At this time I wrote to my brother, at Cambridge, to inform him of the distress I had been in, and the dreadful method I had taken to deliver myself from it; assuring him, as I faithfully might, that I had laid aside all such horrid intentions, and was desirous to live as long as it would please the Almighty to permit me.
My sins were now set in array against me, and I began to see and feel that I had lived without God in the world. As I walked to and fro in my chamber, I said within myself, "There never was so abandoned a wretch, so great a sinner." All my worldly sorrows seemed as though they had never been; the terrors which succeeded them seemed so great and so much more afflicting. One moment I thought myself shut out from mercy by one chapter; the next by another. The sword of the Spirit seemed to guard the tree of life from my touch, and to flame against me in every avenue by which I attempted to approach it. I particularly remember, that the parable of the barren fig-tree was to me an inconceivable source of anguish; and I applied it to myself, with a strong persuasion in my mind that, when the Saviour pronounced a curse upon it, he had me in his eye, and pointed that curse directly at me.
I turned over all Archbishop Tillotson's sermons, in hopes to find one upon the subject, and consulted my brother upon the true meaning of it; desirous, if possible, to obtain a different interpretation of the matter than my evil conscience would suffer me to fasten on it. "O Lord, thou didst vex me with all thy storms, all thy billows went over me; thou didst run upon me like a giant in the night season, thou didst scare me with visions in the night season."
In every book I opened, I found something that struck me to the heart. I remember taking up a volume of Beaumont and Fletcher, which lay upon the table in my kinsman's lodgings, and the first sentence which I saw was this: "The justice of the gods is in it." My heart instantly replied, "It is a truth;" and I cannot but observe, that as I found something in every author to condemn me, so it was the first sentence, in general, I pitched upon. Everything preached to me, and everything preached the curse of the law.
I was now strongly tempted to use laudanum, not as a poison, but as an opiate, to compose my spirits; to stupify my awakened and feeling mind, harassed with sleepless nights and days of uninterrupted misery. But God forbad it, who would have nothing to interfere with the quickening work he had begun in me; and neither the want of rest, nor continued agony of mind, could bring me to the use of it: I hated and abhorred the very smell of it.
Having an obscure notion about the efficacy of faith, I resolved upon an experiment to prove whether I had faith or not. For this purpose, I resolved to repeat the Creed: when I came to the second period of it, all traces of the former were struck out of my memory, nor could I recollect one syllable of the matter. While I endeavoured to recover it, and when just upon the point, I perceived a sensation in my brain, like a tremulous vibration in all the fibres of it. By this means I lost the words in the very instant when I thought to have laid hold of them. This threw me into an agony; but, growing a little calmer, I made an attempt for the third time; here again I failed in the same manner as before.
In this condition my brother found me, and the first words I spoke to him were, "Oh! brother, I am lost! think of eternity, and then think what it is to be lost!" I had, indeed, a sense of eternity impressed upon my mind, which seemed almost to amount to a full comprehension of it.
My brother, pierced to the heart with the sight of my misery, tried to comfort me, but all to no purpose. I refused comfort, and my mind appeared to me in such colours, that to administer it to me was only to exasperate me, and to mock my fears.
At length, I remembered my friend Martin Madan, and sent for him. I used to think him an enthusiast, but now seemed convinced that, if there was any balm in Gilead, he must administer it to me. On former occasions, when my spiritual concerns had at any time occurred to me, I thought likewise on the necessity of repentance. I knew that many persons had spoken of shedding tears for sin; but, when I asked myself, whether the time would ever come when I should weep for mine, it seemed to me that a stone might sooner do it.
Not knowing that Christ was exalted to give repentance, I despaired of ever attaining to it. My friend came to me; we sat on the bed-side together, and he began to declare to me the gospel. He spoke of original sin, and the corruption of every man born into the world, whereby every one is a child of wrath. I perceived something like hope dawning in my heart. This doctrine set me more on a level with the rest of mankind, and made my condition appear less desperate.