4. During all this time, besides sins of infirmity, my corruptions did sometimes bear me down to relapses, both into omissions of duties, and commission of known sins. And these being sins against light, love, and all sorts of engagements, lay heavy upon my conscience. I was much perplexed about them, my bones were broken, my spirit wounded exceedingly. 5. At some times, indeed, I was for a while _hardened by the deceitfulness of sin_, and senseless; at other times my heart instantly smote me, and I was immediately after my fall stirred up to the exercise of repentance. But sooner or later God set my sins in order before me, either by some outward or inward affliction (often so remarkably chosen, that the sin was wrote upon the punishment) or by his word, or his holy Spirit in his ordinances, which told me all that I had done. 6. Then was my soul troubled with fear and shame, and a sense of his anger, by which Satan often sought to drive me to despair. But God graciously brake the force of this temptation, sometimes by distant discoveries of forgiveness; sometimes by reminding me of his former kindness, or shewing me the fatal issue of casting away my confidence. *And when the temptation was most violently urged, I thought it no time to dispute, but allowed the worst the tempter could suggest, and then laid my case, in all its aggravations, to the extensive promises of the covenant. “Be it granted, said I, that I am but an hypocrite: that I never obtained pardon: that I am the chief of sinners; that my sins have such aggravations as the sins of no other man ever had;” yet _the blood of_ Christ _cleanseth from all sin_, and he came to save the chief of sinners. *7. When I had got thus far, I got up again as I could, and sought him in all the duties of his appointment. Nor was it long (if I humbly and patiently continued in this way) before I found him, as at the first. He set my sin, in all its aggravations, before me; he led me up to original sin, the source of all: he cut off all excuses, and left me self-convicted, owning that any punishment on this side hell would be mercy. Then he stepped in, and made a gracious discovery of _the fountain opened for sin, and for uncleanness_. He drew my soul to close with, and with trembling to lay stress upon it. Having by this look drawn my eyes to look at him again, while I looked, my soul melted into tears; my heart, before bound up, was loosed; and my lips, before closed, were opened. While he thus answered me, and I could scarce believe the news, _he created peace by the fruit of his lips_, and as it were forced it upon my soul, and _shed abroad his love in my heart_.