War & Peace Quote by William Gurnall

Gurnall writes like a pastor who has watched too many earnest believers mistake emotional weather for spiritual reality. The first clause lands with bracing certainty: peace with God arrives "as soon as we believe". No probationary period, no internal audit, no requirement that you feel fixed. Then he pivots to the ache: "but not always with ourselves". The line is a diagnostic of Protestant introspection in the seventeenth century, when assurance was both prized and fragile, and a tender conscience could turn faith into an endless self-trial.

The brilliance is the legal metaphor, because it reframes doubt as a problem of delivery, not of legitimacy. "The pardon may be past the prince's hand and seal" suggests an objective act completed in the highest court. The state of grace is not a rumor; it has paperwork. Yet the pardon is not "put into the prisoner's hand": the one who has been forgiven can still sit in the cell, behaving like the sentence stands, because the news has not reached the nervous system. Gurnall targets that gap between theological fact and psychological possession - what modern therapy might call integration - without granting the self the power to veto the prince.

Subtext: stop treating your inner turbulence as evidence against God. Context: a Puritan world that prized rigorous self-examination, sometimes to the point of spiritual paralysis. Gurnall keeps the rigor but blunts the cruelty. He insists the gospel is not merely a verdict; it's a verdict that must be received, carried, and held, even when the hands are shaking.