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 sin of mine might be that sin unpardonable, of which he there thus speaketh, ‘But he that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.’ “And now was I both a burden and a terror to myself; nor did I ever so know as now what it was to be weary of my life and yet afraid to die. O how gladly would I have been anybody but myself! anything but a man! and in any condition but my own! for there was nothing did pass more frequently over my mind, than that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression, and to be saved from wrath to come.” He set himself to compare his sin with that of David and Peter, but saw that there were specialties in his guilt which made it far greater. The only case which he could compare to his own was that of Judas.