Justification and full assurance

The partial testimony of a Moravian named Michael Linner, as recorded by John Wesley in his journal entry of August 12th, 1738.

“About fourteen years ago, I was more than ever convinced that I was wholly different from what God required me to be. I consulted his word again and again; but it spoke nothing but condemnation; till at last I could not read, nor indeed do any thing else, having no hope and no spirit left in me.

"I had been in this state for several days, when, being musing by myself, these words came strongly into my mind, ‘God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, to the end that all who believe in him should not perish, but have ever lasting life.’ I thought, ‘All? Then I am one. Then He is given for me. But I am a sinner. And he came to save sinners.’

"Immediately my burden dropped off, and my heart was at rest. “But the full assurance of faith I had not yet; nor for the two years I continued in Moravia . . . after some time it pleased our Lord to manifest himself more clearly to my soul, and give me that full sense of acceptance in him which excludes all doubt and fear.

“Indeed the leading of the Spirit is different in different souls. His more usual method, I believe, is, to give, in one and the same moment, the forgiveness of sins, and a full assurance of that forgiveness. Yet in many He works as He did in me: Giving first the remission of sins, and, after some weeks or months or years, the full assurance of it.” ~ Michael Linner