'It made me greatly ashamed,' says Hopeful, 'of the vileness of my former
life, and confounded me with the sense of mine own ignorance, for there
never came into mine heart before now that showed me so by contrast the
beauty of the Lord Jesus. My own vileness and nakedness made me love a
holy life. Yea, I thought that had I now a thousand gallons of blood in
my body, I could spill it all for the sake of the Lord Jesus.' And if
you, my brother, far on in the way of Salvation, still think sometimes
that, after all, you must be a reprobate because of your filthy rags,
read what David Brainerd wrote with his half-dead hand on the last page
of his seraphic journal: 'How sweet it is to love God and to have a heart
all for God! Yes; but a voice answered me, You are not all for God, you
are not an angel. To which my whole soul replied, I as sincerely desire
to love and glorify God as any angel in heaven. But you are filthy, and
not fit for heaven. When hereupon there instantly appeared above me and
spread over me the blessed robes of Christ's righteousness which I could
not but exult and triumph in.
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