3. The first effect of it was an approbation of God’s way of saving sinners by Jesus Christ; as a way of relief in all respects suitable to the needs of a poor, guilty, self-condemned, self-destroyed sinner, who is at length beat from all other reliefs, and hath his mouth entirely stopped before God. In this I rested as a way full of peace and comfort, and providing abundantly for all those ends I desired to have secured. And this approbation discovered itself ever after in all temptations, by keeping up in me a settled persuasion, that _God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son_. And when afterwards I was under temptations, it still kept me firm in an absolute determination utterly to reject all other ways of relief, whether I found present comfort in this or no. This was also my only sanctuary against guilt; _let me be found in him, not having mine own righteousness_. And whenever God gave me a fresh beam of this light, all difficulties vanish’d away; then I rejoiced in Christ Jesus, and nothing was able to disturb me while it lasted; and ever after I was then only pleased, when I found my soul, in some measure, moulded into a compliance with the design of the gospel, emptied of myself, subjected to God, and careful to have him alone exalted.
4. A second effect of this discovery was, my eye began to be single, looking in all things, to the glory of God. I now desired that he alone, (which before I had no real concern for) might be glorified in my life, or by my death. I saw that shame and confusion belonged to me and to him only the whole glory of my salvation. I watched over the most secret ♦actings of pride, labouring to renounce it utterly, looking on it as my grand enemy, on which I was always to have an eye, and counting the power it still had, my greatest affliction. I never found comfort, but when this idol was discernably abased; and when ever this light shone in proportion to its clearness and continuance, the power of this was weakened in my soul, and I sought not myself but Christ Jesus.
♦ “actions” replaced with “actings” per Errata
5. A third effect of this light was with respect to his commandments, which I now saw were _not grievous, but right concerning all things_. I own’d his yoke to be easy, and his burden light. Amidst all temptations I knew the law was holy, just and good; I perceived too, that it was exceeding broad, extending even to the lightest motion of the heart. The duties I was most averse from before were now easy, pleasant, and refreshing. I saw a peculiar beauty in those laws in particular that crossed the sins which had the firmest rooting in my temper. None were so hateful to me; for none did I loathe myself so much; none was I so glad of a victory over. My mind was continually engaged in contrivances for their ruin, which formerly, I still sought to spare. And would God have given me my choice, to have the laws against them blotted out, he knows I should not have chose it, and that I should have thought his law less pleasant and less perfect, had these prohibitions been wanting. I took pleasure in others only so far as there appeared in them any thing of an humble, self-denying conformity to his law, and had a fix’d dislike of the least inconformity thereto, either in myself or others. In a word I saw, that if I could reach holiness I should have pleasure, and peace, and liberty; that all wisdom’s ways, were ways of pleasantness; nor was any thing insupportable to me, but that remaining unsubdued corruption that would not stoop to put its neck under her yoke.
*6. A fourth effect of it was a right sorrow for sin, flowing from a deep sense of my ingratitude, to provoke such a God, who had prevented and still followed me with so much mercy. And this sorrow filled my heart with love to God, and his way, sweetened my soul, and endeared God to it. And the more God manifested his kindness, the more it increased; when he was pacified, I was ashamed and confounded; nor was it a burdensome, but a sweet and pleasant sorrow, as being the exercise of filial gratitude. This sense of my unkindness, when kept within, covered me with blushes; and I was eased, when God allowed me to vent my sense of it, and to pour it, as it were into his bosom. It was likewise a spring of activity in the way of duty. I was glad to be employed in the meanest work, which might shew how deeply sensible I was of my former disobedience. It was not as my late sorrow, pregnant with pride, stiffness and unwillingness to suffer any chastisement; but it humbled, softened the soul, and made it willing to _bear the indignation of the Lord, since I had sinn’d against him_. In a word, I was glad when God gave me my measure of it, and grieved when I found it wanting, and I cried to the Prince exalted for it, as a necessary help to the obeying his whole law.