I have seen as if the Lord would refuse my soul fer ever: I was often as if I had run upon the pikes, and as if the Lord had, thrust, at me to keep me from him as with a flaming sword. Then would I think of Esther, who went to petition the king contrary to the law. (Esther iv. 16.) I thought also of Benhadad's servants, who went with ropes under their heads to their enemies for mercy. (1 Kings xx. 31.) The woman of Canaan also that would not be daunted though called dog by Christ (Matt. xv. 22–38), and the man that went to borrow bread at midnight (Luke ii. 5–8), were also great encouragements unto me.
252. I never saw those heights and depths in grace, and love, and mercy as I saw after this temptation—great sins to draw out great grace; and where guilt is most terrible and fierce, there the mercy of God in Christ, when showed to the soul, appears most high and mighty. When Job had passed through his captivity, he had "twice as much as he had before" (Job xlii. 10). Blessed be God for Jesus Christ our Lord. Many other things I might here make observation of, but I would be brief, and therefore shall at this time omit them; and do pray God that my harms may make others fear to offend, lest they also be made to bear the iron yoke as I did. I had two or three times, at or about my deliverance from this temptation, such strange apprehensions of the grace of God that I could hardly bear up under it: it was so out of measure amazing when I thought it could reach me, that I do think, if that sense of it had abode long upon me, it would have made me incapable for business.
253. Now I shall go forward to give you a relation, of other of the Lord's dealings with me at sundry other seasons, and of the temptations I then did meet withal. I shall begin what I met with when first I did join in fellowship with the people of God in Redford. After I had pronounced to the church that my desire was to walk in the order and ordinances of Christ with them, and was also admitted by them, while I
