Page:The Pilgrim's Progress, the Holy War, Grace Abounding Chunk3.djvu/68

68 encouragement to come to God by Christ for mercy, to consider the promise of forgiveness as that which stands with open arms to receive me as well as others. This, therefore, was a great easement to my mind—to wit, that my sin was pardonable, that it was not sin unto death. (1 John v. 16, 17.) None but those that know what my trouble, by their own experience, was, can tell what relief came to my soul by this consideration. It was a release to me from my former storms; I seemed now to stand upon the same ground with other sinners, and to have as good right to the word and prayer as any of them.

189. Now, I say, I was in hopes that my sin was not unpardonable, but that there might be hopes for me to obtain forgiveness. Bat oh, how Satan did now lay about him for to bring me down again! But he could by no means do it, neither this day nor the most part off the next, for this sentence stood like a mill-post at my back. Yet towards the evening of the next day I felt this word begin to leave me, and to withdraw its supportation from me, and so I returned to my old fears again, but with a great deal of grudging and peevishness, for I feared the sorrow of despair; nor could my faith now long retain this word.

190. But the next day at evening, being under many fears, I went to seek the Lord, and as I prayed I cried, and my soul cried to him in these words, with strong cries: O Lord, I beseech thee, show me that thou hast loved me with everlasting love. (Jer. xxxi. 3.) I had no sooner said it but with sweetness this returned upon me, as an echo or sounding again, "I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Now I went to bed in quiet; also when I awaked the next morning it was fresh upon my soul, and I believed it.

191. But yet the tempter left me not, for it could not, for it could not be so little as a hundred times that he that day did labour to break my peace. Oh the combats and conflicts that I