Wesley Corpus

9. All the time I was at Savannah I was thus beating the air. Being ignorant of the righteousness of Christ, which, by a living faith in him, bringeth salvation “ to every one that believeth,” I sought to establish my own righteousness ; and so laboured in the fire all my days. I was now properly “ under the Law ;” I knew that “ the Law” of God was ‘‘ spiritual ; I consented to it, that it was good.” Yea, “I delighted in it, after the inner man.” Yet was I “carnal, sold under sin.” Every day was I 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” indeed “ present with me ; but how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good which I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that J do. I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me :” Even “the law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,” and still * bringing me into captivity to the law of sin.” 10. In this vile, abject state of bondage to sin, I was indeed fighting continually, but not conquering. Before, I had willingly served sin; now it was unwillingly ; but still I served it. I fell, and rose, and fell again. Sometimes I was overcome, and in heaviness: sometimes I overcame, and was in joy. For as in the former state I had some foretastes of the terrors of the Law, so had I in this, of the comforts of bs om nae _ May, 1738.] REV. J. WESLEY’S JOURNAL. 73