Me from myself I strive to tear!
“The Spirit of God (says he) deeply wounded me. The arrows of the almighty stuck fast in me, and my very bones trembled because of my sin. I was persuaded in my heart that this commotion was conviction for my sin; but had little conception that the Holy Spirit was the chief agent in the work: for alas! So great was my ignorance that I did not know there was any Holy Ghost for me to receive.”
“While I was thus in the midst of my extremity, I confessed to the priest according to the custom of the church of Rome. He advised me to say many prayers (as he termed counting my beads) but alas! This did not do: and indeed how should it? I was brought into captivity through the power of sin which reigned in my members. And even my multiplied prayers could be little else than an abomination to the Lord, while neither the form, nor the matter of them was according to the will of God. Many of them being little else than vain repetitions, and babblings to physicians of no value, in this respect; which therefore left me under the power of sin and death.”
Indeed how else should it be? While he was yet unthought of; at least unapplied to, who alone could help him; even Jesus, whose name is salvation: and beside which, in heaven or in earth, there is none other, by which a sinner can be saved. He it is that invites, and he only can, and doth, give the weary and the heavy laden, to find rest to their souls, and who at length did “allay his fever of desire, by sprinkling him with his blood.”
Hearing the priest preach one Lord’s day, and declaim vehemently against a variety of gross sins, the discourse, tho’ (as his words are) “mixed with many falsities,” so deeply affected him, that in the anguish of his spirit, he resolved never more to return to house or home, till God should shew him mercy. This precipitate and unadvised resolution was however of short continuance. In fact, the commotion and disordered state of his soul ill admitted of any thing uniformly steady whether right or wrong, either by purpose or in practice: it therefore soon vanished away, and he again sought by various ways to procure some alleviation of his distress.
“I strove (says he) to divert myself in the best manner I could, seeking rest and peace in the miserable comforts of this world. But my conscience was still restless, and a hell opened in my breast. Not knowing what to do, nor which way to turn for rest, I at length attempted to quiet the clamours of my troubled mind, by solemnly resolving how soberly, righteously, and godly I would live the residue of my life. Full of these good purposes, and strengthened as I thought by vows and promises, I hoped all would be well; having all this while no idea of the satisfaction by Christ and the all-sufficiency [♦]of his merits; and therefore, resolving only in my own strength, my resolutions proved as broken cisterns, which could hold no comfort; and as broken reeds, which afforded no strength!”
[♦] duplicate word “of” removed
Struggling on still in the dark, he added fasting to his prayers and resolutions. But all this did not do. He still found himself bound as in affliction and iron. He remained in sore bondage, doing the evil he would not, and not doing the good, which he would have done, (Romans [♦]vii.) His convictions became still sharper and his fear of hell more deeply distressing. Endeavouring therefore by some means or other to procure rest for his soul, he had recourse to his former shifts, and says, “I repeated my resolutions and vows against sin; but especially whenever I fell into any outward wickedness; and above all, the sin that did so easily beset me. Then I was as on the rack, and thro’ extremity of anguish, have frequently struck myself against the ground, tearing the hairs from off my head.”
[♦] “7” replaced with “vii” for consistency
His light began now to encrease with his painful feeling. “About this time (says he) by reading, and the help of the holy Spirit, I began to have a still clearer notion concerning the nature and consequences of sin, and particularly of those which by the church of Rome are termed mortal sins.”