163. I found it a hard work now to pray to God, because despair was swallowing me up; I thought I was as with a tempest driven away from God; for always when I cried to God for mercy, this would come in, ’_Tis too late_, _I am lost_, _God hath let me fall_; _not to my correction_, _but condemnation_: _my sin is unpardonable_; _and I know_, _concerning Esau_, _how that after he had sold his birthright_, _he would have received the blessing_, _but was rejected_. About this time I did light on that dreadful story of that miserable mortal Francis Spira; a book that was to my troubled spirit, as salt, when rubbed into a fresh wound: every sentence in that book, every groan of that man, with all the rest of his actions in his dolours, as his tears, his prayers, his gnashing of teeth, his wringing of hands, his twining and twisting, and languishing, and pining away under that mighty hand of God that was upon him, were as knives and daggers in my soul; especially that sentence of his was frightful to me, _Man knows the beginning of sin_? _but who bounds the issues thereof_? Then would the former sentence, as the conclusion of all, fall like an hot thunderbolt again upon my conscience; _For you know how that afterwards_, _when he would have inherited the blessing_, _he was rejected_; _for he found no place of repentance_, _though he sought it carefully with tears_.
164. Then should I be struck into a very great trembling, insomuch that at sometimes I could, for whole days together, feel my very body, as well as my mind, to shake and totter under the sense of this dreadful judgment of God, that should fall on those that have sinned that most fearful and unpardonable sin. I felt also such a clogging and heat at my stomach, by reason of this my terror, that I was, especially at some times, as if my breast-bone would split asunder; then I thought of that concerning Judas, who by _falling headlong_, _he burst asunder in the midst_, _and all his bowels gushed out_. Acts i. 18.
165. I feared also that this was the mark that the Lord did set on _Cain_, even continual fear and trembling, under the heavy load of guilt that he had charged on him for the blood of his brother _Abel_. Thus did I wind, and twine, and shrink under the burthen that was upon me; which burthen also did so oppress me, that I could neither stand, nor go, nor lie, either at rest or quiet.
166. Yet that saying would sometimes come into my mind, _He hath received gifts for the rebellious_. Psalm lxviii. 18. The _rebellious_, thought I! why surely they are such as once were under subjection to their Prince; even those who after they have sworn subjection to His government, have taken up arms against Him; and this, thought I, is my very condition: I once loved Him, feared Him, served Him; but now I am a rebel; I have sold Him, I have said, _Let Him go_, _if He will_; but yet He has gifts for rebels; and then why not for me?
167. This sometimes I thought on, and should labour to take hold thereof, that some, though small refreshment, might have been conceived by me; but in this also I missed of my desire; I was driven with force beyond it; I was like a man going to execution, even by _that_ place where he would fain creep in and hide himself, but may not.
168. Again, after I had thus considered the sins of the _saints_ in particular, and found _mine_ went beyond them, then I began to think with myself, Set the case I should put _all theirs_ together, and _mine alone_ against them, might I not then find some encouragement? for if _mine_, though bigger than any one, yet should be but equal to all, then there is hopes; for that blood that hath virtue enough in it to wash away all theirs, had virtue enough in it to do away mine, though this one be full as big, if not bigger than all theirs. Here again, I should consider the sin of _David_, of _Solomon_, of _Manasseh_, of _Peter_, and the rest of the great offenders; and should also labour, what I might with fairness, to aggravate and heighten their sins by several circumstances.
169. I should think with myself that _David_ shed blood to cover his adultery, and that by the sword of the children of _Ammon_; a work that could not be done, but by continuance, deliberate contrivance, which was a great aggravation to his sin. But then this would turn upon me: Ah! but these were but sins against the law, from which there was a Jesus sent to save them; but yours is a sin against the Saviour, and who shall save you from that?
170. Then I thought on _Solomon_, and how he sinned in loving strange women, falling away to their idols, in building them temples, in doing this after light, in his old age, after great mercy received: but the same conclusion that cut me off in the former consideration, cut me off as to this; namely, that all those were but sins against the law, for which God had provided a remedy; _but I had sold my Saviour_, and there remained no more sacrifice for sin.