my bed, I went moping into the field, but, God knows, with as heavy a
heart as mortal man, I think, could bear. Where, for the space of
two hours, I was like a man bereft of life, and as now past all
recovery, and bound over to eternal punishment. And withal, that
scripture did seize upon my soul, 'O profane person, as Esau, who,
for one morsel of meat, sold his birth-right; for ye 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.' These words were to my soul like fetters of
brass, in the continual sound of which I went for several months
together."

The anxious casuistry in which he sought relief, and the alternation
of wistful hope and blank despair, in which for many a dismal day he
was tossed to and fro, none but himself can properly describe. They
are deeply affecting, and to some may prove instructive.

"Then began I, with sad and careful heart, to consider of the nature
and largeness of my sin, and to search into the word of God, if in
any place I could espy a word of promise, or any encouraging sentence
by which I might take relief. Wherefore I began to consider that of
Mark iii., 'All manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven unto
the sons of men, wherewith soever they shall blaspheme:' which place,
methought, at a blush, did contain a large and glorious promise for
the pardon of high offences. But considering the place more fully, I
thought it was rather to be understood as relating more chiefly to
those who had, while in a natural state, committed such things as
there are mentioned; but not to me, who had not only received light
and mercy, but that had, both after and also contrary to that, so
slighted Christ as I had done. I feared, therefore, that this wicked