Christians have sometimes their sinking fits, and are as if they were always descending: or as Heman says, 'counted with them that go down into the pit' (Psa. 88:4). Now guilt is not to such a wind and a tempest, as a load and a burden. The devil, and sin, and the curse of the law, and death, are gotten upon the shoulders of this poor man, and are treading of him down, that he may sink into, and be swallowed up of his miry place...Yea, there is nothing more common among the saints of old, than this complaint: 'Let neither the water flood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, neither let the pit shut her mouth upon me' (Psa. 69:14, 15).
...Now for such considereth that underneath them, even at the bottom there lieth a blessing, or that in this deep whereinto they are descending, there lieth a delivering mercy...to catch them, and to save them from sinking for ever, this would be relief unto them, and help them to hope for good...There are of those that have been in the pit, now upon Mount Zion...with the song of the Lamb in their mouths.
-John Bunyan, All Loves Excelling, pp. 15, 18-19.
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