So says the murderous monarch, as he rises from his knees. Prior to his ineffectual attempt to supplicate the Throne of Grace, he thus soliloquizes:
"My fault is past. But O what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder?'
That cannot be, since I am still possessed
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardoned and retain the offense?
* * * * * *
"Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?"
("Hamlet," Act. III, Scene III.)
The unpardonable sin involves utter recreancy to divine light and power previously possessed. It is the sin against the Holy Ghost; but one must first receive the Holy Ghost before he is capable of sinning against it. Such a sin can be committed only by men who have been equipped with every qualification for celestial glory.
The Sons of Perdition.—"Thus saith the Lord, concerning all those who know my power, and have been made partakers there of, and suffered themselves, through the power of the devil, to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power—
"They are they who are the sons of perdition, of whom I say that it had been better for them never to have been born,
"For they are vessels of wrath, doomed to suffer the wrath of God, with the devil and his angels in eternity;
"Concerning whom I have said there is no forgiveness in this world nor in the world to come,
"Having denied the Holy Spirit after having received it, and having denied the Only Begotten Son of the Father—having crucified him unto themselves, and put him to an open shame.
"They are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels,
"And the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power;