A Marvelous Comfort and Quietness

Thomas Bilney (1495-1531), one of the key participants early on in the White Horse Inn in Cambridge, England (which was a focal point of the onsetting of gospel reformation in England in the fifteenth century), on 1 Timothy 1:15:

I chanced upon this sentence of St. Paul (O most sweet and comfortable sentence to my soul!) in 1 Timothy 1. 'It is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am the chief and principal.'

This one sentence, through God's instruction and inward working . . . did so exhilarate my heart, being before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being almost in despair, that even immediately I seemed unto myself inwardly to feel a marvelous comfort and quietness, insomuch as 'my bruised bones leaped for joy' (Ps 51). After this, the Scripture began to be more pleasant unto me than the honey or the honey-comb.

--Quoted in Kent Hughes, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus: To Guard the Deposit (Preaching the Word; Crossway 2000), 41-42

Bilney was burned at the stake for preaching this gospel on August 19, 1531.