When I looked at the holy law, it condemned me; and when it was opened to me, in its spirituality, I found that it reached to the thoughts and intents of the heart; then I died to all hope of salvation by that law; the Lord searched my heart, and shewed me some of the evils that were in it; I saw the justice of God in my condemnation, and was angry with God that I was ever created; and, as many others have, so I envied the _pretty_ birds and the _brute_ creation, because they had no souls, no day of judgment, nor any angry God to meet. If I read the New Testament, I was just as bad off, as that cut me to the heart; for there I read—“He that believeth not shall be damned; he that believeth not is condemned already;” and, as I had made a profession: the following text was dreadful to my mind—“If we sin wilfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin.” These awful texts were like swords in my heart; and when I reflected that God was immutable, that he could not change, that he is one mind, and I could not turn him by all my prayers, cries, or intreaties; these things, and the power and guilt of sin, I still felt with a deep sense of my own weakness and inability to do any thing that was good. I say this complication of awful convictions fell, at times, very deeply upon my mind. I knew, indeed, that Christ was able to save me, but I had no idea of his willingness: it was not with me now, whether I _would_ be saved or not; but whether Christ _would_ save me? Here was no free-will in the business; I found it was not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, for I did both—but of God, which sheweth mercy. Here, all the wooing and beseeching to close with Christ, which we hear from the pulpit, I found to be folly and madness; as well as the doctrine of universal salvation and redemption; for I could not believe that the Saviour died for me—and yet, amidst all these sensations, I was often encouraged by the Word, and the good conversation of others, especially by such promises as these: “Those that seek me early shall find me;” “Your heart shall live that seek God;” “Seek and ye shall find;” “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” I remember once opening upon a hymn, in Mr. Whitfield’s Collection, and found these two lines— “It was for _sinners_ Jesus died, Then sure I heard he died for me.”