He had many remarkable answers to prayer, especially when he was in trouble; and he had many sensible comforts—short anticipations of the life of faith. He had a Divine conviction of God and of the things of God; and firmly believed in Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world.[233] He was, at least, a _servant_ of God, _and was accepted of Him_;[234] and yet all this while he was beating the air, and was seeking to establish his own righteousness, instead of submitting to the righteousness of Christ which is by faith. He delighted in the law of God, after the inner man; and yet he was carnal, sold under sin. Every day he was constrained to cry out, “What I do I allow not: for what I would I do not; but what I hate that I do. To will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good, I find not.” He was fighting with sin continually, but not always conquering. Before, he had _willingly_ served sin; now it was _unwillingly_; but still he served it. He fell, and rose, and fell again. Sometimes he was overcome, and in heaviness; sometimes he overcame, and was in joy. Once he had foretastes of the terrors of the law; but now he had foretastes of the comforts of the gospel. For above ten years there was in him this struggle between nature and grace; and yet he was still only striving with, not freed from, sin; neither had he the witness of the Spirit with his spirit that he was a child of God; nor indeed could he, for he “sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by the works of the law.”[235] Such is Wesley’s description of himself; and this, when added to what has been previously said concerning his religious career at Oxford, will be a sufficient answer to the first of the three questions proposed. 2. The second is, what were the doctrines which Wesley was taught by Peter Bohler? In the storm which Wesley encountered in his voyage from Georgia, he found himself in fear of death; and was convinced that the cause of it was unbelief; and that the gaining a true living faith was the “one thing needful” for him.