And thus it was with David where he saith,
"I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the loving-kindness of
the Lord in the land of the living." As if he should say, the devil
did so rage, and my heart was so base, that had I judged according
to my own sense and feeling, I had been absolutely distracted; but I
trusted to Christ in the promise, and looked that God would be as good
as his promise, in having mercy upon me, an unworthy sinner; and this
is that which encouraged me, and kept me from fainting. And thus must
thou do when Satan or the law, or thy own conscience, do go about to
dishearten thee, either by the greatness of thy sins, the wickedness
of thy heart, the tediousness of the way, the loss of outward
enjoyments, the hatred that thou wilt procure from the world or the
like; then thou must encourage thyself with the freeness of the
promises, the tender-heartedness of Christ, the merits of His blood,
the freeness of His invitations to come in, the greatness of the sin
of others that have been pardoned, and that the same God, through the
same Christ, holdeth forth the same grace as free as ever.
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