more of the turtle’s eggs, which were very good. This evening I renewed the medicine which I had supposed did me good the day before, viz. the tobacco steeped in rum; only I did not take so much as before, nor did I chew any of the leaf, or hold my head over the smoke; however, I was not so well the next day, which was the 1st of July, as I hoped I should have been; for I had a little spice of the cold fit, but it was not much.
July 2. I renewed the medicine all the three ways, and dozed myself with it at first, and doubled the quantity which I drank.
July 3. I missed the fit for good and all, though I did not recover my full strength for some weeks after. While I was thus gathering strength, my thoughts ran exceedingly upon this scripture, “I will deliver thee;” and the impossibility of my deliverance lay much upon my mind, in bar of my ever expecting it: but as I was discouraging myself with such thoughts, it occurred to my mind, that I pored so much upon my deliverance from the main affliction, that I disregarded the deliverance I had received; and I was, as it were, made to ask myself such questions as these; viz. Have I not been delivered, and wonderfully too, from sickness? from the most distressed condition that could be, and that was so frightful to me? and what notice had I taken of it? had I done my part? God had delivered me; but I had not glorified him: that is to say, I had not owned and been thankful for that as a deliverance; and how could I expect greater deliverance?
This touched my heart very much, and immediately I kneeled down, and gave God thanks aloud, for my recovery from my sickness.
July 4. In the morning I took the Bible; and, beginning at the New Testament, I began seriously to read it, and imposed upon myself to read a while every morning and every night, not tying myself to the number of chapters, but as long as my thoughts should engage me. It was not long after I set seriously to this work, but I found my heart more deeply and sincerely affected with the wickedness of my past life; the impression of my dream revived, and the words, “All these things have not brought thee to repentance,” ran seriously in my thoughts: I was earnestly begging of God to give me repentance, when it happened providentially the very day, that, reading the Scripture, I came to these words, “He is exalted a Prince, and a Saviour, to give repentance, and to give remission.” I threw down the book, and with my heart as well as my hand lifted up to heaven, in a kind of ecstasy of joy, I cried out aloud, “Jesus, thou Son of David, Jesus, thou exalted Prince and Saviour, give me repentance!”
This was the first time that I could say, in the true sense of the words, that I prayed in all my life; for now I prayed with a sense of my condition, and with a true Scripture view of hope, founded on the encouragement of the word of God; and from this time, I may say, I began to have hope that God would hear me.
Now I began to construe the words mentioned above, “Call on me, and I will deliver thee,” in a different sense from what I had ever done before; for then I had no notion of any thing being called deliverance, but my being delivered from the captivity I was in; for though I was indeed at large in the place, yet the island was certainly a prison to me, and that in the worst sense in the world; but now I learnt to take it in another sense. Now I looked back upon my past life with such horror, and my sins appeared so dreadful, that my soul sought nothing of God, but deliverance from the load of guilt that bore down all my comfort. As for my solitary life, it was nothing; I did not so much as pray to be delivered from it, or think of it; it was all of no consideration in comparison of this; and I added this part here, to hint to whoever shall read it, that whenever they come to a true sense of things, they will find deliverance from sin a much greater blessing than deliverance from affliction.
But, leaving this part, I return to my journal. My condition began now to be, though not less miserable as to my way of living, yet much easier to my mind; and my thoughts being directed, by a constant reading the Scripture, and praying to God, to things of a higher nature, I had a great deal of comfort within, which till now I knew nothing of; also as my health and strength returned, I bestirred myself to furnish myself with every thing that I wanted, and make my way of living as regular as I could.