wrapped up in a promise; and if not, then I knew surely that it was more easy for heaven and earth to pass away than for me to have eternal life. So that the ground of all these fears of mine did arise from a steadfast belief I had of the stability of the holy Word of God, and also from my being misinformed of the nature of my sin.
185. But oh, how this would add to my affliction to conceit that I should be guilty of such a sin, for which he did not, die! These thoughts did so confound me, and imprison me, and tie me up from faith, that I knew not what to do. But oh, thought I, that he would come down again! Oh that the work of man's redemption was yet to be done by Christ! How would I pray him and entreat him to count and reckon this sin among the rest for which he died! But this scripture would strike me down as dead: "Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him" (Rom. vi. 9).
186. Thus, by the strange and unusual assaults of the tempter, my soul was, like a broken vessel driven as with the winds, and tossed, sometimes headlong into despair, sometimes upon the covenant of works, and sometimes to wish that the new covenant and the conditions thereof might, so far forth as I thought myself concerned, be turned another way and changed. But in all these I was as those that jostle against the rocks—more broken, scattered, and rent. Oh, "the unthought-of imaginations, frights, fears, and terrors that are; affected by a thorough application of guilt yielding to desperation! This is the man that hath his dwelling among the tombs with the dead, that is always crying out, and cutting himself with stones. (Mark v. 2–5.) But I say, all in vain: desperation will not comfort him, the old covenant will not save him nay,heaven and earth shall pass away before one jot or tittle of the word and law of grace will fail or be removed. This I Saw, this I felt, and under this I groaned. Yet this advantage I got thereby—
