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 om nae _ May, 1738. REV. J. WESLEY'S JOURNAL. 73